Meh...
Much like with Wang here, this team was 1000% DOA with Lou in charge. I'll take my chances with and up and coming executive you've never heard of before.
That said this is why I wanted Lou fired years ago. He GMed took over the front office, hired zero help, and GM'ed this team into a mess of a roster where it's going to take the next President/GM years to get things right. Things wouldn't be this bad if Lou was fired 2-3 years ago.
Anyway whomever is hired is going to fill out a proper front office so they'll be more of a committee to discuss moves as opposed to an inept dictator doing whatever he wants. Not all hires will be perfect and more firings/hirings will need to be made, but things will be better as time goes on.
This is a marathon - Not a sprint. Present we're trying to build the "UBS arena" of rosters. Sucked to have to wait years for it, but got more exciting the more it was built. Same thing here.
Malkin has proved himself to be a very good and competent owner since he took control of the team. He/Collins may not get this initial hire right, but would've been easier for him to keep Lou. He didn't. Took guts and ambition to make things better. And he's proven that he will spare no expense to make this team better on/off the ice, so at minimum that is going to attract some quality talent.
May not be perfect, but there was zero hope before. Now there is some. How much there is will be determined in the coming days...
