Well hockey fans, we officially have a trend.
When the Toronto Maple Leafs introduce Brendan Shanahan as team president on Monday, the league’s former discipline czar will become the fourth high-profile former player to take a powerful front office job in the past 12 months. Shanahan’s hiring comes on the heels of the Colorado Avalanche naming Joe Sakic executive vice-president of hockey operations last May, the Buffalo Sabres tabbing Pat LaFontaine as president of hockey operations in the fall and the Vancouver Canucks giving Trevor Linden to the same job title just a few days ago.
Obviously both the Leafs and Canucks are hoping to follow the Avalanche example more so than the one set by Buffalo, where LaFontaine held his position for just a few months, leaving under still-murky circumstances one day after the GM he hired—Tim Murray—traded star goalie Ryan Miller to St. Louis. Whatever occurred with the Sabres, it must in some way speak to the dangers of having too many cooks in the kitchen.
While the approach of putting a hockey person ahead of the team’s GM on the front office depth chart is becoming more popular, it’s not an entirely new phenomenon. By our count, eight teams have either a former player or former GM positioned higher on the organizational food chain than the current GM. That includes people like Jim Devellano in Detroit and John Davidson in Columbus, two men who nobody suspects of being overly meddlesome in the hockey decisions made by their team’s general managers. Beyond Colorado, Toronto, Vancouver, Detroit and Columbus, the Edmonton Oilers have employed Kevin Lowe as president of hockey operations since 2008, the Boston Bruins installed Cam Neely as team president in 2010 and the Calgary Flames jumped in on the current trend when they hired Brian Burke as president of hockey operations last summer.
Something is obviously going right in Boston, where the Bruins have made two trips to the Stanley Cup final on Neely’s watch, winning in 2011. At the other end of the spectrum, Lowe has been the subject of intense vitriol over perceptions that Edmonton’s front office, which features Craig MacTavish as GM, is nothing more than an Oilers old boys club.
In terms of the Bruins, it’s interesting things have worked so well despite the fact Chiarelli’s term as GM predated Neely’s hiring. Logically, you’d expect these structures to work best when the hiring happens from the top down. That way, everybody should be clear on the boundaries and expectations from the beginning, just as it is when a GM hires his own coach. Despite that not being the case with the Bruins—and some serious speculation that Chiarelli might have been moved out had Boston not survived a game seven overtime scare versus the Montreal Canadiens in 2011—Neely and Chiarelli have found a way to make it work. By contrast, Burke moved Jay Feaster, the GM he inherited in Calgary, out the door just a few months after being hired.
So what do people like Shanahan, Sakic and Neely—men who had no previous experience running a team—bring to a club? It’s not like Shanahan can teach Dave Nonis, who has years’ worth of front office sweat on his resume, anything about negotiating contracts or how to run a scouting department. And if Shanahan is suddenly selecting the players Toronto acquires, why is Nonis even there? Assuming the man who holds the GM tag is empowered to make final player personnel decisions, where someone like Shanahan can really help—beyond the knowledge he gained working for the league—is leveraging the enormous credibility he built during a Hall of Fame career. Don’t kid yourself; a phone call from a three-time Cup winner to an in-demand free agent who may have grown up idolizing Shanny could sway which way a pen gets stroked. Beyond that, assuming he can maintain a respectful distance day to day, having another set of eyes informed by a lifetime in the game can’t hurt when you’re trying to forge a contender.
That is provided, of course, everybody goes into this with their eyes open in terms of precisely how the power structure works. Otherwise, the potential for conflict is always right around the corner.