Confirmed with Link: Don Waddell Resigns not be confused with Re-Sign

[TheReelChuckFletcher]

So, now that Tulsky is the interim GM, this is where things get interesting. I still see Williams as being the more public face here if he's still around because literally who in hockey, from GMs to players to agents, doesn't know Justin friggin Williams.

Being the public face of the Canes makes sense in the POHO position. I wouldn't be surprised if that's how they divvy it up.

Interesting. So this was Don's choice, not Dundon's

https://x.com/i/web/status/1794047388643971283

Based on how this message was worded, it certainly seems like Strickland is right.

 

[chaz4hockey]

Interesting. So this was Don's choice, not Dundon's

Difficult to tell seeing the quote saying "even if asked to return". In times like this a lot of chaff hits the airwaves and hard to tell what's truth or not.

I circle back to the idea that he is 65, the roster needs a major rebuild with all the free agents and add to it the extremely heavy bureaucratic workload forthcoming with PNC re-development.

Who needs that at his age? I wouldn't want that.

Add to it, best time to leave is now after a franchise that has been rehabilitated.

Edit: also how RBA's contract renewal situation was handled by Dundon was perhaps distasteful to him.

 

[LBS I Digress]

I wonder who they would go after if it’s not Tulsky.

 

[Joe McGrath]

Maybe he doesn't want/need the stress in his life of build a cup roster or its a failure anymore. He cant make Columbus any worse.

 

[Rick Davis]

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I wonder who they would go after if it’s not Tulsky.

I hear Sara Civian is available!

 

[TheReelChuckFletcher]

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I wonder who they would go after if it’s not Tulsky.

How does Tom Dundon see the GM role? That's the key question IMO.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

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I wonder who they would go after if it’s not Tulsky.

Williams' name was thrown around yesterday.

 

[Chrispy]

TD put into Chat GPT what available former GMs have similair traits to Rod Brind’amour?

"If you are looking for a legendary center for the Carolina Hurricanes franchise who has experience as a general manager and has lived in the Raleigh-Durham area, the first name that comes to mind is Seattle Kraken GM Ron Francis."

 

[Sens1Canes2]

It could be he has had a falling out over something. Or, it could be it is just time to move on for him. He's been with the organization for 10 years. Unless you are an athletic trainer, that is a long time for an organization.

I mean, is it that complicated? It’s $$$. He wants X, Dundon doesn’t pay what he doesn’t think it’s “worth.”

Which is funny for a guy who blew thru millions on a football league for no good reason.

But I digress.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

I mean, is it that complicated? It’s $$$. He wants X, Dundon doesn’t pay what he doesn’t think it’s “worth.”

Which is funny for a guy who blew thru millions on a football league for no good reason.

But I digress.

Unless there’s evidence that it’s a money thing, let’s not start that rumor. Lord knows there’s already enough misguided “Dundon cheap” narrative out there without this adding on to it.

 

[Negan4Coach]

Oh great so more of a ponderous fixation on analytics, and most likely coupled with a personality unequipped to conduct powerful negotiations.

 

[Rick Davis]

Unless there’s evidence that it’s a money thing, let’s not start that rumor. Lord knows there’s already enough misguided “Dundon cheap” narrative out there without this adding on to it.

I think the “cheap Dundon” narrative went out the window when (at least for us) we swung for the fences with the Guentzel/Kuzy trade deadline acquisitions. Now our fearless owner needs to do the same thing and find a GM who can take us to the desired next level…promoting Tulsky would be a lazy hire IMHO.

 

[SlavinAway]

Now our fearless owner needs to do the same thing and find a GM who can take us to the desired next level…promoting Tulsky would be a lazy hire IMHO.

JR 2.0 incoming

 

[Chrispy]

I think the “cheap Dundon” narrative went out the window when (at least for us) we swung for the fences with the Guentzel/Kuzy trade deadline acquisitions. Now our fearless owner needs to do the same thing and find a GM who can take us to the desired next level…promoting Tulsky would be a lazy hire IMHO.

Not IMO. They aren't moving away from the committee approach that has taken them this far.

Any GM who is going to want big $$ is also going to want to be the final decision maker in the room. That's not how Carolina operates, and I don't see Dundon shifting away from that.

Look for younger AGMs or people who would be the front of house as a President or Director (JWill as many have suggested) while Tulsky and Yorke keep doing what they've been doing.

 

[Canes]

Meh

Good luck to Donny Wads in his future endeavors

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Oh great so more of a ponderous fixation on analytics, and most likely coupled with a personality unequipped to conduct powerful negotiations.

I share the concern about the second part of this, but not the first.

Dundon’s whole thing was to create a high functioning organization, to run this like a business. Waddell was a manager of a decision making system that took all parties into account. I highly doubt Tulsky was somehow unheard or in disagreement with this approach, and if somehow he was, I don’t think Dundon will let him simply run things differently now that he’s GM.

That’s why I never really understood the “promote Tulsky” crowd unless it was a truly defensive maneuver (meaning, to keep him from going elsewhere). I don’t think, from an analytics perspective, Tulsky will do anything now that he wasn’t doing then. The system was designed to receive all inputs - Tulsky wasn’t being silenced. If anything, we better hope Tulsky put together a pretty good team underneath him while he was AGM, because he’s not gonna have the time to be as hands on with the analytics or player analysis anymore.

In a way, I’m maybe a bit concerned that we’re “losing” Tulsky. Having listened to interviews in the past (and I admit this is as snap a judgment as snap judgments go), he seems like a soft spoken guy who’d be very happy to continue diving into the player and systems analysis piece, and might be a fish out of water when it comes to all the “bravado” pieces that Waddell did so well (contract and trade negotiations, media relations, etc.) Now, Tulsky’s an ambitious guy, so of course he wants to try to be a GM and more power to him, I’m sure another organization would benefit immensely. But as it stands today, I think we’re worse off, because we’ve promoted a guy out of a very specific role that he’s very good at and have effectively asked him to divert his attention away from that.


An analogy since many of you are in/from the engineering/tech world: we’ve taken our most brilliant Lead Engineer and promoted him to Engineering Manager. Some guys thrive at that, others don’t. But either way, now that he’s an Engineering Manager he’s not going to be hands-on-keyboard designing products and systems, he’s gonna be wrangling a bunch of other engineers. Seen it go very well and very poorly a lot of times. Hopefully for Tulsky and for us it goes very well.

 

[TheReelChuckFletcher]

That’s why I never really understood the “promote Tulsky” crowd unless it was a truly defensive maneuver (meaning, to keep him from going elsewhere).

That's almost exactly what that is. Tulsky has been an outside candidate for GM before, and it's very likely that if the goal of the Canes organization is to maintain their FO talent that has finally gotten them to sustained success, they need to consider promoting Tulsky and Yorke to higher roles.

 

[HisIceness]

Well this puts a damper on my memorial day weekend but I suppose it's better than having this happen before the draft and free agency.

Thanks Don. You definitely did better than I gave you credit for. Good luck in your next endeavor, or potentially happy retirement.

I'm not sure how I feel about Tulsky getting this job. I know the dude is super smart and has been an assistant GM for 3 years now but this is the kind of offseason I'd feel better with Waddell at the helm. Not just the free agent situation but also trying to convince Nikishin to come over.

 

[robbieberns]

Definitely strange timing with this coming so soon after the coaching staff extensions and the how he was taking questions about the future of this team as the active GM in his press availability on Monday.

Obviously we’re not privy to any of the real goings on in these discussions and decisions, despite the reactionaries thinking they have it all figured out, but I’d like to believe he wouldn’t have left right at the beginning of such a wild offseason if he wasn’t completely comfortable with the succession plans and how the reconstruction of this team would go down.

 

[SlavinAway]

but I’d like to believe he wouldn’t have left right at the beginning of such a wild offseason if he wasn’t completely comfortable with the succession plans and how the reconstruction of this team would go down.

Counter point - he saw shit approaching fan and said I'm out ya'll

 

[To Be Determined]

Oh great so more of a ponderous fixation on analytics, and most likely coupled with a personality unequipped to conduct powerful negotiations.

is the bold part based on anything, or just an assumption because nerds like their spreadsheets and colloidal microderps but can't have people skills or toughness?

 

[Negan4Coach]

is the bold part based on anything, or just an assumption because nerds like their spreadsheets and colloidal microderps but can't have people skills or toughness?

Yes, an assumption, hence the qualification "most likely". Based on years of observations of personnel in the software industry.

But let's face it, it was Don working the phone lines with the other GMs. Hopefully Tulsky is up to the task.

 

[Buenos Necas]

I can't remember which podcast this was, but it was within the past year so it was around the time he was getting outside GM interviews. Tulsky touched on that subject of being a manger and leading teams as opposed to just doing research/analysis on his own. He seemed to make it a point that he wasn't just sitting in a room with a couple engineers. With his promotion to AGM he was now leading all people involved with the pro-scouting side of hockey ops and compared it to his time leading research teams.

It's a good question on if he can handle that part of the job, and I would assume it's one of the main questions he's gotten from the teams who interviewed him. So when I heard that in the podcast it stuck with me as him trying to sell himself as having those abilities. I'll have to see if I can go back and find it, would be good to revisit now.

Either way, I would certainly feel more comfortable with a President of Hockey Ops type that can help him manage relationships with the 200 hockey men. I'd still want to make sure Tulsky has the autonomy to make the final decision like most other GMs, so Williams might be a great fit for that role where his ego won't get in the way and he knows how to manage up to Dundon.

 

[robbieberns]

Counter point - he saw shit approaching fan and said I'm out ya'll

I think it could be a little bit of both. Who knows where he’s at with his family and personal life, maybe he sees this as a perfect opportunity to start a new professional chapter in his life and could also see this as a clear new chapter in this Dundon owned era of the Canes and he feels it makes sense to let someone else lead it from here. Either way all we can do is go by what the involved parties have put out publicly and Id be surprised if there was any bad blood or falling out based on the pleasant tone of these announcements.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

is the bold part based on anything, or just an assumption because nerds like their spreadsheets and colloidal microderps but can't have people skills or toughness?

It's probably an assumption based on a couple of things that corroborate that assumption.

1) Waddell has been around a long time, so he has pre-established relationships with other GMs, Agents, etc.. Those relationships don't happen over night. There've been more than a few times, even this trade deadline, where he comments how the other GM gave him a call and a deal got pulled together quickly.

2) Based on comments he's made over the past 5-6 years, it's evident that he's talking directly to these agents and GMs. He's said so many times.

I originally thought Tulsky as GM when I first heard this, but if that was the case why make it interim (unless they don't find anyone good enough to fill the role that can work within the management structure) and they later make it permanent, like they did with Waddell originally.

Secondly, even though he's interviewed for other GM jobs, I'm not convinced Tulsky wants a GM role. Seems more like a "behind the scenes, get things done" kinda guy.