Quoting: RamonDaze
I always do think it's fair to point out that the pieces for the 2010 Stanley Cup were already with the team when McDonough was hired on...as well as Bowman's promotion and Q being hired. And a lot of the players were already drafted prior to Tallon taking over as well. I feel like a lot of roses are thrown at Tallon when his biggest moves were drafting Toews at 3 and Kane at 1 (both no-brainers), signing Campbell to a cap busting free agent deal and signing Hossa. Keith, Seabs, Byfuglien, and a few others were drafted prior to Tallon.
By all accounts McDonough is great. Thanks to him for the 13 seasons and his role in the 3 Cups.
Looking forward, perhaps it's time for a new voice at top. All of the Fire Bowman chanters should be cautiously optimistic that a new team president will fire Bowman and bring in a new GM. My opinion of Bowman is he's made a lot of mistakes, some good moves, well above average at drafting players, and overall a top 10 GM in the NHL-probably more because a lot of them are just worse rather than Bowman being great. If he is fired, fine, but I'm not fully convinced that a new GM will automatically be better.
I do agree with you mostly in the opening remarks you’ve made here. I do think macdonaugh’s biggest contribution to this team has been his ability to make this team so marketable and capitalize on the success achieved by the coaches and players. Coach Q, well let’s just he is my messiah. Under no circumstances do I believe any other other could have achieved with this team what Q did. He was the perfect coach at the perfect time. As for Tallon, he may have only drafted toews and Kane, but he did bring in Campbell, Ladd, hossa, and Versteeg, amongst others. Above all, he gave us Q.
Bowman, well, as exo will tell you, I don’t have too high an opinion of him. Yes he’s done well to bring players over to the NHL, yes he’s made trades to help the core win cups (handzus and Vermette especially), and sure, he maintained the core through tough cap conditions. However, he did not, in any way, create the core himself, he did overpay players (definitely seabrook and somewhat toews), and he is the man who traded a great deal of the core and many great young prospects and players. My common criticism of him has always been that he maintains a good team, but he will never build one. Do I think there are a handful of better GMs in this league? Without any question! I do agree we need to be careful what to expect if bowman is fired. However, to me, bowman is like ken holland (minus the fact that ken holland actually helped bring in the new wave of red wings for the later 00s). Holland just lost the magic in the end, and bowman just feels similar.