Gainey was sure lucky...

AB Habman · Guru

Gainey was sure lucky...

JohnM · Guru

It's not luck my friend, it's genious. Same magic he used to get rid of Ribs.

barry33 · Guru

JohnM wrote:

It's not luck my friend, it's genious. Same magic he used to get rid of Ribs.

Yep..just call him Merlin. Like I said, I fully expect to see him walking on water anytime. There is nothing "genius" about paying underperforming players way too much money (ie Ribs and Theo) and then being lucky enough to find someone dumb enough to take them off his hands. He has been very lucky in many aspects. Huet saved his a$$ on the stupid Bonk move (in that case LA was more than happy to dump Bonk and his huge salary, Huet was a throw in). Colorado saved his a$$ by taking Theo off his hands (this after signing him to big bucks, playing the guy game in and game out and costing the coach his job, PRAYING he would come out of it and then finding out his fellow GM in Colorado had been on a 3 week drunk and said "yepp..*hiccup*..I'll take him") . Before we annoint BG as a genius, let us all please look at all the bonehead moves he has made.

JohnM · Guru

Seems to me that since as you say he has been getting so lucky he must be using some skills as well. The other GM's don't drink and make deals Barry, BG is just able to use his brain and make the moves necessary to make the team better. If it was once, you could say, luck. It's happened over and over....

wright · Veteran Member

barry33 wrote:

JohnM wrote:

It's not luck my friend, it's genious. Same magic he used to get rid of Ribs.

Yep..just call him Merlin. Like I said, I fully expect to see him walking on water anytime. There is nothing "genius" about paying underperforming players way too much money (ie Ribs and Theo) and then being lucky enough to find someone dumb enough to take them off his hands. He has been very lucky in many aspects. Huet saved his a$$ on the stupid Bonk move (in that case LA was more than happy to dump Bonk and his huge salary, Huet was a throw in). Colorado saved his a$$ by taking Theo off his hands (this after signing him to big bucks, playing the guy game in and game out and costing the coach his job, PRAYING he would come out of it and then finding out his fellow GM in Colorado had been on a 3 week drunk and said "yepp..*hiccup*..I'll take him") . Before we annoint BG as a genius, let us all please look at all the bonehead moves he has made.

Managing the salary cap seems to be one of the most difficult aspects of a gm's job these days. Gainey has made some peculiar decisions in relation to the cap. A lot of his signings have been on the high side, Kovalev,Bouillion,Theodore, to name a few. Acquiring Bonk, no better than a third line center with a long term annual salary at 2.5 million, essentially only compteting against himself to sign Riberio for 1.9 million were somewhat questionable in terms of money management. Having said that, even the best in the business like Lamerillo have made some horrendous financial decisions (signing broken down Mogiliny and Malakov to a combined 7 million annually). The mark of a good gm is to efficently find away out of those self created problems, with as little pain as possible. To his credit, whether it was luck, or good strategy Gainey and Lamerillo were able to do that.

Hopefully Gainey has got a better handle on the cap, because he faces decisions on ufa's Markov,Rivet and Souray, as well as trying to find the financial leverage to address the teams weaknesses down the middle and on defence this year.

barry33 · Guru

JohnM wrote:

Seems to me that since as you say he has been getting so lucky he must be using some skills as well. The other GM's don't drink and make deals Barry, BG is just able to use his brain and make the moves necessary to make the team better. If it was once, you could say, luck. It's happened over and over....

Johnny- no question. Like I said in Lou Lam's case, he made some messes and managed to work his way out of them. Now you can look at it (and Gainey) in three different lights.

If they were that smart they would not have gotten themselves into the mess to begin with

They were pretty smart to get out of the mess they made.

They were very lucky to find someone or something to get them out of the mess they made

Personally I think it is a bit of all 3. But a genius would not have gotten themselves in the mess to begin with.

macneil · Guru

barry33 wrote:

JohnM wrote:

It's not luck my friend, it's genious. Same magic he used to get rid of Ribs.

Yep..just call him Merlin. Like I said, I fully expect to see him walking on water anytime. There is nothing "genius" about paying underperforming players way too much money (ie Ribs and Theo) and then being lucky enough to find someone dumb enough to take them off his hands. He has been very lucky in many aspects. Huet saved his a$$ on the stupid Bonk move (in that case LA was more than happy to dump Bonk and his huge salary, Huet was a throw in). Colorado saved his a$$ by taking Theo off his hands (this after signing him to big bucks, playing the guy game in and game out and costing the coach his job, PRAYING he would come out of it and then finding out his fellow GM in Colorado had been on a 3 week drunk and said "yepp..*hiccup*..I'll take him") . Before we annoint BG as a genius, let us all please look at all the bonehead moves he has made.

ill agree with you barry that gainey overpays at times , as for theo he was paid the going rate for star goalies , noone could foresee the collapse he had , bonk was being paid on a pre lockout contract and was worth it then , he was producing 20ish goals per season. he overpaid for kovy, ribs, boulion ,and someothers .

plouf · Guru

I definitely agree that Gainey's no genius. He's made a lot of strange decisions that he's managed to sneak his way out of. But he's also been smart with the development plan (although I will probably always complain about Price), and efficiently ditched most of the dead wood he inherited.

He's more like he was as a player.

Solid, crafty, patient, gets there in the end. But doesn't look that great doing it. Skating: average, missed the net most of the time when he shot, but still somehow ended up one of the better players on the ice.

-- Edited by plouf at 15:37, 2006-10-17

AB Habman · Guru

The timing of dumping Theo was also lucky. When he should be peaking, he's going down hill. Aves probably thought they had another Roy type deal but not even close. Theo couldn't clean Roy's Cups at this point. I'm very glad Theo is no longer a Hab especially at that salery.