@ Jackets

[Spunky Porkstacker]

When Theo got here, what was his blueprint? Develop position players, buy pitching. Then he went out and bought Heyward. He can not sign free agents to save his life. The Arizona fire sale handed him that Boston title. When it was over, he made terrible decisions on free agents. There and here. Last year he needed the intensity the Brewers showed in 2018, the cut throat mentality of every game matters. He never got it. Did not have the balls to fire Maddon.

I guess that was part of the difference, Bowman showed the balls to move on from Q.

Bowman seems to have absolutely no interest in developing players. If you cant make it your first year, you will be considered a bust. Saad, Panarin, Crawford made it and stayed here. Then if they did not take a bridge, they were shipped out for betterans. We had 4 top defensive prospects and he goes out and locks up 5 D men betterans til 2023. The one guy on nobodies radar has been the difference maker.

Rocky needs to say no to spending this new found cap money by shipping these kids out. Look at them all out there, Vinnie, Schmaltz, Danault, Nordstrom, Hammer, Joker. Look at the incredible finds and wins he had. Signing Panarin, the first Nick Leddy trade for Cam Barker, huge fucking wins, then gone. Panarin gone after getting the deal. Offering Seabroke more money than Keith was just insane, especially after the jettison of Brian Campbell because he was signed to a bigger deal than keith..

Look at the complete **** ups of Trevor Daley who just flat out never fit, bringing old Oduya back, you can even argue last year taking Krueger back when we had in house guys like Nordstrom and Danault just perfect to have replaced him.

Its shaping up to be time for both of them to pay.

Firing Maddon a season ago would have changed nothing.

Bowman took over a team that had an elite core in place.

Theo took over a team that had nothing and won a WS, even though at present doing that again doesn't look to be in the near future.

 

[LordKOTL]

I have no clue why Bowman is hated so much here when in fact the worst GM / President by far in Chicago sports is Theo Epstein.

Bowman's issue is that he's a beancounter pretending to be a hockey mind of the same ilk that his father was. That's a problem. He did a good enough job keeping the pieces together that won us 3 cups (and yes, I fully believe the *worst* upper management team of $bill/Pullford would have screwed that up), but he has not shown a propensity for developing players or evaluating needs of the team. Instead, he's been focused on retreads who, much like the core--are not the same players who helped win us those cups. Aging sucks, but that's life. A lot of what ails the 'hawks nowadays could have been mitigated if Bowman would have been smarter, not pretended like he was the smartest guy in the room and stopped trying his bad horse-trading act on the fans.

The 'hawks need a GM who is either good at evaluating talent and prospects, or one that listesnts to scouts who are good at evaluating talent/prospects. He needs to get a coaching staff who can not only communicate with vets--some of them with prima-donna tendencies, and get them to shift into a new system that works for them as they are right now instead of one that worked for them when they were 5 years younger, faster, & quicker. At the same time that coaching staff needs to be able to properly develop the rookies/prospects and give them the playing time they need commensurate with their ability. IMHO JC's not the right guy to do that--nor is his staff. You can say Q lost the locker room; I doubt JC ever had it--and he was de facto Bowman's guy--his hiring is on Bowman.