It is not difficult to always compare what the Pittsburgh Penguins are doing to the Philadelphia Flyers. The cross-state rivals will always be connected to our favorite hockey club so it is now incredibly difficult to see the two teams go through the process in reshaping their front office in almost polar-opposite ways.
The Penguins have not announced who their new general manager is going to be or there hasn’t even been any reports of finalists in the interview process. But, we do know some names that this team are calling and let’s just say that it is a wide variety of reputations.
Penguins were aiming to interview 10-12 GM candidates as part of 1st wave via Zoom.
Marc Bergevin, Eric Tulsky, Jason Karmanos and Peter Chiarelli confirmed as being among those 10-12 candidates who interviewed. Now comes 2nd phase for some of them.— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) May 15, 2023
Marc Bergevin, the former Montreal Canadiens general manager that as big as his biceps were, made questionable decisions for the NHL’s oldest organization. Eric Tulsky, a former writer on this very blog and assistant general manager for the Carolina Hurricanes (we like him). Jason Karmanos has held a job in the NHL for all but one season since 1998 and was the Penguins’ assistant general manager before he went to the Buffalo Sabres in 2021. Peter Chiarelli fluked himself to a Cup with the Boston Bruins and completely ruined a whole lot of other teams like the Edmonton Oilers.
From more data-forward thinkers to a Hockey Men, the Penguins seem to be checking every nook and cranny in available talent to lead their team in a dire situation. Recently fired Penguins GM Ron Hextall wanted to keep the core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang together, to just try and beat the dead horse that is that cornerstone trio but it was built-in with pressure to stay successful. Pittsburgh miss the playoffs (lol) after Hextall approached the trade deadline like he knew his days were numbered (lmao).
Now they need someone to somehow revitalize this roster with limited resources and get somewhat back on track with a plan. Because if you have those three franchise legends already on new contracts, why not just continue kicking the can down the road?
If they hire Tulsky – we do not want to think about that, please God – then he can target undervalued players around the league or sign useful free agents (like he did in Carolina) to help support their embedded stars. Even if they go the route of a more traditional manager like Karmanos or Bergevin, they have been in similar positions with their teams and might be able to figure out what Pittsburgh needs to at least get back into the playoff picture, with their connections around the NHL.
This search is clearly all about variety and really doing their due diligence to find the right fit for the Penguins.
I would like to personally apologize for making you read so much about the Pittsburgh Penguins, but it’s all connected, trust me.
Remember when I mentioned that we like to compare the Flyers to the Penguins? Well, the Flyers announced earlier that Danny Briere will be taking the position as general manager and Keith Jones will be the President of Hockey Operations.
There was an interview process for Jones’s new role and they landed on the former Flyer, but was there even anything in place to see what was out there for the position of general manager?
At the introductory press conference last Friday, Comcast Spectacor CEO and Flyers alternative governor Dan Hilferty was asked if they went through any interview process for their search for a general manager before landing on Briere.
“I can only answer from my perspective,” Hilferty said via The Athletic’s Charlie O’Connor. “When the transition in leadership was going on in hockey, I was simply just trying to find my way around the building. Dave Scott was really great about educating me as he and others were thinking about who’s the next leader from a General Manager perspective. I got to know Danny, I can tell you from a personal point of view, watching him as a leader, as a well-organized, experienced person in the space, interim tag or not, I can tell you from the first day that we really interacted, I viewed him as the next GM of the Philadelphia Flyers. So, the process went on in my head, conversations with Valerie, just watching how he and Torts interacted, we just felt strongly there was no need for a process. We had our General Manager.”
It is true that Hilferty was only added as part of the Flyers’ leadership when Dave Scott left Comcast Spectacor, back in late March, just a week or so after the Flyers fired Chuck Fletcher from the general manager role and Briere already had the interim title. So, the process might have already been in place and the decision made before Hilferty was even privy to any information.
But, considering that Hilferty already “viewed him as the next GM” and the process for him was just simply meeting with himself and making the decision based on no outside information, we can somewhat deduce that there was no real interview process. And certainly not an extensive and wide-ranging one like the Penguins are doing right now.
It has almost been a foregone conclusion for years now that Briere will take a substantial role in the Flyers front office. He has been molded and cast into becoming a leader in Philadelphia ever since he retired from playing professional hockey in 2015. Briere immediately took the role of special assistant to the GM for the 2015-16 season until in 2017 he went to the ECHL’s Maine Mariners to be their VP of Hockey Operations and eventually took the GM and President title for that organization.
After he learned the ropes in the minors, he was added as a team consultant for the Flyers in 2020, then back to his special assistant role under Chuck Fletcher for one year, and then eventually crowned full-time general manager for the Flyers.
All of this is to say: Like, duh, he is of course the Flyers’ GM right now.
The path has been laid out for him. An eight-year long red carpet unrolled from the ice to the front office. No exhaustive search was needed because the Flyers organization has kept Briere in their back pocket as an option for several years, making sure he hits the right buttons and says the right things to move up to this role.
Maybe it will all work out. We know that Briere accepted the use of analytics and data on his hockey decisions with open arms, so it’s not like they are getting a rugged enforcer saying that the Flyers just need to “play harder” or something. But to not even just look like you’re going through an interview process with some other names is an odd choice.
This could all be just looking at the Penguins make a smart decision in the coming days when it comes to naming their new general manager, and casting jealous looks over the Pennsylvanian rolling hills. Or just wanting something different than what was already set in stone years ago. But it does just feel like not every option was considered when making this decision and the new people in charge didn’t want to shake things up too much with an interview process after Briere already had the interim title next to his name.
Even if they came to this conclusion after an interview process, I’m sure most of us would be giddy at the thought of Briere being at the top instead of Fletcher or some other dude they talked to. But the optics aren’t the best and we are just jealous that we couldn’t claim that the General Manager of the Philadelphia Flyers used to write on this blog.
