It’s the non-players’ turn!
Welcome to Friday, folks!
Thanks for hanging in there for a week’s worth of judging other people. In these cases, you can throw stones regardless of the material used to build your own house.
In case you somehow stumbled upon only this post, we’ve already posted threads for rating the goalies, forwards, and defensemen.
We’ve received more than 100 ratings for each, giving us a nice sample size.
Today, it’s time to judge the guys who don’t play but have a major impact on the on-ice product: head coach Jim Montgomery and GM Don Sweeney.
(Last year, Cam Neely was included in this, mainly because of the stupid Mitchell Miller fiasco. This year, I couldn’t really think of anything he’d actually done, so I left him out. If you’d like to rate him in the comments anyways, feel free.)
It will be interesting to see where people land on these two.
Technically, Montgomery improved on last season, as the B’s made it to the second round.
However, it’d also be fair to argue that the team took a step back in terms of season-long performance, though that’s to be expected when you break a ton of records in your first year.
There are gripes to be had with Montgomery, including the constant line blending and (maybe) the goalie rotation in the playoffs.
Still, it’d be hard to claim he didn’t get a lot out of what was kind of a patchwork group last season.
For Sweeney, I think he deserves some credit. Yes, he’s working within the confines of a salary cap situation that he created for himself, but he did an admirable job of making it work.
It’s too early to judge this summer’s big signings, but it’s worth remembering the bargain gems he found last summer — namely Danton Heinen, James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Parker Wotherspoon.
I was lukewarm on his trade deadline, though the Andrew Peeke acquisition looked better in hindsight.
Some weren’t sold on the return for Linus Ullmark, and Sweeney did end up losing Jake DeBrusk for nothing.
Plus, there’s still a giant piece of business waiting to be done in Jeremy Swayman’s new deal.
Overall though, I thought Sweeney, between last summer and the end of last season, did a pretty good job bridging the gap without much wiggle room.
I’d probably land somewhere in the 6-7 range for each.
Have your say!