It has been more than a week since Peter Chiarelli was fired as general manger and president of hockey operations of the Edmonton Oilers and, according to Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston, the team has yet to hold a single interview to find his replacement.
“Part of that is procedural,” Johnston explained Saturday during the Headlines segment of Hockey Night in Canada. “It’s during the season and some of the best candidates — someone like Kelly McCrimmon, the assistant GM of the Vegas Golden Knights — would not be able to speak at this time, but another strong candidate in [London Knights GM] Mark Hunter would be and they still have not yet progressed with talks there.”
The 2019 NHL Trade Deadline is Feb. 25 yet the team is seemingly in no rush to have a GM in place before then.
“You could be looking at a stretch of a couple months before they really get to work on replacing Chiarelli,” Johnston added.
Keith Gretzky was tasked with shouldering most of the GM duties following Chiarelli’s dismissal.
Oilers CEO Bob Nicholson told Sportsnet’s Gene Principe he wants “to make sure the general manager really can evaluate the players.”
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