Team effort in team building

I stand corrected on the Lucic and Kessel pick-ups by the interim Gorton....

Bring back Gorton, then?

Was PC in on it even though he was not GM yet?????????????????

Scott Bradley and the scouting department deserves most of the credit for picking up the young players.

Chiarelli was allowed to tell Gorton which players to target...

Drafting Phil Kessel at number 5 in the draft was a no brainer...

Let's not give Sinden, O'Connell, and Gorton too much credit... We were one of the worst teams in the league under them.

Don't Forget:
Sturm=O'Connell
Ference=Chiarelli

Gorton did a hell of a job, but it sounds like he was Chiarelli's puppet.

I agree with Rich on not giving Sinden & O'Connell too much credit, because it's not only about drafting the right kind of players, it's about creating and fostering a winning atmosphere. That's what Sweeney, Chiarelli, and Neely have done.

BTW, now the Thornton deal (for Sturm, Ferrence, Kobasew) doesn't look so lopsided after all.

Credit goes to the scouting department and to Julien....

Pete, the thornton deal looks better now that Chiarelli came in and cleaned it up. At the beginning, it was so lopsided. Now, we have 3 solid players (chuckie and ference thanks to PC) and with the money saved by dispensing Joe, the team suddenly had some excess $$ to play with in the free agent market.

Remember that team Mike O'Connell pretty much hand picked from the free agent market that year after the lockout? Perhaps one of the worst teams ever assembled, and it was almost all done via free agency. And it wasn't just the lack of talent. Some of those contracts were embarrasing (cough-alexei zhamnov).

Anyways, just glad to see the guys performing on a high level. This bunch deserves it.

This could easily turn into a Theo/DD type argument...who is more deserving of credit, the guy who put the core together or the guy running the ship now?

I think a lot of credit needs to go to both PC and Neely. I admit, I originally thought Neely was just a PR move...but he has brought passion to a passionless front office. All it takes is one guy to show passion and it trickles down to everybody else. Passion is contagious, and it is showing throughout the club.

I love that this team completely resembles how Neely was as a player, this current management has done a great job and I can't see where this team ends up.

I gotta lean towards giving the _most_ (60/40, or maybe 57/43) credit to Julien. This isn't a team overloaded with guys that the rest of the NHL is trying to sign away like the golden era Chicago Bulls where all the coach had to do was not screw up. Julien has stamped out lots of bad habits, taken some undervalued tools and used them better than just about any coach could. I'm not the worlds biggest fan of Wideman, but look at the change in his quality of play over his time with Julien, part of it was just maturing as a player, but you can't do that as fast without sharply focused feedback. Likewise his willingness to play Thornton every game even against teams that aren't known for fighting because of his work ethic is great, and not just for Thornton.

Ask an Ottawa Senators fan how much they miss Charelli as a GM. You do have to give Charelli credit for bringing in impact players to a team who's recent history has been to spend as little money as possible.

As far as getting the lines to mesh and players to play at this level, most of the credit has to go to Julien. If he doesn't win coach of the year, I'll stop watching hockey (just kidding).