Beach resigned for 1 year, salary TBA

[gmalis1]

Chicago Blackhawks' Future Friday: Kyle Beach

 

[JBM73]

Chicago Blackhawks' Future Friday: Kyle Beach

Good article up to the last sentence:

"Not every move is a success, and with the Talon era long gone in Chicago, Beach could be the last failure for a long time."

Obviously the author is a bandwagon fan who just started following the team in 2009. Talon built the 2010 Cup winning team, with a couple of "tweaks" by Bowman. Now, Bowman has done a great job since then for the most part, but not without some mistakes along the way including some poor FA signings, a very possible 1st round bust in Kevin Hayes, and a major high 2nd round bust in Ludvig Rensfeldt.

 

[gmalis1]

Hey, draft picks are a crap shoot. Some work out and some don't. Of course, some are also slam dunks (ie Kane and Toews).

But I see guys like Andrew Shaw who went through the draft TWICE and was a very low choice and still make the Hawks, sometimes you just never know about guys.

I'm not castigating Stan B for a few swings and misses here and there. I'm also not giving all the credit to Dale Tallon for being the best thing since sliced bread. Please reference the debacle with the Florida Panthers, for the best example of what a poor GM he is. But he also gets some props for getting the Hawks to the Cup in 2010, albeit putting them in salary cap hell for the next two seasons.

I just posted the Kyle Beach article as another opinion as to why Beach WON'T be with the Hawks come October...in contrast to a few posters that are clamoring for his physical presence on the team.

 

[DoobeeDoobeeDoo]

Good article up to the last sentence:

"Not every move is a success, and with the Talon era long gone in Chicago, Beach could be the last failure for a long time."

Obviously the author is a bandwagon fan who just started following the team in 2009. Talon built the 2010 Cup winning team, with a couple of "tweaks" by Bowman. Now, Bowman has done a great job since then for the most part, but not without some mistakes along the way including some poor FA signings, a very possible 1st round bust in Kevin Hayes, and a major high 2nd round bust in Ludvig Rensfeldt.

He might be a bandwagoner but he brings up good points about Kyle Beach. Not saying he doesn't have the potential to turn things around but looking at his numbers he's really underachieved at the AHL level. Keep in mind that he is regarded as one of the top prospects, so he should have higher expectations than most of the Hawks prospects and he's come up short.

 

[JBM73]

I just posted the Kyle Beach article as another opinion as to why Beach WON'T be with the Hawks come October...in contrast to a few posters that are clamoring for his physical presence on the team.

On that point the article succeeded by presenting some good points about Beach. The last sentence just infuriated me for some reason. ;-)

 

[DoobeeDoobeeDoo]

On that point the article succeeded by presenting some good points about Beach. The last sentence just infuriated me for some reason. ;-)

Life isn't a Beach in the AHL I guess

 

[HockeyDoug]

Obviously the author is a bandwagon fan who just started following the team in 2009. Talon built the 2010 Cup winning team, with a couple of "tweaks" by Bowman. Now, Bowman has done a great job since then for the most part, but not without some mistakes along the way including some poor FA signings, a very possible 1st round bust in Kevin Hayes, and a major high 2nd round bust in Ludvig Rensfeldt.

I strongly disagree with the idea that Tallon built the 2010 team. He was a poor gm who snagged the credit. His record looks worse as the years go by. It wasn't his fault entirely, he was in over his head.

 

[JBM73]

I strongly disagree with the idea that Tallon built the 2010 team. He was a poor gm who snagged the credit. His record looks worse as the years go by. It wasn't his fault entirely, he was in over his head.

Tallon absolutely built the 2010 team, unless your argument is that Nick Boynton was the catalyst for the Cup win. You can argue that Tallon was a blind squirrel who lucked into finding a nut, but he still built that team.

 

[gmalis1]

And Tallon's doing a bangup job with the Florida Panthers.

 

[HockeyDoug]

Tallon absolutely built the 2010 team, unless your argument is that Nick Boynton was the catalyst for the Cup win. You can argue that Tallon was a blind squirrel who lucked into finding a nut, but he still built that team.

What I'm saying is that Tallon was the gm, he didn't build much of anything. And he couldn't very well evaluate at all.

He wasted as much in capspace, picks, prospects and other assets, if not more, than he put together for the cup team before Scotty Bowman came in to start untangling the gigantic mess in July 2008. People point to the Sharp success, but they omit his ridiculous and unjustified contract, and that he never should have had that ice time most of his first 2 years in Chicago. Injuries and ineptitude made that work but it was still offset by unnecessary cap spending. Had he not wasted Anderson and trashed Crawford's waiver exemption, Bowman doesn't have to make the nasty decision to put Niemi up in place of Crawford (Stan almost never gets credit for), etc. Savard, Havlat, Lang, terrible internal evaluations of prospects for years, wasted call ups, etc.

I can't credit Tallon any more than Pulford, Smith, or WWW. He was given a plum and was absolutely trashing it before help was brought in. Rocky's money combined with McDonough's hiring of Scotty Bowman and his people did the most to turn the franchise around imo, much more so than Tallon.

He's been doing the same in Florida, got a new owner that let him spend, had a bunch of assets to move, was allowed to make his own hires, etc. The common criticism for tallon is contract valuations, but his bigger problems are how he evaluated his 50 contract limit, his hires, and manages his assets. It's the same in Florida as it was in Chicago. He already needlessly wasted assets down there (Ellerby for one, because he screwed up managing his blueline and contract slots, why was Howden called up for 18 games? etc.)

Anyway, Tallon did contribute, but I really don't like all the credit he gets for "building". He's always quick to snag the credit for other people's moves, heard him do it at the 2012 draft and 2010 draft. He had almost nothing to do with Bickell's development and didn't draft him for example but Pierre LeBrun writes an article implying the pick and development had more to do with Tallon than anything, and that was false. I can't blame fans for liking him (great in the booth) because of his history with Foley and because the media drops the ball time and time again when interviewing him or writing about him.

Wouldn't be a complete offseason for me if I didn't pound on what I consider the most overrated front office hire in the last few decades of Chicago sports.

 

[JBM73]

Nice follow up.

With the exception of the Hossa signing, the core of the Hawks was already in place by the time Scotty was brought on board in 2008. Also, there wasn't any "clean-up" of Tallon's mess until after they won the Cup in 2010. As to whether or not Tallon should get credit for building the 2010 team, we'll have to continue to disagree. I understand your point that he's not the one doing ALL of the pro and amateur scouting but, as a manager myself, I know that a large part of my department's success depends on hiring the right people to work under me. Just because they contribute greatly to that success or failure does not lessen the importance of my position. That's what a manager's job is - to manage.

Do I think Tallon was a great GM? NO!!!! Did he make a lot of mistakes along the way, and create the mess that needed to be cleaned up in 2010? YES. However, I still argue that he should get the primary credit for building the 2010 team, since it happened under his leadership, as well as the blame for creating the mess that followed.

 

[HockeyDoug]

When I'm talking about the "clean up" in 2008, I'm talking about bad bets and poor asset management and very poor management roster slots to control waiver exemptions and cost moving forward. He was running a shuttle back and forth burning games on players which impacts years of service which impacts RFA cost and waiver exemptions. He had 3 years of messing with the coaches at all levels with his "fling stuff on the ice" philosophy. Savard never had a chance and he completely threw Yawney under the bus with the way he handled things. Much had to change, most of it was administrative rather than just dressing bodies and writing contracts.

He had a second terrible decision in a coaching hire (Savard) and Tallon was not likely to move his buddy (Tallon always too loyal, still is). Lang was the #2 center and woefully inadequate, it was Tallon's guy, Scotty knew him from Detroit so it shouldn't have been a surprise that was one of the first moves once Scotty came on board. Dumping Wisniewski and bringing up Hjalmarsson may not have been Dale, but Pahlsson probably was Tallon's imo. They started bumping Tallon's scouts and other minions and began dismantling the mechanisms that dropped the ball on scouting and development. They got Hardy out of there (who went to Pulford's son-in-law in LA because he was a good-ol-boy, like Dale) in favor of Haviland. There were many other subtle moves made to fix so much that was woefully inadequate or just messed up. Some of it was because Tallon lacked the money for some things, but mostly it was because he should have never been in the position. Most of Tallon's problems and mistakes occurred because of Pulford and WWW, they shouldn't have hired him.

I know that a large part of my department's success depends on hiring the right people to work under me.

And that's why I say he didn't build much. His hires were poor and most of which have been demoted, taken a lesser position with other clubs, out of hockey, and most of the ones still around or in a big job with another club were hired by his predecessors. I think half of the success of the franchise is done off of the ice, if not more. With a hard cap, I think we all agree that the front office takes on a much bigger role than before.

As far as the contracts go, Tallon had signed most of the extensions and contracts for the 2010 team. We also know many of those bodies weren't his and many of the ones that were owned brutal contracts or very controlled contracts, the kind even Holmgren doesn't screw up.

Sharp, Bolland, Buff, Sopel, Barker, and Versteeg were on terrible overpayments/structures.
Ladd, Brouwer, Burish, Eager, Fraser, Niemi, Bickell, Dowell, and Hendry were all on predictable bridge contracts.
Toews, Kane, and Hjalmarsson were on ELCs.
Hossa and Kopecky were Bowman guys not Tallon's although Tallon's name is on the contract.
That only leaves a handful that I can see being worthy of "helping build the championship". Seabrook and Keith were on good contracts (Keith's being the best). Madden filled a need so his overpayment was justifiable, and Aaron Johnson was required depth.
I think Campbell and Huet were mandates from above, so I never really blamed Tallon much for them, but I do think targeting Huet was a huge mistake. I blame more on McD rather than Tallon for those contracts, I think they were part of a business plan more than hockey ops.

I think Tallon held them back more than he got them ahead prior to 2010, he wasted too many valuable pieces that the successful trades of Versteeg and Sharp didn't make up for. He wasted so many pieces, and most went unnoticed his entire 4 seasons, which is fine, I expect a gm to go 50/50 on UFA signings and trades, but the problem with Dale's misses, is that it set the stage for him to waste more assets in terms of ice time, contract slots, and cap space in many situations. I'll agree Dale played a part, but I think he hindered more than helped given where the team was at in 2005 and where they ended up.

I didn't mean to imply that you were calling him an expert gm or anything along those lines.
Anyway, we will agree to disagree and it all worked out in the end anyway.

Now that I've derailed the topic enough, I'll try going back to it. I was very happy with Tallon's pick of Beach, I thought it was a good gamble given the circumstances. I was wrong. It was terrible, what makes it worse was his drafting in the previous years and how strong the 2008 class is looking to be.

 

[HockeyDoug]

Tough to read post, sorry about that. I'll blame it on the voices.

 

[gmalis1]

Not tough to read at all. Very interesting evaluation of Dale Tallon's signings during that time frame.

I found it very interesting. Sometimes, as fans, we aren't aware of the front office history that goes into building a team.

 

[JBM73]

Tough to read post, sorry about that. I'll blame it on the voices.

Not tough to read. Good analysis!

 

[gmalis1]

Kyle Beach put on waivers.

Great call "anotheridiot". Guess that means he's not making the Hawks team like you wanted.

 

[Baseballnut77]

perhaps the next time you are going to go all in against somebody else's post because you want to show them up or something maybe you can look at you own baseball and football posts and remember "oh yeah i am an idiot too" Just sayin. Maybe you can be the next Brian Mcclaren

 

[gmalis1]

The 2013 Chicago Cubs haven’t been winning enough games to convince anyone that they’re a contender, and that lack of faith is reflected in flagging attendance and reduced television viewing.

Crain’s Danny Ecker reports that, when compared to this point last season, attendance at Wrigley Field is down 14%. Then again, at about 32,600 per game, at least the Cubs still have the 12th best attendance in baseball.

Equally alarmingly, the ratings for Cubs games on CSN are down 15% when compared with this point last year.

And this also from Crains:

With 10 home games remaining, the Chicago Cubs are facing the reality that total attendance this season will fall short of 3 million for the first time since 2003.

That would be the first time in 10 YEARS that the Cubs didn't reach the 3 million mark. So yes, the Cubs are still packing them in it seems...well, according to you they are.

And this just in:

As the season winds down to its conclusion, the Chicago Cubs are trying to put the best face on what’s been going on at Wrigley Field this season. Monday’s game was the smallest Labor Day crowd in a quarter century, but it was a seemingly respectable 31,000 plus. And then, on a weekday game against a woeful Marlins team, they drew slightly more than 20,000 fans.

This was the smallest crowd at Wrigley in over a decade, and about half of what a typical crowd would have been a decade ago. Time was when anything under 35,000 was practically unthinkable, for any game against any opponent. But those days now seem to be very far away.


And this from the same article:

Anyone who is savvy enough to find this website probably already knows this, and my apologies to those who do. But the casual fan might see 20,000 in attendance and envision that many fans sitting in the stands. In truth, however, that’s not the way it works. Attendance just means that there were 20,000 tickets sold for the game.

I can remember a time where you would take your game ticket up to a gate, hand the ticket to an usher, and they would tear off part of the ticket and hand the stub back to you. Over the past few years, though, that’s been replaced by a barcode scanner, where the ticket (or a piece of paper, if you printed your tickets out at home) is scanned and recorded electronically.

There were 20,000 tickets sold to the Chicago Cubs game, and that’s the number that was reported in the box score. But how many of those 20,000 tickets were actually scanned at the ballpark is something that Tom Ricketts and his bean counters know very well, but won’t ever share with the likes of you and me.

For every fan who went to the ballpark and had his or her ticket scanned, there were likely just as many fans who paid for a ticket but didn’t use it, or couldn’t find anyone to sell or give the ticket to. Those fans, in the parlance of our times, are considered as no-shows.

The number of no-shows is significant for two reasons. First, it’s a self-evident fact that no-shows don’t buy beer. They don’t go to the gift shop, either. A no-show does nothing more than buy a ticket. I’m sure that every beer vendor at Wrigley Field knows if there were really 20,000 fans in the stands on Wednesday.

But the other reason why no-shows are important is for next year, and not in the metaphorical “Wait ’til next year!” sense, either. Many of the no-shows bought tickets long ago, and decided to spend hundreds — or even thousands — of dollars to guarantee themselves tickets to games that turned out to be meaningless.


So, as you can see, fans are NOT coming to Wrigley by the droves. The stands are NOT packed in August and September, despite what you think. And all the empty seats that I see on the 10:00 sports are NOT an aberration. So, put on your glasses. Yes, the one's you see with...not those rose-colored specs you use to see the Cubs Kool-Aid with.

Now, as to the Bears comments, please clue me in on my comments that according to you make no sense.

 

[gmalis1]

Beach cleared waivers and assigned to Rockford.

 

[Baseballnut77]

OMG the cubs aren't going to make 3 million this year the world is going to end. Never mind that they are the third worst team in baseball this year and still managed to be in 12th in attendance and are in the top 1/3 of away drawing lol. So in all your rush to seize the power of your useless rant you forget the one thing that truly matters. you and the hack that wrote the piece forgets that the cubs of 2003 were a team 1 game away from a championship coming off a year when they were among the worst but were in rebuild mode bringing in wood and prior. But this team however is in a new and improved rebuilding mode. full rebuild from the ground up. most likely 1 of the top 3 farms in all of baseball. Not just 2 or 3 prospects and a bunch of free agents. Now I know a hack like yourself looks at the 10 o'clock news and declares yourself the king of all knowledge (much like you do in the other sports you follow) but those of us who really follow the teams and played the sports don't just look in the paper and check the news and say " I know it all". We follow every aspect of the team. Even where I live now I still make 10 to 20 trips back home to take in games plus check out minor league games of the cubs during the summer and prospects for hockey in the winter due to my job. My guess is if you have taken in 10 Icehog games I would be shocked and we already know due to your own comments about the cubs you have taken in somewhere in the neighborhood of 0 cubs games. So forgive me if I take your "knowledge" of said games and sweep em into the trash but reading and actually knowing about a team or a game are 2 completely different things. And calling out anyone else while armed with as little knowledge as you have only means that you should be changing names with Anotheridiot