What the Blue Jackets Front Office Should Learn From the Best Organizations
The Blue Jackets Organization
Before we get into the qualities of some of the best organizations, I think it would serve us well to review the current strengths of the Blue Jackets.
Largely, these are namely hockey men, amateur scouting(?) and a perhaps understated analytics “department”.
Hockey Men
John Davidson, Basil McRae, Chris Clark and Rick Nash have been involved with hockey for quite a long time.
At this point, we know who John Davidson is. He’s been around for a long time and has such accomplishments as: leaving Columbus and getting fired after two years in New York and doing “due diligence” on Mike Babcock. I say this mostly in jest, he’s well connected and, prior to this past season, looked like the sort of long-term thinking voice that was necessary for a healthy Front Office.
Rick Nash, current Director of Player Development, has competed at the highest level and has a goal medal while playing for Team Canada. His jersey is in the rafters and he’s the current GM for Canada in the World Championships. According to the media, he’s a bright and upcoming hockey mind.
Basil McRae is part-owner of the London Knights, a top Major Junior team in the Ontario Hockey League, but has also been around both Davidson and Kekelainen for quite some time, starting as a scout for the St Louis Blues in 2007-08 and following Kekelainen for his brief sojourn in Jokerit for the 2010-2011 season. He’s working his way up from Amateur Scout to Assistant General Manager for the Blue Jackets.
Chris Clark, director of Player Personnel and General Manager of the Cleveland Monsters, is a former NHL player who has also worked his way up through the Blue Jackets. He started as a scout in 2011-12, was a development coach for the next 7 seasons before becoming Cleveland’s General Manager. He was also the USA General Manager for the World Championships in 22-23.
The Blue Jackets development staff is full of former players and friends of the organization. Safe to say, the front office is currently full of hockey men.
I wouldn’t say that it makes their obsession with getting someone with heaps of Front Office experience perplexing but it should at least highlight that hockey men are an area of surplus.
Of note, Chris MacFarland and Bill Zito were less-traditional versions of Front Office leadership. Though both played college hockey, they came through their roles through business or player representation.
Analytics
The Blue Jackets are served in the analytics department by AGM and “Capologist” Josh Flynn, Director of Analytics Zac Urback and by analytics consultants Josh Weissbock and Cam Lawrence.
Though contract negotations have been a significant weakpoint for the Blue Jackets, we have reason to believe that’s due to Kekelainen’s hard-line style than anything else. Largely, contract negotiations aren’t big needle movers. The player-contract decision making is significantly more important. It’s hard to say the Blue Jackets have been particularly successful there but we can’t rule out Kekelainen’s involvement over Flynn’s in this case.
Zac Urback is reportedly a very bright person who does good work. He started as an analyst and has moved up to Director, a good sign. I don’t have much information about the details of his work.
Cam Lawrence and Josh Weissbock are probably a bit easier to evaluate. To start, they were public analytics bloggers (CanucksArmy) who created the Prospects Cohort Success model and did a lot of early NHLe work in the prospect sphere.
Eventually, they were hired as part of the Florida Panthers Front Office and were quickly labeled the “computer boys” before the Panthers drastically changed course and lost Reilly Smith and Johnathan Marchessault to the expansion draft.
Now, they only consult, but their models and information debriefs are delivered to the Blue Jackets after every game. The Blue Jackets have an established pipeline of analytics work that may no longer be state-of-the-art (in comparison to more built out departments, not in quality of analysis) but still has bright minds working within it.
Amateur Scouting
The scouting under Jarmo Kekelainen certainly felt like a strength. There are certain high leverage draft positions that left something to be desired (Liam Foudy, Andrew Peeke or Gabe Carlsson over certain highly talented players) but later round picks appear to be a strength of the organization.
For now, that structure remains with the club. Lawrence and Weissbock certainly would be contributing to late round picks since their joining the team in 2020-2021 but the Blue Jackets Director of Amateur Scouting, Ville Siren, is still in charge of the draft and should be through this offseason.
Grabbing players like Oliver Bjorkstrand, Vladislav Gavrikov, Dmitri Voronkov, Markus Nutivaara and even the maligned Emil Bemstrom (and current prospects like Stanislav Svozil and Jordan Dumais) in the later rounds shouldn’t be underestimated.
Similarly, Alexandre Texier, Kirill Marchenko and Gavin Brindley look like high quality second round picks as well.
Finding success in exactly these rounds going forward will be critical to continue finding cheap depth for a competitive window.
Largely, it appears that it was the transition to the NHL and in encouraging high-level play at the NHL level that has been the pitfall of the organization. Was that from a fundamental mismanagement? Identification or prioritization of skillsets that don’t translate to the highest levels of play? Or a development staff that isn’t up to snuff?
John Davidson’s Criteria
Through a series of interviews with Aaron Portzline, John Davidson has expressed some of the attributes he desires in the next GM.
First, he wants Front Office experience.
In fact, that just might be where they find the next GM. Davidson said he’s looking for experience.
“It doesn’t mean you have to be in the (GM’s) chair, but you have to have been involved in a lot of different things,” Davidson said. “Gone through it, worked hard, have an understanding of analytics, have good work habits, an ability to evaluate players, all of those things.”
At the same time, he says that they can’t be closed minded.
“Anybody who calls, anybody who emails, we’ll go through it as a staff, and if they warrant an interview, we’ll interview them. We can’t be close-minded in this situation.”
He also says they’re looking for someone who does thing differently.
The Blue Jackets do not need a GM who fits into the organization’s culture. As painful as it is for Davidson to admit, he acknowledged in an interview with The Athletic, that the Blue Jackets would like — to borrow a tech industry word — a disruptor.
That is, a strong-willed, fearless (not reckless) individual who knows what a winning culture looks like and spares no feelings to build it.
The irony isn’t lost on me that they seek to remain open-minded and want a disruptor but at the same time want someone with previous Front Office experience.
Largely, that shouldn’t matter, there should be plenty of capable candidates to choose from, but it’s important that we take experience and knowledge of a winning culture into account for the next GM.
From there, we can ascertain the best organizations in the league who have built consistently winning cultures.
The Model Organizations
Dallas - Carolina - Tampa Bay - Colorado - Boston
For my money, these are the premier organizations in the National Hockey league. Each of these teams has built from within, hit on crucial draft picks and supplemented their roster aggressively. Though not all have won the ultimate prize, they have each built sustained contenders.
The sustained and continued success of these organizations should be the model that the Blue Jackets try to mimic. The team has a young and extremely talented cohort featuring a potential future superstar in Adam Fantilli but otherwise is full of question marks.
The goal isn’t, or maybe shouldn’t be, to completely remake the roster for immediate success but instead to build a sustainable contender. From that perspective, the above orgs are the best.
Florida - Vegas
This stands in stark contrast to two of the current best teams in the NHL, the Florida Panthers and the Vegas Golden Knights. These two teams have rebuilt and reconstructed their team aggressively in recent years.
Florida drafted Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad but it otherwise constructed from the DNA of entirely different teams.
Vegas found immediate success from a “misfits” identity from the expansion draft and has continued to aggressively pursue “win-now” deals that have propelled them to a Stanley Cup. They have only drafted Nic Hague, Pavel Dorofeyev and a handful of 4th line tweeners on this roster.
Washington-Pittsburgh
These two teams have been beacons of success for quite a long time and now appear to be on the downswing in the twilight of Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Ovechking, Backstrom, Carlson’s careers.
Largely, I don’t include them in the “model organizations” because their front offices have changed over significantly in the years since they won their Cups as has the league.
The conclusions from their team still hold, draft elite talent at the top of the draft, but everything since then doesn’t look quite as rosy as far as top to bottom management.
The Lessons
Coach-GM-Identity Alignment
The most comprehensive success under this lesson has come from Colorado, Florida, Carolina and Vegas.
Jared Bednar, along with Nolan Pratt, was an inspired choice. They won the Calder Cup and used very active defensemen along with it, featuring Dean Kukan and rookie Zach Werenski. When they moved to Colorado they added Devon Toews, Cale Makar, Sam Girard and Bowen Byram, four supremely talented puck moving and aggressive defenseman.
Florida completely overhauled their playstyle and brought Paul Maurice along with it. It’s unlikely you’re going to significantly alter the playstyle of your club purely through coaching. In fact, it’s inadvisable to.
Trading rush-oriented (but also aging with expiring contracts) players in Johnathan Huberdeau and Mackenzie Weegar for cycle possession superstar like Matthew Tkachuck helped lock in the team-identity change marvelously.
Carolina found success with defensive hockey and an unorthodox positional over possessional forechecking style. Rod Brind’Amour was the perfect coach to implement this and has his players playing to this identity. His extraversion and ability to pull players into the battle are necessary for a style that requires a commitment to high effort.
Vegas had constructed a heavy, defense oriented lineup, what better coach to get the best out of them than old-school Bruce Cassidy?
Diversity of opinion is important in creating healthy group decisions but the Front Office should be selecting a coach who aligns with their organizationally established identity.
Solid AHL→ NHL Pipeline Driven by Identity
Each of these teams has found significant value from developing players in the AHL though each is perhaps coming about the ultimate value differently.
Tampa has, for years, created excellent players on the margins of their roster. Nikita Kucherov played some games in the AHL but otherwise Tampa has created players like Yanni Gourde, Ross Colton, Mathieu Joseph, Mason Marchment, Johnathan Marchessault and even rounded out their current roster (to varying degrees of success) with players like Darren Raddysh and Mitchell Chaffee.
Dallas has taken a bit of a different approach and used AHL seasoning to craft star players. Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz each spent full seasons in the AHL. Thomas Harley spent multiple. Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque dominated the AHL this past season before Stankoven moved on and brought his game to the playoffs at the end of the season.
Carolina has recently foregone their AHL club but has similarly not necessarily received the dividends from their success in that arena. Martin Necas is the only significant player on their team to have played for their AHL club.
Still, Nicolas Roy, Eetu Luostarinen, Gustav Forsling and Steven Lorentz all spent time with the Charlotte Checkers who was the Carolina affiliate and are well rounded high-performing defensive players (they just happen to all be playing for Vegas and Florida).
The throughline for each of these is that the NHL club used time in the AHL to graft their club identity onto the prospects. From there, the prospects slid into the NHL and became quality NHL players.
Built out Development Staff
The Dallas Stars and Tampa Bay Lightning are the pre-eminent organizations for this philosophy. Jim Nill has added a full development staff headed by Rich Peverley which includes player development coordinators across specific regions in the world.
Really, this team looks like the pre-eminent example of the importance of quality, patient development.
Tampa has multiple Directors of Player Development, Stacy Roest and JP Cote, along with Barb Underhill, the pre-eminent skating coach. They have a pipeline of success coming from talent identification and later development support.
Smart, Full Analytics Staff
Each of these teams have excellent use of analytics and have integrated these teams into their approach.
Carolina has built out their own data management platform under Eric Tulsky, but Colorado, Florida, Dallas and Tampa have full departments run by smart people.
Recently, Cory Masisak wrote an article on Colorado’s top-to-bottom integration of analytics from the analyst to coach to player pipeline. Worth a read and worth learning from for any other organization.
Other organizations, though not necessarily the beacons of success, are starting to build out large and full Research and Development Departments. Kyle Dubas has been a large proponent of this in his teams and Montreal has taken a new approach to cohesive R&D and skill development with their Front Office additions.
Find a Core, Supplement with Trades
This is probably the least insightful lesson of the bunch, but it holds true. There are myriad ways to find the core though the most reliable has been bottoming out and hitting well on key draft picks.
Stamkos-Hedman set the table for home-runs in Kucherov, Point and Cirelli with identity adds like McDonagh, Paul and their championship 3rd line.
Barkov-Ekblad set the table for a home-run in Tkachuk but also a stable of complements in Forsling, Reinhart, Lundell and Bennett.
Vegas constructed their core through trade in acquiring Mark Stone and Jack Eichel, their respect of their players’ bodily autonomy is paying continued and perhaps controversial dividends.
Carolina found incredible defensive stalwarts in Jordan Staal and Jaccob Slavin but also hit high on Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis and Andrei Svechnikov. They built a strong, cohesive D corps with astute adds in Brady Sjkei and Brent Burns. Where Martin Necas stands is still to be seen. In this current run, they’ve supplemented their talents with the perfect fit in Jake Guentzel and have even added an offensive dimension with Kuznetsov.
Don’t Overvalue Your Own Players
This is probably the hardest but most prescient lesson to learn and it was one that plagued the Columbus Blue Jackets. It’s one a specific manager has potential solutions for later as well.
Vegas and Florida seem to have flipped the previous script on their heads and moved on from players they deemed weren’t roster fits.
Colorado moved on from Matt Duchene in a quite pivotal moment for their contention aspirations but recently weren’t afraid to deal Bowen Byram for Casey Mittelstadt (or Tyson Barrie for Nazem Kadri) in a move that appears to be paying off.
Tampa moved Johnathan Drouin for Mikhail Sergachev whose astute performance at a low dollar value played a factor in Tampa’s defensive versatility during their cup-runs.
This technique remains one of the most important. As core players are identified, and paid increasingly early, teams will have to use their intimate knowledge of the player and their game to determine whether they are a long term pillar at the NHL level. As soon as the team judges them no longer part of the core, they should seek to swap assets for a better fit.
Next Steps
Soon, I’ll be going over a wide array of the potential candidates. We know that John Davidson wants:
Knowledge of Winning Culture
Front Office Experience
Diverse Skillset
Strong, Brave Personality
Largely, I believe this is a good criteria, if executed properly, and should result in vitally important structural changes within the organization.
These changes may not happen immediately, even Bill Zito took a year to start making major changes, especially considering the new General Manager will not have time to build out information and decision structures prior to free agency or other decision inflection points, but we can still look for moves to improve along the lines of the above lessons from these model organizations.
The plan, from here, is to detail “frontrunners” from priority orgs, alternative candidates either from priority orgs or potential up-and-comers and some potential President of Hockey Ops worthy executives.