 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Location: Blogs Carl Danbury |
 |
| Posted by: Carl Danbury |
10/17/2007 6:22 PM |
Q: Are you viewing this change as taking one step forward and two steps back?
Mullin: We believe we put a better club on the ice this year than we did last year and obviously the team hasn’t performed to that level. Obviously, something has to happen to change that around at this point in time. You heard Don give the answer, he doesn’t feel it’s the players.
Bobby Holik was the first to already go in the dressing room and said gentlemen it’s on us. We’ve got to step up. I don’t think it’s one step forward and two steps back. We’ve had back-to-back winning seasons and we still believe we can get a winning season out of this year and we still believe we can get to the playoffs. When you are 10 or 11 points in the hole in the division, it’s not a good way to start. It’s uphill from there.
You can see what has happened in the NHL, getting a good start to the season like we did last year really helps. We just have to turn it around with Don going behind the bench and then he’ll do a full search to get the best candidate we can long term. We’re not looking for a Band-Aid or a caretaker, we’re looking for the long-term best solution and if we can find that candidate he’ll make the decision.
Q: Some people feel that to make the playoffs, the organization sacrificed a lot (draft picks and losing people after two months), did that ever cross your mind?
Mullin: This organization, our general managers, whether it’s Billy (Knight) or Don make recommendations to me, we talk about it and when we’re agreed that it is in the best interest of the organization we put it in front of the owners. The Keith Tkachuk move, the (Pascal) Dupuis, the (Eric) Belanger and the (Alexei) Zhitnik moves were all considered to be for the best long-term interest of the organization and I still believe that.
We got a tremendous lift from Keith Tkachuk even though he’s not here. After the season we had a chance to sign Belanger but somebody else thought he was worth more money than what we thought, and we’ve got Dupuis and Zhitnik back. Is there a price to pay for the draft picks? Yes, five or six years down the road.
We think the price was well worth it, we think it was a very good decision and got a really good return on our investment. We were sliding a little bit in our division at the time, we turned it around, we started winning, we won the division and went to the playoffs. We’ve had tremendous season ticket renewals. We’ve had phenomenal new ticket sales for this year, our new season ticket sales are up 65 percent and had over 90 percent of the people renew, so I think it did its job. It was very good ROI. We’d like to have the draft picks back, but we don’t have them but instead we have great assets and we’re OK with that.
You do it [make the moves] from a position of strength, not a position of weakness and Don has built what we’ve got in the farm system. You can see with the kids that made this team we’ve got great depth in Chicago. At goalkeeper this kid Pavelec is unbelievable. We’ve got Oystrick and Valabik on defense and a couple of other guys down there on “D”, we’ve got some other forwards as well, and you saw Little and Sterling. We feel we had enough in our farm system, it was a very calculated decision, and a good decision and in retrospect we still feel the same way.
Q: You’re of the position that saying your [minor league] team in Chicago, if there were injuries up here, is in a better position than it has been in the past?
Mullin: Correct. We’re much deeper. Guys who can come up and step in as you have seen with some of these young guys. Look at Brian Little and what he’s doing. Tobias Enstrom who we picked up, so we’ve got good depth.
Q: Do you ride the roller coaster of emotions with your teams when they are winning or losing?
Mullin: I’ve been in it now for 25 years. You don’t learn to lose because you hate losing. You never accept it. You always fight it. But you understand that it is part of the game. You’re never as bad as you look when you lose and you’re never as good as you look when you win. With losing, you usually get more introspection and you learn more. You sit there and you think about things because it hurts. I have been through it enough with teams…it’s a lot more fun to win but you’ve got to be calm and steady, and I think the beauty of my job is to always look towards the horizon, not to be shortsighted.
The most successful organizations generally have a very long-term perspective. The model we are trying to build is a lot like the Detroit Red Wings, what the Avalanche has been in the past and on the basketball side what the San Antonio Spurs are. That’s what we are trying to build. It doesn’t happen in five minutes and our owners understand that. We’d like for it to happen in five minutes, but the truth of the matter is that it doesn’t. You have to make sure you don’t make quick, reflex decisions that you make long-term decisions.
Q: During your tenure, people have said you’re extremely loyal particularly at the GM position. Can you speak to your view of that loyalty?
Mullin: I think if you go back into history of sports organizations, the ones that have been in the toilet for a long period of time are the ones who keep making changes. The ones that are successful are the ones that have some consistency. Look how long it took John Wooden to get a winning record at UCLA and he’s the wizard of Westwood (see note below). Is it a question of getting people and letting them make mistakes and then they learn from them? No.
I think in the case of Billy Knight, it’s like a coach of a college basketball team, give him four years when everyone on the court are his players and that’s how I feel. This is the first year that Mike Woodson has been given a full deck of players with depth. God willing we stay away from injuries and we’ll see what happens. And the same thing with Don. Don has built a club where we think we have the depth in the farm system, we think we’ve got the talent here, we think that this is a very attractive position without a shadow of a doubt. We think a lot of people are going to want to come and work here. As Don said, who is not under contract that can come do it. It’s not a loyalty for loyalty sakes; it’s a loyalty because that is how you build a consistent winner. The analogy that I always use is a golf swing. If you go to four different golf instructors, one will tell you what to do with your feet, one will tell you what to do with your hands, one with your arms, and somebody else with your head, you’re going to have a messed up swing. That’s what happens when you make changes. When you make constant changes in general managers and constant changes in head coaches you’ve get a mixed up philosophy. Your roster is never all that you want it to be.
One thing we’ve said is here’s a blueprint, Billy Knight has a blueprint, Don has a blueprint, lets go with that one, lets leave that in place, lets see how it works. In the case of hockey, back-to-back winning seasons, a division championship, our expectations are definitely to step up to the next level, which is to go deep in the playoffs this year, the performance so far this season was clearly that we weren’t going to do that, so a change had to be made.
It’s not a magic wand because there is somebody different behind the bench. Bob Hartley is an absolute class act. I couldn’t have asked anybody to do more on- and off the ice than he has done, for the community and for marketing he has been a dream, he’s a wonderful person with a great family and we’re sorry for him that it hasn’t worked out and as well we’re sorry for our organization.
Note: Wooden was 22-7 in his first season at UCLA.
|
|
| Permalink |
Trackback |
Comments (2)
Add Comment
|
Re: Bernie Mullin Discusses the Thrashers' Firing of Bob Hartley…and more! |
By Tom on
10/22/2007 9:15 PM |
| Carl, nice comment at the end, re. Wooden? This Bernie guy is a little clueless, I think. The scariest part is him saying that he's ready to stick with Waddell. If Bernie can't see that Waddell is the problem, then Bernie needs to go with him out the door. One step forward last year, two steps back this year. Time for Waddell to go. |
|
|
Re: Bernie Mullin Discusses the Thrashers' Firing of Bob Hartley…and more! |
By Mike on
10/30/2007 2:37 PM |
| Poor judgment on Mullin's part for stating his desire to model the Thrashers after - among others - the Avalanche 'of the past'. Bob Hartley was the head coach for one of the two Cups the Avs won during those model years. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|