Jackets Add Hall of Famer Craig Patrick as Senior Advisor
by Mike MacLean on Dec 7, 2011 3:55 PM EST
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Last summer, whispers began to circulate that the Jackets were interested in hiring an experienced "hockey person" to act as a senior advisor to General Manager Scott Howson. For a time the local fishwrap was throwing Rick Dudely's name around, but Dudley took a job with the Leafs. The move didn't materialize in the summer as many expected, but today the team announced that Hall of Famer Craig Patrick was hired, and given the title of Senior Advisor, Hockey Operations.
Patrick's most recent NHL role was with the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he served as GM from 1989 to 2006, when his contract was not renewed. He won two cups in the '90s with the Pens, and was responsible for drafting Jaromir Jagr, Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury and Evgeni Malkin. His work in the '90s and early 2000s led to success for the Pens, but when the team ran into financial trouble, his hand was forced into making poor trades and signings. He is a three-time recipient of the NHL's Executive of the Year Award.
Along with his successful Penguins teams, Patrick is also well known as the assistant coach/assistant GM of Team USA at the 1980 Olympics, the Miracle on Ice squad.
Personally, I love the hire. Any time you can add another experienced voice to the executive team, it's a win. There is some sentiment that Patrick was past his prime as a GM in the mid-2000s, after mixed results at the draft and some poor trades, but the reality is the draft is a crapshoot and every GM has deals he wishes he could take back. The difference with Patrick, is that in the later years as GM, the team's financial situation was such that he was almost forced into bad trades to save cash, like sending Jagr to Washington for what amounted to three bust prospects and some cash.
Patrick will advise Howson on trades, signings, and he will evaluate the players in the organization from top to bottom, including junior and college prospects. It will be interesting to see what changes will take place this season after Patrick has a chance to evaluate what the team has.
In case your thinking about it- no, I don't think that Patrick was hired because Howson is on the hot seat. Howson is here for the time being, and Patrick was brought on board to cement the decision making coming from the management team. This was a move to help Howson.
Overall, I love it. It's great to add such an experienced hockey mind to the organization.
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The more I think about this, I’m guardedly optimistic. Patrick will be a great source of knowledge for the team, but I’m a bit mixed on how he’ll approach the game. Remember that he basically took most of the last five years off after being dismissed from Pittsburgh because of the bad blood.
That said, he certainly has a lot of experience on building a team (even if, as you say, there were some really questionable trades in his past), and I think he will be a great voice inside the franchise on evaluating talent and deciding where this franchise needs to be headed.
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I’m excited about the team hiring Patrick. We’ve long needed some experienced hockey knowledge at the top of the organization and Patrick will certainly provide that.
I’m not concerned about the few bad trades in his past at all. Remember, he’s being signed as an advisor so he won’t be making any trades any ways. He is basically Howson’s sounding board, a person against whom he can bounce ideas, offers, and strategies who will be able to provide some valuable feedback that is based on first hand experiences.
I still believe Howson is a good GM, but he desperately needs a hockey mind to give him some perspective and to act as a checks/balances type figure. Maybe Patrick’s presence will discourage Howson from signing extensions prematurely and overpaying for players…
I‘m on the fence, honestly. Never hurts to have another good, experienced hockey mind in the building (glaring in your direction, Mike Priest), but at the same time he was very hot and cold as the Pens’ GM. There was a big gap in 1st round success between Jagr/Naslund/Straka picks and Fleury/Sid/Geno… and those last three were almost no-brainers (I mean, who WASN’T going to take Sid #1??).
Speaking of Naslund, Patrick also traded him to the Nucks for essentially nothing. I don’t fault his as much for the Jagr deal, since they were hemorrhaging cash at the time. I don’t disagree that it was bad. But, I feel like it was nudged because of their money problems. I wouldn’t give him a free pass on it at all, but if everyone knows you HAVE to trade someone, it makes it harder to get a big return. As a fan of a team that may or may not have financial concerns if its attendance still sucks for long periods of time, this is at least worth mentioning.
At the end of the day, it probably doesn’t hurt for Howson to have someone other than Priest and McFarland to bounce ideas off of. I won’t immediately say all of our draft woes are fixed or anything. :-) I also can’t imagine Patrick’s going to swoop in and resurrect—eh, wrong word. It implies there was something once living—the franchise if house is cleaned at some point. I think it’s just another pair of hands to help Sisyphus Howson push the boulder up the hill.
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"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations, which is one reason [a] good [woman] so far [has] been very sorry on occasion to have married me." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
I think that this is overall a good thing for the organization. It shows that Howson and Priest may actually understand that they need another voice in management that is not just a "yes"man. I am personally interested in Patrick’s take on not just the players, but most importantly on the coaching staff as well as the organization as a whole. I am not exactly sure what his mandate will be, but as a somewhat “independent” adviser with a lot of proven experience I am hoping that he will not hold back on any front.
I’m a little torn, too. I guess my question is: What’s the point? Why not make an addition like this in the offseason, when many were expecting it? Instead, it just feels like another case of “too little, too late”, though I guess we might have a decent GM waiting in the wings if they ever decide to pull the trigger on Howson.
I just get the feelings all the moves and additions the team makes are attempts to merely patch up a leaky boat, rather than to do the smart thing and just get a new one. A boat can only take so many holes before it eventually sinks anyway. But we’ll see what he brings to the table and if it changes around the team at all.
This is in by no means a way of saving this season. This has to do with the long term situation in Columbus. Whats the point? Might as well get him in and working with a busy trade deadline day for us later this year and busy off season.
I just can’t stand the team’s willingness to throw in the towel so early in the season. Changes could have at least been ATTEMPTED before now in an attempt to at least save some dignity. But instead the organization seemed perfectly fine with watching the season go up in flames with little or no repercussions to anyone involved (except for a few rookies being scratched).
On the other hand, I am a little interested to see what Patrick sees (or doesn’t) in this team and how he plans on correcting the massive amount of problems. Lord only knows he’s got his work cut out for him.
I don’t get the impression he’s being brought in to fix everything. Maybe that’s just my read, but I don’t think he’s being hired to save the team.
Writer for The Cannon - A Columbus Blue Jackets blog
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"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations, which is one reason [a] good [woman] so far [has] been very sorry on occasion to have married me." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Trade for Nikitin, trade for Letestu. That was the “attempt”. I agree that we havent made ENOUGH of an attempt, but we have made some “attempt”. These “attempts” have actually really helped the team. Letestu has thrown in some much needed goals and Nikitan has been surprisingly good, and good enough to play 30 minutes and lower the load of guys like Wiz and Tyutin.
Its a hard market right now, and it takes two teams to make a trade. Most teams want to stick with what they got at the beginning to see what they really have.
I am assuming you are referring to the jobs of Arniel/ Howson when you say “no repercussions to anyone involved”, but to be fair to Priest and those that make the decisions, every time we have gone through a drought like we did, we fired the coach. In ten years, that has never really worked out for us. As much as i wanted/ want Arniel fired, i commend the efforts of Priest and McConnell of trying to create stability and an identity, which takes time to develop.
However, saying " just get the feelings all the moves and additions the team makes are attempts to merely patch up a leaky boat, rather than to do the smart thing and just get a new one" really has nothing to do with this hiring because Patrick is not being brought in for the short term gain. Most of his job entitles moves that are more long term such as draft picks and trades and such. In other words, this really has nothing to do with those on the ice, therefore this move is not to change the season around and make things all better, its simply a job opening we had that needed to be filled, and it happened to get done now.
I love this.
Let’s see, the Penguins can thank him for Jagr, Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury. What a group of players this man has drafted. Hopefully we can add Nail Yakupov to this list.
Fail for Nail!
My dad taught me how to make meat for sloppy joes and my mom let me turn over hot dogs on the grill.
by ChopMaster on Jun 25, 2011 7:25 PM CDT
by justincredubil02 on Jun 28, 2011 9:50 PM EDT reply actions
by ChopMaster on Jul 2, 2011 12:53 PM PDT
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