Hiring practices in major sports leagues have been behind the microscope. Especially in the NFL, where overly qualified black candidates it seems that it cannot advance jobs to whites that apparently do not come from nothing, or that are retreaded, or if it is the Lions he finds a boy who had passed the previous decade banging his head against a door with Goldberg. But football is not a problem.
Anything related to the NHL career is a huge problem. Everyone knows that. The league only has one black assistant coach and one black GM assistant. But maybe before the league can get to a point where it can push teams to hire more minorities, you may have to push teams to hire people who aren’t idiots in the first place. And, based on current evidence, they are many miles away from that.
The Pittsburgh Penguins had been on the market for a new GM since Jim Rutherford resigned just at dawn this season. Today they have not only done so find a glass to occupy that position who has done almost nothing to deserve it, but then they found the king of the little ones to supervise him.
First, they hired Ron Hextall as GM. Hextall’s old stage as a GM came with rivals from various state Flyers, and there’s not much that would make anyone get up from their chair and shout, “I have to have this guy!” His writing record is acceptable, maybe even good. Hextall added Travis Sanheim, Oskar Lindblom, Ivan Provorov, Travis Konecny, Carter Hart and Nolan Patrick. No article is finished yet, and two of them have been plagued by physical illness, but they are still very promising, but more promising than production.
But none of that made a difference for the Flyers, who never finished above third in the division in Hextall’s tenure. And some of his other decisions were baffling. It highlights Brayden Schenn’s trade in St. Louis for someone who claimed to be called Jori Lehtera and was called a hockey player.
G / O Media may receive a commission
He managed to fire Craig Berube after a season as coach, and then watch Berube and Schenn win a Cup with the Blues two years ago … That served to hire Dave Hakstol, whose best claim was his the name sounded like Hextall’s.
It could be argued that the basis of this current Flyers team that currently leads the teams that are still in the East division has its fingerprints, so maybe we can let it go for now. The Penguins will clearly need some success on the draft considering the age of their key players and their goal situation, and they may think Hextall’s record is enough to project that he is the man for it. Arguable, but not a crime.
The real stupid thing is that the Penguins also hire Brian Burke as president of Hockey Ops. While we should all be glad that Burke and his bewildered and more confused Don Cherry were acting out of our TVs, but it’s baffling how he’s gotten another place in the league. Burke could be the biggest scam in the world, somehow camouflaged by the love the hockey media liked because he challenged a guy to fight once in a barn. If it’s a barn, or you just say “barn,” hockey writers will abandon it.
Burke’s brilliance comes from being the Anaheim Ducks ’GM when they won their only Stanley Cup, almost entirely with players who were there when Burke arrived. The only thing he added to that team was to collect property that he did not acquire or write for Chris Pronger, which he had ordered from Edmonton. This is. And that’s as good as ever for the Ducks.
Burke was able to take that success and its rude nature, and convinced the Toronto Maple Leafs to hire him as GM, where his opening press conference he gave Don Cherry the last erection he ever had (enjoy the rest of the day). And that’s it. He used “truculence” correctly in one sentence. Upload a banner.
The Leafs didn’t get a $ 50 taxi ride through a playoff spot, and included giving up those first two players for Phil Kessel, swapping Dion Phaneuf’s dead ass, and drafting exactly two useful NHLers in four attempts, Nazem Kadri and Morgan. Rielly. Oh, and then he was basically Calgary’s advisor for five years, where they won exactly one playoff series. Caramullat touch of Midas, this boy.
And just for kicks, Burke was a major voice in the construction of the 2014 U.S. Olympic team and the 2016 World Cup that won exactly the cock. This guy has changed his look all the time with the reputation he has made almost without winning.
There is a clear lack of innovation in the NHL, and that is that teams continue to hire the same 40 men in the GM sphere or in the coach. Everyone is a “good hockey guy,” no matter what he has done or probably has not done.
As a reward for mediocrity, Hextall and Burke try to get another Cup to Sidney Crosby.
In the NHL, if you get a job, you have 17.