A Few Quick Thoughts on the Next GM
Which lane will Chris Ilitch choose?
No, I’m not suggesting Eric Tulsky as the next GM
With the news of Steve Yzerman being moved out of the President of Hockey Operations and General Manager role in Detroit, it’s natural to think about whom Chris Ilitch will appoint to fill these roles? I’m not going to throw out names, at least not until we get some reporting on people being considered, so instead what I’m going to do with this short article — I’m on vacation with my son right now — is highlight the type of backgrounds of some of the most successful General Managers in the NHL.
The Former Player Agent
Kent Hughes has the Montreal Canadiens on a trajectory they haven’t seen in nearly 30 years. Hughes has built out a young core that makes Les Habs an exciting team to watch, and he hired Martin St Louis to drive the bus. It’s not unreasonable to view the Hughes and St Louis combo favorably when comparing it to Eric Tulsky and Rod Brind’Amour’s partnership in Carolina.
Vancouver was a forerunner in appointing former agent Mike Gillis’ as Vancouver GM just over 18 years ago and the Canucks had an impressive run, winning their division five straight seasons while making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2011.
Hiring a former player-agent would be an understandable pivot if Chris Ilitch found the Yzerman approach of treating contract negotiations as a bloodsport to be counter-productive. With Elliotte Friedman reporting that Yzerman had a philosophical issue with signing young players to big contracts, combined with the difficulty of getting Alex DeBrincat and Simon Edvinsson signed to new deals, there’s reason to think an agent would be better suited to making players feel more valued.
NHL owners have cost certainty in the form of a salary cap, so grinding players on money and term can be counter-productive — which is something Pat Verbeek and Henry Samueli just found out.
The Stat Savant
If you are familiar with Moneyball, you likely have one of two thoughts: you either acknowledge the role advanced statistical analysis has played across the entire professional sports landscape, or you lament the fact the eye test is no longer the sole method for identifying talent.
We’re far enough along with the stats-based era for most fans to at least have heard of Corsi and Fenwick metrics, if not have a good handle on what they measure. Carolina GM Eric Tulsky is the current poster child for statistical analysis-based GM’ing, having served as a contributor to Broad Street Hockey due to growing up as a Flyers fan before eventually becoming an NHL exec.
John Chayka was one of the first data-centric GMs in the NHL, working for an Arizona Coyote franchise that needed any advantage it could find. The youngest GM in league history, Chayka was hired at the age of 26 and ran the Coyotes franchise for 4 seasons. The franchise continued to struggle, but the underlying issues that resulted in them playing games in a college hockey arena before eventually ceasing operations certainly made his job nearly impossible.
Chayka was recently named general manager for the Toronto Maple Leafs, with former TML GM Kyle Dubas now serving the same role for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Dubas is another young GM who is comfortable with advanced analytics, but struggled to sign and ultimately build around the Core Four of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander.
What History May Tell Us
Chris Ilitch had to replace Al Avila as his GM when the Detroit Tigers needed new leadership following an 8 year playoff drought. Avila, it should be noted, was part of previous GM Dave Dombrowski’s management team, but stayed behind when Dombrowski parted ways with the Tigers organization in order to join the Red Sox front office.
When Chris Ilitch decided it was time to move on from Avila, he went with a guy who didn’t play the sport or begin his career as a scout. Instead, he hired Jeff Greenberg, a guy with an Ivy League education and a law degree, who had a reasonably long career with the Chicago Cubs before taking a brief pit stop to help manage the Chicago Blackhawks.
Jeff Greenberg talked a bit about his background when he was hired to lead the Tigers:
I was lucky enough to get two summer internships for the Pittsburgh Pirates when I was an undergrad, and it took me, like, three days to realize, ‘This is what I want to do.’
This was in 2006, and Michael Lewis’ Moneyball had been published a few years before. There were all these new ideas out there; Theo Epstein had won a World Series in Boston by incorporating a data analytics approach to managing the Red Sox. So it felt like there could be opportunities for individuals like me, who didn’t necessarily play professional baseball, in a team’s front office.
Under Greenberg, the Tigers have made the playoffs in 2 of the past 3 seasons, with an outside shot at making the post season this year despite suffering through a horrific string of injuries.
Then there’s the fact the Ilitch family likely doesn’t have the financial might to compete with MLB powerhouses like the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets, so getting the most out of their budget makes a lot of sense, and as such, I can appreciate the pivot from a manager like Dave Dombrowski to Jeff Greenberg.
While the NHL has a salary cap, the Ilitch family has spent somewhere in the vicinity of $750 million on player salaries over the past decade without making a single penny in playoff revenue. My guess is Chris Ilitch is unlikely to sign up for 5+ years of another rebuild, so someone steeped in analytics may be able to build a team that can compete for a playoff spot in the near term, finally bringing postseason play to Little Caesars Arena.
The Hockey Ops and General Manager Conundrum
I don’t want to delve too far into the weeds on the relationship between the person tasked with overseeing operations and the one handling GM duties, other than to point out there have been cases where the President of Hockey Ops was the de facto GM which served to neuter the actual GM.
This happened in Vancouver with Jim Rutherford serving as President of Hockey Operations but also involving himself with GM duties from time to time. It was reported that Vancouver’s actual GM at the time — Patrik Allvin — told anyone interested in making an offer on Quinn Hughes that Rutherford was running point on those negotiations. Add in the fact the Canucks are notorious for having a very hands-on owner, and you can see how things could go very badly if you have a hockey ops guy who still wants to try his hand at GM’ing.
The good news for anyone considering the roles in Detroit is the Ilitch family in general and Chris Ilitch in particular are notorious for being very hands off. They will let their hockey leadership group cook.
Making the Most of a Crisis
Thinking in very broad terms, I do like the concept of a President of Hockey Operations who is very comfortable with advanced analytics and as a result would set the strategic direction of the franchise. Hiring someone from the player agent side who is also comfortable with advanced stats to be GM would likely increase the odds of both maximizing the team’s budget while keeping players happy.
Those of us who have followed this team for a long time can remember back to when Detroit was the first team in the NHL to have their own private plane which made travel much easier for the team compared to commercial travel. Mike Ilitch hired the best, paid them, and treated them like royalty.
It’s time for Chris to take a page out of his father’s playbook and hire the best in the business to run his front office.