11-05-2021, 07:30 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: The thing about the GM position is that the requirements have changed so much and that goes way beyond punishments or PT passes. In the past, what you needed to be a successful GM was a general interest in the management side of hockey and the right demeanor to be able to build an enjoyable locker room.

Nowadays however, the one key competence needed is being a big FHM nerd.

That simply is much less enticing and interesting for most people, especially since putting in the effort and acquiring that FHM-knowledge from scratch is a daunting task as it takes a long time and still doesn't nearly guarantee you any kind of success, as the established teams are so far ahead of you and many have multiple people with lots of FHM-experience in their front office that you can never catch up to, who are able to spend hours upon hours every week on optimizing their rosters and strategies.

At the same time, the other aspects of GMing like trade talks, prospect cultivation and locker room building seem to have become less important. There is less movement of players between teams both due to the cap situation and due to the fact that most people value staying with their group of buddies more than chasing money or ice time at a new team. So it has also become harder to gain any kind of edge through your "soft skills", which I think probably was the part of GMing that a lot of people have enjoyed the most in the past.

I think this is partly true. Yes FHM knowledge has become arguably the most important part of being a GM (and I will admit Boom carries me on that side of things) but you can't ignore the soft skills. You still want to be someone that the players like as a GM, as it helps with both retention and attracting free agents. It helps in trade talks as well as other GM's would prefer to work with GM's who aren't dicks. And finally prospects know now more than ever about team cultures and if they hear that yours isn't great, they could always tell you they don't want to be picked by you. I will say that yes FHM is my least favorite part of GM'ing, and probably most important, and hopefully HO can take a look and not make it the end all be all of the league so newer GM's like me aren't automatically screwed trying to catch up to the HAM, BUF, and CHI's in FHM knowledge.