The Phoenix Coyotes fired Cliff Fletcher this week. My first memory of Fletcher came when the Atlanta Flames entered the NHL in 1972 (they had possibly the 2nd best expansion draft, behind Philadelphia 1967. The other candidate for #2 imo is Florida) with Fletcher as GM.
The Flames moved to Calgary and won the Stanley under Fletcher. They may have won more of them had Fletcher not moved to Toronto and fleeced the Flames of some of their very best talent.
Cliff Fletcher's hand is all over Flames history, and some of the very good Toronto years too. Before that he was part of the St. Louis Blues expansion and even before that he was part of the massive evaluation group that monitored the talent chain the Montreal Canadiens used to win Stanley Cups with regularity in the 50s and 60s.
Cliff Fletcher's hand is NOT all over Phoenix Coyotes history. I imagine a hand-written note from Fletcher to 99 being thrown in a waste basket several times a season over the last while. I know this is an Oilers' blog and Fletcher is the enemy, but in the name of all that is right in the world can we all agree Phoenix fired the wrong guy?
Well said. I'm a Fletcher fan as well, just a reasonable and personable guy IMO.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that he and Barry Smith hitched on to this wagon. There are some good podcasts with interviews of the latter on the net, the guy could play Quenneville in a movie. :)
My guess is that Gretzky is the problem, just my sense of it. In any case a series of peculiar decisions by this crew right from day one.
Is Tocchet still there btw?
The Gretzky - Barnett random number generator that decided aquisitions and trades was clearly a problem. Never have so many deals accomplished so damn little.....
ReplyDeleteSounds like they were just clearing house. Barnett has to have been the most responsible for the debacle that has been the Phoenix Coyotes (unless he was just a figurehead, in which case he still needed to go). Gretzky has been doing an ok job coaching; he should stick to that, and let the guys he hired to manage the team do their jobs.
ReplyDeleteAs a somewhat aside, my wife read an interview with Janet Jones-Gretzky in Chatelaine; she came off very poorly, making remarks about how much better her son was on his soccer team than all the other kids. I'm pretty sure that's not from the Walter Gretzky book of how to raise a son. I wonder what the parents of the other children on that team think about JJ-G.
Never have so many deals accomplished so damn little.....
ReplyDeleteMoving Mike Johnson to the Habs for a late round pick and then signing both J.R. and Nolan to similar one-year deals had to be the pinnacle of stupid Coyote decisions.
Dealing Daniel Briere for Gratton in 2003 wasn't the smartest decision either for the Coyotes' brass either.
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ReplyDeleteRemember the ceremony the previous season honouring Thomas Steen and on the big screen the whole ceremony was a picture of Anders Steen, not Thomas. That franchise is a mess all over the place.
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