2020-2021 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

[herman]

https://twitter.com/frank_seravalli/status/1319269195863949312
Eric Joyce was an early frontrunner for the FLA GM position

https://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/2020/10/22/21528388/leafs-to-hire-eric-joyce-as-director-of-hockey-strategy-no-i-dont-know-what-it-means

According to The Province, Viola leaned on Joyce as a counterweight to Tallon, which is somewhat reassuring given what a disastrous GM Tallon proved to be for the Panthers. Joyce seems to have worked with the famous ?Computer Boys? in Florida, although he wasn?t considered one himself.

https://www.si.com/nhl/2016/12/12/eric-joyce-florida-panthers-assistant-general-manager

In the Panthers' front office, Caldwell notes that Joyce "does like to take the opposite view, but I don't think he'd take it to the extreme just to prove his point." Still, contrarianism is valued. "We all have biases towards certain types of players, whether because that's how we played as kids or we gravitate towards certain guys," Joyce says. "But then you have to check yourself. What does the objective data say about this player? For so long we never used objective data. We just went off the eye test. And that's great when it hits, or catastrophic when it fails. Whereas if you combine the two, you're much closer to the truth."

So it looks like Dubas created an executive position to have someone objectively disagree with him and the front office.

 

[Frank E]

What the hell is a Director of Hockey Strategy?

 

[herman]

What the hell is a Director of Hockey Strategy?

So it looks like Dubas created an executive position to have someone objectively disagree with him and the front office.

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/do-you-have-contrarian-your-team

 

[CarltonTheBear]

*googles Eric Joyce*

... oh my god! Oh wait different Eric Joyce...

 

[Phileas Fogg]

Professional contrarian? Damn. Dream job.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

This also gives the Leafs an in-house replacement for Laurence Gilman if he leaves for a GM job some day. It was reported that he was one of the finalists for the Devils position before Fitzgerald got it.

 

[herman]

This also gives the Leafs an in-house replacement for Laurence Gilman if he leaves for a GM job some day. It was reported that he was one of the finalists for the Devils position before Fitzgerald got it.

And the loss of Babcock's voice, sans hands on the controls.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I'm gonna go ahead and assume Joyce's "contrarian" reputation will be less noticed when he's debating things with Dubas vs. when he was debating things with Tallon.

Not to say they'll always agree with every single topic, but they're probably slightly more in line with how they think a hockey team should be built/run.

 

[Kin]

So it looks like Dubas created an executive position to have someone objectively disagree with him and the front office.

It's the role I was born to play!

 

[herman]

I'm gonna go ahead and assume Joyce's "contrarian" reputation will be less noticed when he's debating things with Dubas vs. when he was debating things with Tallon.

Not to say they'll always agree with every single topic, but they're probably slightly more in line with how they think a hockey team should be built/run.

It's basically just resistance training for their ideas/discussions to make sure they don't slip into too much groupthink. Ideas that get filtered through an objective stats-check and opposing views comes through stronger and more balanced in the end, if the opposing views are posited constructively.

Babcock and Lamoriello's style sounded like it was more, prove it substantially to me; out of the box stuff almost never gets implemented in the NHL though, so sometimes you just have to find a way to try it. Greg Moore, coming from the mad scientist lab of the Chicago Steel program and now Eric Joyce suggests the Growlers and Marlies will be more test sandboxes than Leaf-clone incubators.

 

[Frank E]

So it looks like Dubas created an executive position to have someone objectively disagree with him and the front office.

It's the role I was born to play!

Did your interview go that badly? 

 

[herman]

https://www.nhl.com/panthers/news/q-a-with-assistant-general-managers-eric-joyce-and-steve-werier/c-891826

OLIVE: How much do you believe that not only spending, but spending wisely can affect the fortunes of a franchise?

JOYCE: That's the name of the game, really, from a management standpoint. We try to balance past performance with historical indicators of future success, what we have in terms of dollars and needs, and current market rates for certain types of production, and then basket players categorically. Once we've effectively targeted who we think we need to sign, based on our team's philosophy, and current and future composition, we then begin the negotiations process, which in some cases is very easy and others is very protracted. Nonetheless, we have a certain bandwidth given the constraints of the cap for all players, and we are adamant that we will stay within that bandwidth or pursue an alternate course. In reality, it's this discipline we try to perfect every day. Our egos (thinking what we know is absolute) and our biases, personal and otherwise, have the greatest negative impact on our ability to maintain a disciplined, rational approach to spending money. Therefore, we remain vigilant against that fact by openly communicating throughout the organization. Vinnie and Doug like to call it "positive friction", or everyone's ability to question every decision we make, to include our fans. We don't shy away from this, we welcome it, and in doing so, maintain that our process for evaluating and acquiring players can only get better. This process, and not necessarily the individual, compartmentalized outcomes of every move in a bubble by itself, will then lead us to make the smartest bets possible, and fulfill the requirements detailed above.

 

[Kin]

I don't have the slightest idea what that answer says or what the question is supposed to provoke. "No, I don't think spending wisely affects the fortunes of a franchise" would be said by who, exactly?

Turning the NHL over to Ivy League management consultants might kill what remains of my enthusiasm for the sport.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

I don't have the slightest idea what that answer says or what the question is supposed to provoke. "No, I don't think spending wisely affects the fortunes of a franchise" would be said by who, exactly?

Turning the NHL over to Ivy League management consultants might kill what remains of my enthusiasm for the sport.

I'm not sure there's a mlse job opening for a contrarian to the contrarian.

 

[Kin]

I don't have the slightest idea what that answer says or what the question is supposed to provoke. "No, I don't think spending wisely affects the fortunes of a franchise" would be said by who, exactly?

Turning the NHL over to Ivy League management consultants might kill what remains of my enthusiasm for the sport.

I'm not sure there's a mlse job opening for a contrarian to the contrarian.

I'm freelance.

 

[Andy007]

https://www.nhl.com/panthers/news/q-a-with-assistant-general-managers-eric-joyce-and-steve-werier/c-891826

OLIVE: How much do you believe that not only spending, but spending wisely can affect the fortunes of a franchise?

JOYCE: That's the name of the game, really, from a management standpoint. We try to balance past performance with historical indicators of future success, what we have in terms of dollars and needs, and current market rates for certain types of production, and then basket players categorically. Once we've effectively targeted who we think we need to sign, based on our team's philosophy, and current and future composition, we then begin the negotiations process, which in some cases is very easy and others is very protracted. Nonetheless, we have a certain bandwidth given the constraints of the cap for all players, and we are adamant that we will stay within that bandwidth or pursue an alternate course. In reality, it's this discipline we try to perfect every day. Our egos (thinking what we know is absolute) and our biases, personal and otherwise, have the greatest negative impact on our ability to maintain a disciplined, rational approach to spending money. Therefore, we remain vigilant against that fact by openly communicating throughout the organization. Vinnie and Doug like to call it "positive friction", or everyone's ability to question every decision we make, to include our fans. We don't shy away from this, we welcome it, and in doing so, maintain that our process for evaluating and acquiring players can only get better. This process, and not necessarily the individual, compartmentalized outcomes of every move in a bubble by itself, will then lead us to make the smartest bets possible, and fulfill the requirements detailed above.

That is a very long response for someone asking if spending wisely is good for a franchise.  I wonder how he feels about the importance of not only signing free agents, but signing good free agents.

 

[Highlander]

I came here for a good argument. No you didn't. Yes I did. No you didn't.  Kyle you are just damn wrong and that is all there is to it.

 

[Frank E]

"Do you think that drafting hockey players, but wisely, can affect the fortunes of a franchise?"

 

[Kin]

We try to sign good hockey players. Bad ones aren't as good. So it's important for us to tell which ones are good and which ones are bad. Then, when we've found the ones that are good, we try to get them to agree to be on our team and not other teams. Because to help our team do good, they need to be on our team. Sometimes they want to be on our team, sometimes they want to be on other teams. We try to convince them to want to be on our team by offering them money but not too much money because if you offer too much money because we can't spend all of our money. Me and Tommy and Jeff call that "Only Some of the Money" to remind each other not to spend all of the money.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I don't have the slightest idea what that answer says or what the question is supposed to provoke. "No, I don't think spending wisely affects the fortunes of a franchise" would be said by who, exactly?

His former boss, who gave Bobrovsky $70mil?

I mean I get your general point about how not-valuable those types of interviews/responses can be, but I do think there are GMs out there who are well aware that they sometimes aren't spending wisely but do it anyway because they think they'll be the exception to the rule. You even talked the other day about how $4mil is generally the standard price for a defensive defenceman like Zaitsev despite the fact that those deals are almost always seen as problems later on.