I think he understands the needs to the team pretty well.
He's won trades and lost trades and some are washes.
Drafting has been decent...but not outstanding. I keep getting the feelings he's trying to find the next Suter and Weber duo...and he might. But in my honest opinion, taking Pouliot with the #8 was a mistake. This teams great need going into the draft was a high end forward. Taking another d-prospect with Forsberg and Grigs on the table, was a mistake IMHO and I'm betting in a couple years we will come to regret it.
Not a chance we could trade Pouliot for a high end forward prospect...and with the log jam we have, I don't see Pouliot making a huge splash. Getting Dumoulin in that trade made Pouliot a mistake. Despres, Morrow, Harrington, Dumoulin, Strait, Bortz, Sneep...then looking at the forwards...it was not needed. Forsberg would have filled a hole quite nicely possibily immediately or certainly in the future. Same with Grigs...though I liked Forsberg better. We might end up regretting that one...I would certainly feel better if we had him given our situation right now.
Steve Yzerman, who has two top 6 wingers in or close to their mid 30's selected Slater Koekkoek (a defenseman TSN compared to Paul Martin) at #10 over Forsberg.
We didn't need Forsberg, he could be a great NHL player, but that doesn't mean we will regret not taking him. Ray Shero and his staff liked Pouliot, they watched him play all year in Portland, they didn't think he would be available at #22 so they took him when they could.
And when we picked at #22, Maata dropped to us, and we couldn't pass him to get a forward like Gaunce or Samuelsson, he was projected to be a top 10 pick. Ray Shero said "you can never have too much D"
Just let Shero do his job, he knows what he's doing, if they had doubts about Pouliot they wouldn't have taken him with that 8th pick.
I think he understands the needs to the team pretty well.
He's won trades and lost trades and some are washes.
Drafting has been decent...but not outstanding. I keep getting the feelings he's trying to find the next Suter and Weber duo...and he might. But in my honest opinion, taking Pouliot with the #8 was a mistake. This teams great need going into the draft was a high end forward. Taking another d-prospect with Forsberg and Grigs on the table, was a mistake IMHO and I'm betting in a couple years we will come to regret it.
Not a chance we could trade Pouliot for a high end forward prospect...and with the log jam we have, I don't see Pouliot making a huge splash. Getting Dumoulin in that trade made Pouliot a mistake. Despres, Morrow, Harrington, Dumoulin, Strait, Bortz, Sneep...then looking at the forwards...it was not needed. Forsberg would have filled a hole quite nicely possibily immediately or certainly in the future. Same with Grigs...though I liked Forsberg better. We might end up regretting that one...I would certainly feel better if we had him given our situation right now.
I still believe he can work magic though
I don't think we would need to trade Pouliot or Maatta necessarily. We could trade one of the guys who is in the NHL ahead of them because we have guys like Pouliot and Maatta ready to replace them. Players need NHL experience to get a Goligoski type return. So not only should we have a long stream of cheap defensemen, we could potentially trade them as they gain value and we still have guys available to replace them.
Thing is (and I wanted him to take a forward as much as the next person), if (some of) these propsects pan out and the system keeps turning out Letangs, there is nothing to complain about. Best case senario, the offense should revolve around Sid and Geno for the next decade anyway. We still need to find legit elite talent on D, while up front Neals, Malones and Talbots are probably cutting it, if worst comes to worst.
Ray is great. The way he spends money allowed the penguins to keep Crosby, Letang, Fleury, Malkin together. I much rather have that than signing the years biggest UFA. How is that working for teams like NYR? I would be horrified if the penguins tied up Parise and Suter until their early 40s.
"Why draft Forsberg when we can take a d-man and trade him for Forsberg in 5 years?"
Seems to be Shero's drafting mentality.
Not saying whether that's a good thing or bad thing, but it's worked pretty well so far.
Whitney for Kunitz
Gogo for Neal
I would venture to say you're correct. But its like saying I'll buy bandaids for the cut I'll have later! I'll buy a fire extinguisher now for when I burn down the kitchen! I'll get full coverage insurance before I go out and drink and drive!
Buying a solution for later problem...seems risky.
We are told that we have some great defensive prospects, but after the disappointments of Espisito, Caputi, Chris Bourque, Tangradi, etc I wont be convinced until these guys are in the NHL playing. It seems like our last true blue chip prospect to amount to anything was Letang, and hes played in over 350 games. Its been a LONG TIME. But that isnt all Shero's fault.
Bourque was not our draft pick. He was a waiver pick up (just like Adams), who considering how well he did in the AHL, who would've guessed he couldn't score a goal when Crosby basically put it on his stick with no damn goalie.
Also, Esposito & Caputi were both used in trades and since then neither one has really amounted to much of anything even away from our system.
As for the overall question, a lot of this is hindsight is 20/20. Like someone else noted when Malone first signed in TB I remember quite a few people laughing at how dumb TB was cause it was a supposedly ridiculous contract at the time. Now, people are pining for the guy when who knows if we ever really had a chance at resigning him anyway when he went to play for the team his father was working for. When we signed Michalek & Martin people, even "experts" thought those were good pick ups.
As for the drafts, power forwards & D take time. Shero has used these kids as trade baits before and could again, so it is too soon to tell how those will work out themselves.
Also, he's not the only GM who picked up a good core at the door.
Overall, I'd say like some others good-great, but not a God. When I hear a team has traded their captain and signed a goalie for 10 yrs with a NMC, I don't have to worry it was Shero, which makes me happy.
His Whitney for Kunitz (and Tangradi) and especially the Gogo for Neal and Niskanen trades definitely make me believe he is a good GM. After so many years of being molested in trades (for mostly financial reasons, granted) it sure is nice to win some trades and even hit a home run.
I won't hold NOT signing a free agent against a GM since it's completely up to the player and his agent. Not everyone wants to sign in Pittsburgh believe it or not, stop expecting that to be the case. Lou missed out on Parise (his own player that he knew) and Holland missed out on Suter and those are 2 of the best GMs in the league and have been for a long time.
I agree with TtEoT though that the Michalek trade was puzzling to say the least.
75+ upside for Forsberg? sounds highly optimistic. If Pens thought Pouliot was BPA then I don't see a problem with picking him. Offensive dmen are the most valuable commodity in the NHL (apart from true #1 centres), if Pouliot has upside of top 4 dmen while being a great PPQB then that's a pretty good pick IMO.
Like I said, it's not my projection but regardless he was the highest ranked player on the board and is exactly what the Pens need (right handed winger). I don't think that Fors was even on the Pens list TBH. I think that they had a boner for DP and were worried that he wouldn't be around at 22, as he was projected to go 15-20th, so they reached at 8 to get him. Reaching for a player that is in the same mold as 2-4 other players in your system when there's a much higher ranked player who's exactly what your team needs on the board is just not a good pick.
That's a whole bunch of "ifs" for the the DP pick to work out. He's going to have to jump over the 6+ other D prospects to get PT and have any trade value. You don't get James Neal or Chris Kunitz for a prospect, you get them for a Dman who has at least a few NHL seasons under their belt.
Fors, on the other hand, would only have to compete with BB for a spot next season and could be the winger on a ELC that the Pens need.
I would venture to say you're correct. But its like saying I'll buy bandaids for the cut I'll have later! I'll buy a fire extinguisher now for when I burn down the kitchen! I'll get full coverage insurance before I go out and drink and drive!
Buying a solution for later problem...seems risky.
Just because you have "top 6 upside" when you're drafted doesn't mean you're gonna be a top 6 player. Gilbert Brule and Rob Schremp had top 6 upside when they were drafted, so they must be studs now right?
As for the players mentioned, I'm excited about Blueger and Marcantuoni as they have good potential but they're years away.
Hanowski, Zlobin, and Sundqvist weren't mentioned in Dobber's Prospect report and Agostino is the 183rd ranked forward with 55% certainty of making the NHL and "Expected arrival – A long wait – 2015-16 at best".
Overall I like Ray. He's made some great trades and overall he drafts good prospects. Sure, I think his obsession with d-men is borderline creepy but I can live with it, since at the very least, the players he picks are solid prospects. My biggest complaint with him was this past draft when he passed on Grigs, Forsberg and Teravainen for Pouliot, but we'll see how that turns out in the long run. And I don't even have an issue with Pouliot as a player. I'm just worried that we aren't going to get full value for some of these guys when the time comes to trade them, simply because they won't be able to prove themselves NHL because of the ridiculous amount of depth we have, but again, we'll see.
Also, this isn't bashing him in the least but I wish he would have taken flyers on Kabanov, Pulkkinen and Frk as well. But they were deemed very high risk at the time, so I'm not going to hold it against him. Just my personal preference. If we aren't going to take wingers in the first round, why not swing for the fences later on?
That said, guys like Marcantuoni, Uher, Zlobin and some of the college forwards we drafted have me hopeful including Bennett, although I was dissapointed in his lack of physicality his freshman year, I've heard that has changed drastically. So consider me back on the Beau bandwagon. I'm becoming more optimistic that there's a gem or two in there somewhere.
Is the drafting on Ray or his scouts though? While Ray obviously has the final say on draft picks, I imagine most of his opinion is formed based on what the scouts tell him. If the scouts are telling him Pouliot, what do you expect Ray to do? Take Forsberg just because ISS has him ranked higher?
But on to my opinion of Ray. I think his biggest pro by far is his ability to execute good trades. The Neal trade, the Kunitz trade, the Staal trade, the Hossa trade, all of those were excellent value trades for the club.
As far his free agent signings...mixed bag there. Martin and Michalek were disappointments, Satan was a disappointment. Sykora did well, Fedotenko was alright, a lot of the depth guys he brought in did well (Rutuu, Rupp, etc).
His biggest failure as a GM has by far been his inability to find a winger for Sidney Crosby. I think just about any other GM in his place would have traded whatever it took to get Sid his winger by now, even if it meant overpayment or created a weakness in another area. To be fair to Ray, he did acquire Hossa, but Hossa left and Ray has been unable to fill that void since then. Kunitz is not the answer. He's a great third wheel but Sid needs a skill guy and Ray's been unable to find him one since Hossa.
So where does that leave Ray in my eyes? I'd say he's overall done a pretty good job. He has some weaknesses, and I'm not sure I'd call him a great gm, but he's at least a solid one if not an above average one even. This off-season was his biggest yet in terms of significant change to the team and we'll see where that leaves us come the fall. If the team doesn't start succeeding again in the playoffs soon, that's going to be very hard to take as a fan and I imagine for the ownership too.
The Pens had Pouliot ranked higher than Forsberg. I have no idea why some of you can't get that through your heads. Only time will tell if you Forsberg fans are right or if Shero and his scouts are right. Shero has watched a hell of a lot more of these kids than any of you though. He makes much more educated guesses/projections than any of us.
The Pens had Pouliot ranked higher than Forsberg. I have no idea why some of you can't get that through your heads. Only time will tell if you Forsberg fans are right or if Shero and his scouts are right. Shero has watched a hell of a lot more of these kids than any of you though. He makes much more educated guesses/projections than any of us.
Honestly the only thing I find puzzling about it is they possibly could have gotten Pouliot with their 22nd overall pick, or at least a lower pick, meaning they could have traded down with that 8th pick for more draft picks or assets.
But maybe they were afraid they'd miss out on Pouliot and thought that some other team also had him ranked highly. Iirrc ISS/CS had Pouliot in the 12-20 range.
It's not a big deal but a possible minor mistake by Shero not to recognize that.
The Pens had Pouliot ranked higher than Forsberg. I have no idea why some of you can't get that through your heads. Only time will tell if you Forsberg fans are right or if Shero and his scouts are right. Shero has watched a hell of a lot more of these kids than any of you though. He makes much more educated guesses/projections than any of us.
Well, that's obvious. I don't think anyone is disputing that. Some people simply don't think another d-man was needed at that point, especially when there were blue chip forward prospects still on the board. I don't see why people get so bent out of shape when others bring this up. We're just discussing our opinions on the draft. Nobody (well at least most people) is claiming they know more than Ray or his scouts. We'll find out in a few years who's right and who's wrong and hopefully nobody takes it too seriously. Playing GM and telling other people what you would have done is all part of the fun of being a fan.
Well, that's obvious. I don't think anyone is disputing that. Some people simply don't think another d-man was needed at that point, especially when there were blue chip forward prospects still on the board. I don't see why people get so bent out of shape when others bring this up. We're just discussing our opinions on the draft. Nobody (well at least most people) is claiming they know more than Ray or his scouts. We'll find out in a few years who's right and who's wrong and hopefully nobody takes it too seriously. Playing GM and telling other people what you would have done is all part of the fun of being a fan.
It's objectively wrong to draft by need rather than best player available though. It doesn't matter that the Pens already had a glut of d prospects, if Pouliot was who they thought was the best player on the board, that's who they should have taken.
You take who you think is the best player. Who knows what our needs will be in five years by the time the pick is developed?
Honestly the only thing I find puzzling about it is they possibly could have gotten Pouliot with their 22nd overall pick, or at least a lower pick, meaning they could have traded down with that 8th pick for more draft picks or assets.
But maybe they were afraid they'd miss out on Pouliot and thought that some other team also had him ranked highly. Iirrc ISS/CS had Pouliot in the 12-20 range.
It's not a big deal but a possible minor mistake by Shero not to recognize that.
Pretty much. I don't think it's complicated. He was the BPA according to the Pens. Maybe they are crazy. Maybe the very next team would have picked Pouliot too. Nobody knows. Where he was projected to go by scouting services means nothing to these teams. I've seen scouting services rank guys in the 1st round and they go late in the draft.
I think we have a very good GM. Granted, he came into an awesome situation, but the business side of things gets neglected in this thread, and the Pens are very healthy indeed, with strong earnings, endorsements, a great new rink and associated commercial deals, a strong media platform, a comparatively great web site and strong community outreach. A GM is also evaluated on such parameters.
There are very few things I don't like, but pressed for a few I'd say that we haven't developed a single top6 forward beyond Sid and Malkin - who were that from day one. There has been no Moulson or Purcell pickups, and outside of Dupuis who was an accidental succes (we wanted another NHL body in that trade, and jeg fit the bill for Atlanta), not a single minor acquisition has exceeded modest expectations offensivelyo.
As for the drafting, I don't think Shero has gotten BPA in any first or second round pick, with the possible exception of Despres/Morrow. We'll see.
I very much dislike that the biggest flaws on the roster have been poorly addressed two seasons running (and as one who always said the Martin/Michalek duo was not going to work, I have license to say that).
I hated the contract he gave Fleury then - far too long having shown far too little consistency - and I hate it more now that we have not developed anything resembling an alternative.
All that said - no matter the team, fans will have grievances about their GM. We have less reasons to than most. But there's no reason to treat Shero with the deference so many here do. He will make mistakes and thats the consequence of making decisions. I think the 'In Shero we trust' line, on EVERYTHING, annoys me more than his arguably faulty decisions though.
"Do you think Shero is an idiot? He wouldn't give away one of our best tradeable assets for nothing without knowing he would land Parise or Suter".
Its the religious faith I cant deal with. But as I don't know that I'd prefer anyone to him - it is real hard to not think one of the best around.
