Somehow, The Pittsburgh Penguins Are Actually Rumored To Be Considering Stan Bowman For Their General Manager Position
Hey Andy, I will be absolutely FLOORED if the Penguins or anyone have interest in Stan Bowman for a Hockey Ops executive position. I don't know how exactly, but Andy Strickland breaks a TON of Blackhawks news even though he is based in St Louis. He clearly has strong relationships in the organization. Maybe that relationship was Stan himself over the years and that is where this is coming from, but I've seen it other places as well. I just...did people not watch the last 15 years of decisions by Stan Bowman. I mean here are some highlights
A big fat ZERO for the first round in his entire career as the head of the Blackhawks hockey ops department. That is nearly impossible to do. Nobody had worse asset management than Stan Bowman. The draft is the lifeblood of any organization in the salary cap era and he failed at the draft worse than anyone. Not just in the first round either.
Bowman failed to draft a single defenseman who became an NHL regular for the Blackhawks in 10 fucking years. TEN! You'd think that with roughly a hundred draft picks over a 12 year career that he'd find one guy that could contribute to the NHL roster, but he hasn't. Same thing goes for goaltending. Bowman never drafted a goalie who played meaningful NHL games. Not one. Then tried to tell us that all Malcolm Subban/Collin Delia/Lankinen needed was the same opportunity that Crawford had to excel.
You look around the league and it's a never ending list of Blackhawks cast-offs having success while Chicago went 8 years without winning a playoff series. Everything they needed was there, but because Stan can't evaluate talent, because he's not a hockey guy, he never understood what it took to build and/or maintain a winner. The championship teams were built by other people.
Danault, Hartman, Forsling, TVR, Teuvo, Justin Holl, David Kampf, Tyler Motte, Jokiharju...JOEL QUENNEVILLE FOR JEREMY COLLITON!!!
How can a man responsible for all of these decisions among other discretions be seen as a viable candidate?
He traded Panarin for Saad, Saad for Zadorov, and Zadorov for a 3rd round pick
He traded Oettinger for Jokiharju, Jokiharju for Alex Nylander, and then eventually Alex Nylander was traded by the next regime after being an utter failure.
That's two examples of the old parable where a man starts with a pencil and keeps trading and trading up until he gets a house, but in reverse. He's TERRIBLE. He listens to the wrong people. Don't even get me started on his analytics guy out of Reno which is how the Blackhawks drafted Jokiharju, Boqvist, Mitchell, and Beaudin within two years of each other. He's throwing darts. Always had been. Doesn't work well with his staff. He's just great at playing the corporate bullshit game which is how he survived McDonough and convinced the Blackhawks to promote him after a decade+ of failed decisions. Mind boggling.
He ruined the Blackhawks. I guess it'd probably help the Hawks to have an incompetent guy running an organization, but it'll bother me if this guy is trusted to make hockey decisions again.
