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Confirmed with Link: CBJ hire Don Waddell as President of Hockey Operations and General Manager. JD to serve as Senior Advisor

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MoeBartoli said:
Who is he?
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Mark Scheig said that he could be wrong but his sense is that nothing official will be announced today - more likely tomorrow or Thursday because of administrative things.

Then a few minutes later Portzline tweeted the official confirmation.
 
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I’m happy about this move. Maybe the Jackets could have done better, but I don’t know who that “better” would be. It seems like a good, sound and safe higher with the rest of the storybook be written when he makes a coaching and future GM hire.
 
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I’m hoping he doesn’t keep his PHOP + GM title for long. As we saw with Dougie Mac, multiple minds are always better than one at this level.

As long as it isn’t Holland, I’d like Waddell to hire a GM after one season at the absolute latest. Preferably soon though.
 
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Why are they giving one guy, two roles? Hope they hire a GM, one guy with absolute autonomy feels like a bad move. Even if old man JD is there to advise.
 
GoJackets1 said:
I’m hoping he doesn’t keep his PHOP + GM title for long. As we saw with Dougie Mac, multiple minds are always better than one at this level.

As long as it isn’t Holland, I’d like Waddell to hire a GM after one season at the absolute latest. Preferably soon though.
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Well the problem here was the person, not necessarily the situation. He wouldve struggled with one role, let alone multiple..
 
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spintheblackcircle said:
Vegas won the Cup last year with a 1st time GM
Colorado won 2 years ago with a 1st time GM
Tampa won 3 and 4 years ago with a 1st time GM

It's been since '18-19 since an experienced GM won the Cup.
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Kelly McCrimmon had been intimately involved with Vegas since day 1.

Sakic built the Avs. MacFarland was a beneficiary of Sakic's work.

Brisbois inherited the roster that Yzerman created.
 
I'm just glad it's done. Now we can turn our attention to analyzing his past habits to try to extrapolate. Plenty of stuff to bitch about there. Tony DeAngelo, you are now a Columbus Blue Jacket, for example.
 
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Feels like a swing for a double. Tulsky or Darche are the homerun swings where you either look like a genius or an idiot for hiring the next great franchise architect or the kid in over his head. I also suspect that getting permission to talk to any of the rising stars is a huge challenge as none of those franchises are looking to part with their heir apparents.

Waddel feels like the next step guy. We went from embarassement (MacLean) to a doormat (Howson) to below average(Jarmo). Waddel should take us to being where Carolina is now (perrenial playoff contender) and hopefully we can get lucky and develop some talent and picks to the point we can actually have a shot at a cup and eventually building an organization worthy of being in a conversation about regularly contending for a cup.
 
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alphafox said:
Feels like a swing for a double. Tulsky or Darche are the homerun swings where you either look like a genius or an idiot for hiring the next great franchise architect or the kid in over his head. I also suspect that getting permission to talk to any of the rising stars is a huge challenge as none of those franchises are looking to part with their heir apparents.

Waddel feels like the next step guy. We went from embarassement (MacLean) to a doormat (Howson) to below average(Jarmo). Waddel should take us to being where Carolina is now (perrenial playoff contender) and hopefully we can get lucky and develop some talent and picks to the point we can actually have a shot at a cup and eventually building an organization worthy of being in a conversation about regularly contending for a cup.
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If you hit lots of doubles you still score multiple runs. Not every run has to come off 1 swing of the bat.
 
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Iron Balls McGinty said:
If you hit lots of doubles you still score multiple runs. Not every run has to come off 1 swing of the bat.
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Agree. Personally, I like the hire. I think the front office needs an overhaul in terms of personnel and structure top to bottom. Waddell appears to have been instrumental in creating the group that put Carolina into its current era and doing a bottom's up review to determine who and what is working is fundamental to the team actually making progress. I suspect that year 1 will be a lot of unsexy moves that will eventually prove critical to a new era of jackets hockey. As much as I would love to trim the roster and start making moves asap I suspect that roster moves will be the last things we actually see as far as changes go.
 
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At least they've turned the rudder some and set a new course. Its what we called for so no batching from me. I would like a new coach though to continue the shift. The grooming of Rick Nash may have begun in earnest?

They'll make JD stick it out and earn his keep.
 
Like many of you I'm hoping Waddell gets a GM in place before long and it's not just him. My confidence on his hire heavily depends on it.

CannonFire1 said:
While I was not a big fan of the teams he coached, I have enjoyed some of the leadership books written by Tony Dungy. One thing he writes about often is the importance of failure as a stepping stone to future success (provided one learns from past mistakes and remains open to trying new methods).

For those not familiar with Dungy's history, he was demoted from Defensive Coordinator back to DB coach by the Steelers in the late 80's, later became Head Coach of Tampa Bay and had a successful run in the 90's, but was fired from that job due to not winning a Super Bowl. He later won the Super Bowl as coach of the Colts. Dungy credits those setbacks with helping him re-evaluate, adapt, and finally reach his ultimate goal.

What does that have to do with Waddell? Maybe nothing. But I view it as a positive that he found much more success in his most recent role than he did with Atlanta. Unless he plans on reverting to things that didn't work for him in the past (which seems illogical and highly unlikely) then his Atlanta results don't concern me much.
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Having a veteran in charge who has made many mistakes and learned from them is completely fine.

I think there is a tendency to imagine perfection in some of the first time candidates. It's not realistic.

alphafox said:
Feels like a swing for a double. Tulsky or Darche are the homerun swings where you either look like a genius or an idiot for hiring the next great franchise architect or the kid in over his head. I also suspect that getting permission to talk to any of the rising stars is a huge challenge as none of those franchises are looking to part with their heir apparents.
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My tenuous understanding of how it works is that we can talk to anyone around the league as long as it is for a position that is technically enough of a promotion.

So all assistant GMs are fair game.

We were denied from talking to Jeff Gorton because he is high up enough in the Montreal hierarchy.

cbjthrowaway said:
i'm surprised we're not seeing more of the "ron francis made a lot of great moves that set the foundation for the waddell-era canes" critiques (this one is pretty valid, but also a clear parallel to what jarmo did here)

still, it's a home run hire imo. he's not just a roster builder, he's a department builder. in carolina, he built and oversaw what was unequivocally the smartest hockey ops department in the league. the waddell-era canes are basically the tampa bay rays of hockey – a small market team that out-evaluates and outsmarts the rest of the league despite having frugal ownership.

all of that is very translatable to a blue jackets organization that already has strong analytics infrastructure, has high-end player facilities, a war chest of assets and a young cornerstone player in fantilli.
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Tulsky and Yorke (and anyone Canes fans bother to name) were also hired by Francis, they were already in the room when Waddell was hired to run the hockey side in Carolina in 2018.

He didn't build that department.

What he deserves credit for is working well with it.

If you think we have the right people already in the room then I can see why you'd be more confident in the hire. I hear good things about Flynn and our analytics staff - Urback, Weissbock, and Lawrence. I don't really know enough about what they've been recommending vs what Jarmo has done in the last couple years. Obviously the team has been making bad moves for a couple years.
 
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I'm going to copy this in here from a Canes fan:

TheReelChuckFletcher said:
No, I wouldn't say that. Waddell was an important voice for the team, both on matters of contract/cap management and on matters of getting the new lease agreement signed and planning for the expansion of the PNC Arena entertainment complex. Tulsky's role is pro scouting and analytics and Yorke's role is both pro and amateur scouting. I think that Columbus did well here in getting him on board; what I would hope for Jackets fans, though, is that he has the sort of competent people in the pro and amateur scouting departments of Columbus like he did in Carolina.
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Our pro scouting record in the last few years has been the biggest weakness of our FO.
 
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I'm not nearly as excited as most CBJ fans. Admittedly, I don't really know that much about the guy, so part of that is ignorance on my part. But I feel like this franchise has been holding its hand up to the hot burner on the stove for a long time. This just feels like taking your hand away from the stove. It's still going to take a long time to recover from the burns.
 
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