1) In a move that really should surprise no one the Chicago Black Hawks fired their GM Dale Tallon and replaced him with long time asst GM Stan Bowman. If you recognize that last name its for good reason. Stan is the son of Hall of Fame coach and Black Hawks senior advisor Scotty Bowman. Nepotism? Nah. LOL
2) As Fauxrumors outlined just last week Tallon was guilty of gross incompetence revolving around the sending out Qualifying offers late to retain his RFA's. Resulting in some getting considerably more than they otherwise would have expected to make, and plunging the team into a possible salary cap nightmare if not this, then certainly next season. The incident was an embarrassing one for the club and the NHLPA filed a grievance with the league. Some are saying that it was not a major factor in the change, but there is little doubt that it had an effect. As one scout told us this morning, "If Dale doesn't screw up the QF's(qualifying offers) he's still GM today!"
3) As for Tallon this ends a long tenure with the team as player, broadcaster and in various roles in the organization. Tallon became GM in 2005 and helped the club draft players like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Towes. With a crop of solid young talent, the Black Hawks showed steady improvement over the past few years. Last season, Chicago made the playoffs for the first time since 2002. The young and skilled lineup made it all the way to Western Conference final, but lost to the Detroit Red Wings in five games. In our opinion he did a good enough job to not lose his job for this recent transgression. Hey Don Waddell stil has a job, right? (but the writing had to be on the wall when Scotty joined his son within the organization.) This started the purge that started last fall with the ousting of Savard as coach and replaced with a coach that Bowman had personally brought into the organization (Joel Quenneville). The younger Bowman takes over a team many see as Cup contenders. Not a bad gig to step into to.
3 comments:
Can't say I am surprised. He has not done well managing the cap space this off season. That plus Huet's brutal contract and letting 'Bulin go made for a bad off season.
One point of correction for you though: The sending out of qualifying offers is typically a duty of the Assistant GM. The GM would make the decision about who to qualify and not qualify (in consultation with his staff) and then the duty of making up the QO's and sending them out is typically the job of the Assistant GM in pretty much any NHL franchise. There is no negotiation involved, simply a standard contract with the qualifying amount on it.
That said, despite it being the Assistant GM's job, as with everything else, the buck stops somewhere.
Peter:
1) Wouldn't the person who was supposed to be responsible for sending out those QO's have been the man who replaced Tallon? Interesting.
2) In retrospect the Huet contract wasn't a great deal, but the original Khabibulin contract was a mistake. The team was far from ready to compete yet paid a goalie better than top dollar for too many years.
3) There are GM's still employed who have made FAR worse decisions and still maintained their jobs. Overall Tallon has done a pretty good job assembling a team that looks ready to compete for a Cup. A whole lot better than they looked 4 years ago when Tallon first took over!
Howdy boys.
I'm going to have to disagree with Tallon being the fulcrum to those things that...well, if it was his...we'd all be for firing him.
I wrote a piece on it on my new hockey blog, TheFastertimes.com/hockey which also included the Havlat twitter fiasco
http://thefastertimes.com/hockey/2009/07/15/tittered-by-twitter-the-story-of-an-nhl-player-a-gm-dismissal-and-some-dirty-laundry/
Cheers,
BD
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