Kevyn Adams and Jerry Forton Pre-Draft Presser, 6/21/2023

[dudacek]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

The Hill to Comrie comp really highlights it for me, honestly. We were counting on Comrie, Hill for Vegas was a fallback. A fallback who had played 74 nhl games in the 5 seasons leading up to this one. Comrie had only played 27! Even *THE* most random, favourable comparable we could pull, Hill, had 3x the amount of experience Comrie had coming in. And Hill was an anomaly. Even Hill had a more bankable track record. I do NOT agree there was no difference in the likelihood of success between them  

I can keep going with this, because Adams makes this one really easy. Comrie was bad. Not below average, you’d literally have to put in a concerted effort to roster someone worse, and I PREDICTED he’d struggle, lots did. It’s not even a hindsight thing (which doesn’t apply to GMs anyways).

Adams scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel. 

Other words: F*cked around, found out 

I feel like I'm arguing against myself, but I have to give the counterpoint:

I think you're giving too much credit Hill's relative NHL experience as significant when it really amounts to two seasons as a full-time NHL backup to Comrie's one. Regardless:

Laurent Brossoit had a resume no better than Hill's: 106 pedestrian games as an NHL backup.

And Logan Thompson was an undrafted prospect with 20 NHL and 50 AHL games to his name.

For context, not one of them had ever had an NHL season as good as Comrie had in his last year in Winnipeg.

At the start of the season, Hill wasn't a fallback, he was one 3 questionable goalies Vegas tossed into the deep end with their fingers crossed at least one could swim. I don't see much difference at all with what Adams did last year with Anderson, Comrie and UPL.

At least this year he has Levi's talent to add to his hope chest.

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

The bang for buck thing is exactly it. That’s exactly his calculation. Value. “Am I winning this trade”. There’s this way of thinking, there’s also thinking about the ends justifying the means. At some point *it does not matter* what the Buck is, it doesn’t even matter if the Bang is only one more win, if that win is the difference in getting you to the playoffs. That’s the point. 

Even real GMs are subject to video game mode, if not

This is what I mean about winning being prioritized. Are we trying to win, get that one more win that gets us in, or are we interested in “bang for your buck”.

“Economic, efficient, bang for your buck”

I'm not talking bang for your buck in terms of winning trades, I'm talking what the analytics say about investing your cap space or your resources heavily in "elite" or "proven" goalies rather than Adin HIlls and Devon Levis.

Does the same logic that has stopped GMs from picking goalies high in the draft any more apply: the risk/reward is too variable?

Edited June 22, 2023 by dudacek

[Thorny]

43 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I feel like I'm arguing against myself, but I have to give the counterpoint:

I think you're giving too much credit Hill's relative NHL experience as significant when it really amounts to two seasons as a full-time NHL backup to Comrie's one. Regardless:

Laurent Brossoit had a resume no better than Hill's: 106 pedestrian games as an NHL backup.

And Logan Thompson was an undrafted prospect with 20 NHL and 50 AHL games to his name.

For context, not one of them had ever had an NHL season as good as Comrie had in his last year in Winnipeg.

At the start of the season, Hill wasn't a fallback, he was one 3 questionable goalies Vegas tossed into the deep end with their fingers crossed at least one could swim. I don't see much difference at all with what Adams did last year with Anderson, Comrie and UPL.

At least this year he has Levi's talent to add to his hope chest.

I'm not talking bang for your buck in terms of winning trades, I'm talking what the analytics say about investing your cap space or your resources heavily in "elite" or "proven" goalies rather than Adin HIlls and Devon Levis.

Does the same logic that has stopped GMs from picking goalies high in the draft any more apply: the risk/reward is too variable?

One difference would be: it worked for Vegas and didn’t for Buffalo 

Vegas rostered the guy who did what Hill did. If you can’t identify the guy who becomes Hill, you need to go with a more proven option to make a wider landing ground for your attempt 

Just because our 3 goalie unit from the perspective of the beginning of last season arguably looked similar to theirs doesn’t hold near as much weight as what *actually happened* and the performance they got.

So they can try to replicate an anomaly (Hill) again by doubling down on your first guess in Comrie and assuming it was the rest of the team, upgrade with 1 D and call it a day with a rookie added for support in net, or you can appreciate the fact that counting on a Hill to emerge from a random collection of 3 is chasing a very unlikely result when you can’t afford to miss

there isn’t really a scenario I see where there isn’t value in at least improving to an average goalie to 1B for us instead of Comrie / UPL, I don’t buy the idea that your options are pay for a vezina guy or put together a team of crapshoots. Just because Vegas succeeded in that way doesn’t mean that’s the standard going forward. The running back comparison doesn’t jive for me, it’s flawed.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Thorny

[Thorny]

I don’t really think the message of Hill winning a Cup is “don’t pay to acquire a more sure-thing cause these guys can come out of nowhere” as much as it’s “don’t pay big $ to your Adin Hills because that sort of performance brilliance rarely remains for the long term when it arrives so randomly”

Edited June 22, 2023 by Thorny

[Georgia Blizzard]

18 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Why can’t they find a way to get better audio capture of the reporters questions?

x100 !!

There isn't one professional sports league that's figured out what is obvious to every fan, "We can't hear the questions reporters are asking !!"

Edited June 22, 2023 by Georgia Blizzard

[Pimlach]

20 hours ago, Buffalonill said:

I'm more thinking like Skinner,Tuch etc.

Tage will likely hit 100 

 Skinner I'm more worried about  He always has a bad year after a good years

Look at his career stats.  He is a consistent 30+ goal scorer when healthy and playing a full season. 

[Night Train]

21 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

I bet him that Buffalo would finish higher than Bottom 5. It was for $100 to a charity in Buffalo. I am not aware of Buffalonill paying 

I'll post the address for  Drama Queens of Mercy retirement community. 

[Drag0nDan]

20 hours ago, pi2000 said:

Well I don't have any specific reason to believe the young players won't continue to improve.   

With NHL average goaltending they easily make the playoffs last season. 

It's more than concerning that KA believes they're set with Comrie, UPL and Levi.

I seriously doubt he is.  Levi will be with the club and my guess is you want to bring him along... not slowly but not the everyday starter either.  Somewhere in the 30-40 start range maybe?  I don't know that i want to see Comrie or UPL make the rest of them, and i don't think you can look at their 22 numbers and say that you're comfortable with them either.

You say it in a press conference because... you have to.  

[nfreeman]

13 hours ago, Thorny said:

The bang for buck thing is exactly it. That’s exactly his calculation. Value. “Am I winning this trade”. There’s this way of thinking, there’s also thinking about the ends justifying the means. At some point *it does not matter* what the Buck is, it doesn’t even matter if the Bang is only one more win, if that win is the difference in getting you to the playoffs. That’s the point. 

Even real GMs are subject to video game mode, if not

This is what I mean about winning being prioritized. Are we trying to win, get that one more win that gets us in, or are we interested in “bang for your buck”.

“Economic, efficient, bang for your buck”

Bang for buck/winning trade are a bit of a straw man here, IMHO.

I don't think KA feels that it's critical to win a trade so he can win the trade.  I think KA believes that the best interests of the franchise are served by getting good value out of the franchise's assets.  E.g. I think that KA believes (correctly IMHO) that trading #13 for one year of Helle is simply not in the franchise's best interests.

I think reasonable minds can disagree about that conclusion, but I'm quite sure that the principle underlying the decision isn't "I need to win every trade" -- it's "does this proposed trade benefit this franchise?"

[Pimlach]

On 6/22/2023 at 10:27 AM, nfreeman said:

Bang for buck/winning trade are a bit of a straw man here, IMHO.

I don't think KA feels that it's critical to win a trade so he can win the trade.  I think KA believes that the best interests of the franchise are served by getting good value out of the franchise's assets.  E.g. I think that KA believes (correctly IMHO) that trading #13 for one year of Helle is simply not in the franchise's best interests.

I think reasonable minds can disagree about that conclusion, but I'm quite sure that the principle underlying the decision isn't "I need to win every trade" -- it's "does this proposed trade benefit this franchise?"

He looks at benefit and term.  He favors decisions that benefit for the long term.  That makes sense to me. 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Pimlach

[steveoath]

Re: VGK goaltenders. If you switched Anderson, Comrie, UPL with Vegas' trio I would imagine the result would be the same. Vegas has good D, and a good defensive structure under Cassidy.

[Thorny]

7 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Bang for buck/winning trade are a bit of a straw man here, IMHO.

I don't think KA feels that it's critical to win a trade so he can win the trade.  I think KA believes that the best interests of the franchise are served by getting good value out of the franchise's assets.  E.g. I think that KA believes (correctly IMHO) that trading #13 for one year of Helle is simply not in the franchise's best interests.

I think reasonable minds can disagree about that conclusion, but I'm quite sure that the principle underlying the decision isn't "I need to win every trade" -- it's "does this proposed trade benefit this franchise?"

I don’t see how it’s a straw man at all

regardless, I think we may be saying the same thing. I’m not saying he wants to win deals just to win deals, I’m saying he may believe in a philosophy where the net result of a trade isn’t the aim so much as exactly what you said, the deal meeting the individual value evaluation of the assets in question 

[Thorny]

Ie one person could feel paying a 1st for Hellebuyck in a scenario where the WAR of that trade is say, like, 6 standings points, isn’t a good value turn around on a first round pick, and I understand that. But another could say I’m happier with the 6 points and making the playoffs, than I would be with the first round pick, and missing. Even though one would say a first SHOULD get you more value than that. There’s no guarantee either way of course, but in the hypothetical scenario, paying that first is looking for an ends justify the means type outcome

in my estimation we have such a significant asset pool that I’d be moving on to prioritizing results over meeting my desired value in every deal  

Edited June 22, 2023 by Thorny

[Marvin]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

 

in my estimation we have such a significant asset pool that I’d be moving on to prioritizing results over meeting my desired value in every deal  

I agree with this.  I also think that GMKA looks at his Cup ring and the sobering mediocrity of the last few Cup-winning goaltenders and thinks that luck is the only thing that matters in goal in the playoffs.

[Thorny]

16 minutes ago, Marvin said:

I agree with this.  I also think that GMKA looks at his Cup ring and the sobering mediocrity of the last few Cup-winning goaltenders and thinks that luck is the only thing that matters in goal in the playoffs.

The reality is that Levi and some guy is likely to be good enough in net one day to win a Cup provided everything else is looking good. It might even be good enough to be a strength along with the other aspects of the roster. The more interesting divergence point for me is specifically the looming season. I’m just a lot more interested in the value being really good next season specifically would provide, that is to say I think I have a higher priority placed on that than KA. There’s a recent quote from him where he says it’s about building sustained success, whereas I’m very ready to just start with some success, period, in getting this show on the road, and worry about sustaining it once we actually achieve it. I can’t really explain it beyond that, I’m just ready

Edited June 23, 2023 by Thorny

[Night Train]

3 hours ago, steveoath said:

Re: VGK goaltenders. If you switched Anderson, Comrie, UPL with Vegas' trio I would imagine the result would be the same. Vegas has good D, and a good defensive structure under Cassidy.

Beat me to it. The team in front of him. He did play well and will now be overpaid as  FA. I think Vegas could have made Subban look good this spring.

[Zamboni]

3 hours ago, steveoath said:

Re: VGK goaltenders. If you switched Anderson, Comrie, UPL with Vegas' trio I would imagine the result would be the same. Vegas has good D, and a good defensive structure under Cassidy.

Yep. I like to call that “The Osgood effect”.

Average to slightly above average goaltender on a deep and solid team with good coaching can make them look like a very good to elite goaltender.

[Pimlach]

23 hours ago, steveoath said:

Re: VGK goaltenders. If you switched Anderson, Comrie, UPL with Vegas' trio I would imagine the result would be the same. Vegas has good D, and a good defensive structure under Cassidy.

You are saying you need at least average or slightly above average goaltending if you have great a great defensive team - that is not Comrie, UPL and Anderson.  They aren't going to keep you in it.  Anderson cannot play enough games and UPL/Comrie could get leaky and put you way behind early, forcing you out of your defensive game.  

[Buffalonill]

 

Not happy  I mean no one is getting fired what a joke..

  

forwards suck at defense the pk is horrible and the tire fire defense 

 What could go wrong next year

Edited June 27, 2023 by Buffalonill

[Randall Flagg]

I'm not going to be a doomer about this coming year right now, but if it does come to pass that our team defense, PK, and PP look like dogshit, it will look really bad that we kept everything the same which forced out coaches we have been developing seemingly successfully 

[kas23]

1 hour ago, Buffalonill said:

 

Not happy  I mean no one is getting fired what a joke..

  

forwards suck at defense the pk is horrible and the tire fire defense 

 What could go wrong next year

I actually think our defense was a bright spot last season. Compare Krueger Dahlin to Donnie Dahlin. Knowing that young defensemen can be lead astray, Muel has been progressing well and Power was a Calder finalist. The issue with our D was a lack of talent/depth outside these 3. That’s on KA. 

[freester]

1 hour ago, Buffalonill said:

 

Not happy  I mean no one is getting fired what a joke..

  

forwards suck at defense the pk is horrible and the tire fire defense 

 What could go wrong next year

You are quite the optimist. 

[Carmel Corn]

I wouldn't have been sad if ALL of our assistant coaches were let go, but I guess the org is preaching loyalty as a theme. 

[Buffalonill]

12 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I'm not going to be a doomer about this coming year right now, but if it does come to pass that our team defense, PK, and PP look like dogshit, it will look really bad that we kept everything the same which forced out coaches we have been developing seemingly successfully 

Luke I said it's too( buddy-buddy in this organization) I understand it's about a good culture but you have take make cut throat  Decisions to be successful. 

I'm ready 

 

2 minutes ago, freester said:

You are quite the optimist. 

 

Edited June 27, 2023 by Buffalonill