Sunday, January 4, 2009

We'd Be Better Off Managed by the Marx Brothers



Not that Don Waddell in any way resembles Indiana Jones. Indy always found an ingenious way to correct his mistakes. DW not so much. It's impossible to imagine him doing much of anything with "Oh yeah? And who's gonna save you, JUNIOR?"

Now then.

I suppose it's fitting (?) that the best game of the season was followed by the worst. 

Not that everything about our victory over Vancouver was impressive: we beat them with finesse and skill, but we beat them in a shootout. In a shootout against one of the worst shootout goalies in the league...

A goalie whose only reason to be starting games for Vancouver was because all their goalies are injured and they had to make a trade. 

Which brings me to Don Waddell, and the general question of general management. Monsieur Catalogues has already mentioned that the Edmonton Journal is saying something about a possible Kari Lehtonen-for-Patrick O'Sullivan trade; your Chronicle recommended that exact trade this past summer, and we hope there's some truth to the rumor. If Don Waddell has anything resembling an instinct for survival, presumably he'll trade Kari for something of value. 

That's far from a guarantee, of course. No one is quite sure whether or not DW has a survival instinct, as his job never seems to be seriously threatened. 

Which is too bad, because his management has been confused and incompetent. 

There's a fellow named Craig Patrick. He was once general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins, in the era of Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr to be exact. He built a team that won back-to-back Stanley Cups and several (can't quite remember how many precisely) division titles. 

Somehow, this man doesn't have a job at present. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But Don Waddell is "ONE OF THE MOST RESPECTED GENERAL MANAGERS IN THE LEAGUE" think about that just think. That was the BS fed to us last summer. Too bad respect doesn't = success. And who really respects him? At least ASG has a good basketball team...They can't all be daisys.