You bring up a good point, but I'm unsure. Who finds those players for Stan? It's not Stan himself. I would say the hawks have one of the best scouting staffs in the league, all he has to do is make an incentivizing offer, which is the easiest part of the puzzle. His trade history is very rough, but I think he knew the Hawks wouldn't be able to extend Panarin (He still should've gotten a 1st for him at least instead of making it a player swap).



I remember going to a game and Jokiharju shut down McDavid all game. I'm worried that Stan's deal will hurt the hawks in a couple weeks.



Dale Tallon did put the main pieces in place for sure, but Bowman did a great job for a while getting the right players into the line up. Handzus, Vermette, Desjardins, Teravainen, Roszival, Oduya, Emery, Darling, and Richards. Those are a lot of huge pieces that each scored a huge goal/made a big save at one point or another in 13 and/or 15. Those players were all brought in by Bowman, and they fit Q's system so well. I guess his luck just ran out lately.

@NickC1988 100% agreed about that McDavid game. I watched it in amazement. Still remember it. I am a little surprised about his regression this year though. He's still young and figuring his way through things, but I'm not as convinced about his ceiling as I was when the trade happened. Still has a tremendously high floor, but I was SOOO high on him during the trade. You can go back and see all my negative comments....it's still there.

Stan does indeed have great scouts. No Knock to the scouting team at all. They got Kurashev in the 4th and Teply in the 4th too. BUT he does do that hiring...AND you need to continue to develop these talents for them to want to keep coming back.

As for his trade history. I don't think it's half bad at all. Yes the Joki trade...jury isn't closed on that one. If Shaw doesn't come back then that would be an "L" as well. Dumping Manning, getting Slater, Dropping Perlini for someone that's actually developing pretty decently. I think he's pretty good at trades. Where I think Stan fails is his signings. He NEEDS to play hard ball with Strome. NEEDS to.

Agreed he needs to start playing hardball with some of these guys, adding salary last season with Maatta and De Haan was questionable given all the prospects available. Jokiharju may have regressed a little, but when you're playing for Buffalo, it's difficult to stand out. Dahlin put up 40 points and no one seemed to notice even though he's an elite talent. Jokiharju will have a good career, it's just so much tougher in Buffalo where the team has struggled for years.

I think its interesting to me. He was really solid through the 1st half of the decade in pretty much every regard. But I think you can trace all of his failures back to 1 thing. The seabrook contract. After that, the structure of our roster was entirely different. We had to dump Sharp and couldnt keep Saad, we had to make the Bickell trade and give up Teuvo for it. We werent going to be able to keep Panarin. I think, if you take away that Seabrook contract, he probably doesnt make the mistakes he was "forced" into making because he never has that massive contract sitting there taking up space.

I will always hate him for trading Bickell and Teuvo instead of just buying out Bickell and paying 1 million for two seasons. That trade sickens me to my core to this day. There was no rhyme or reason for trading Teuvo in that situation. That Seabrook contract was at a time where a lot of people in Edmonton were iffy about Draisaitl, and he could've been made available. Imagine that scenario instead...

I'd argue contracts in general. He gave Bickell his $4M deal off of 1 playoff run. It was indeed a great playoff run, but it was a prisoner of the moment deal. He gave Manning too large of a deal because he felt like he was forced into making a move. He gave Kruger $3M per season. Now, This I will defend a little bit. Kruger played a PURELY defensive role and could win a faceoff so it's not like he was ever supposed to score a ton, but one might argue that it's a bad contract if you need to lose assets in order to lose the cap hit. Then of course Seabs.

BUT I will say in his defense I do think he's gotten better at this. I hope that trend continues. Carpy 3 years $1M per is a nice deal. Lehner was probably more a gift, but a 1 year $5M did get us a 2nd rounder and a prospect.

I'll argue the Bickell deal too. He definitely wouldve been worth it for the whole duration if he didnt get vertigo which was eventually found to be MS. The Manning contract was a huge blunder though