The Jackets made their decision on who would replace outgoing general manager Scott Howson and really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise who they chose for the position. This morning John Davidson announced the hiring of Jokerit GM Jarmo Kekalainen as the third general manager in Columbus Blue Jacket franchise history.
Kekalainen worked for Davidson in St. Louis and was considered for the GM position there before the Blues ultimately picked former Dallas general manager Doug Armstrong back in 2010. Kekalainen left the Blues soon thereafter to take the job in Finland but now gets his chance to lead an NHL front office.
Kekalainen (thankfully I’m already getting used to typing that name) made his bones in player evaluation during his stint with the Blues and prior to that as the chief European scout and director of player development for the Ottawa Senators from 1995 – 2002. Here’s a rundown on players selected by Ottawa and St. Louis while Kekalainen had a voice in those organizations. (Hat tip to Adam Kimelman of NHL.com for doing most of this work; I did look up and add a few names on my own.)
First round: Bryan Berard, Chris Phillips, Marian Hossa, Martin Havlat, Anton Volchenkov, Jason Spezza and Tim Gleason. (The only1st round miss during this time was in 1998 when the Sens selected G Mathieu Chouinard with the 15th overall choice)
Second round: Mike Fisher and Antoine Vermette
Third round: Chris Kelly
Fourth round: Ray Emery
Fifth round: Magnus Arvedson, Greg Zanon
Sixth round: Chris Neil, Brooks Laich and Andreas Dackell
That’s 16 solid or better NHL contributors drafted in an eight-year span, or an average of two per season. That may not seem like a lot but most teams fail to draft at that level.
Of course you could say that it’s easy to draft good players when you are choosing within the first few picks of the first-round but that isn’t all that Ottawa did here. Hossa (12th), Havlat (26th), Volchenkov (21st) and Gleason (23rd) were all selected after the consensus top players were off the board.
It also isn’t too tough to see a common thread in Ottawa’s drafts. Notice the high percentage of Europeans selected and developed successfully by the Senators during this time. That has to have a lot to do with their chief European scout at the time, Jarmo Kekalainen.
In St. Louis as scouting director and assistant GM, Kekalainen helped bring in several key pieces to the Blues organization. Some of the players drafted while Kekalainen was in St. Louis are: David BAckes, Roman Polak, Ryan Reaves, TJ Oshie, Patrik Berglund, David Perron, Alex Pietrangelo, Lars Eller, Erik Johnson, David Rundblad and Vladimir Tarasenko.
Clearly Kekalainen knows what he is doing when it comes to identifying talent. If there is one thing that the Columbus Blue Jackets need with three first-round draft choices coming is someone who can recognize talent. Check out the Jackets draft record; it isn’t too pretty is it? Kekalainen hopefully will fix that.
Frankly before today I couldn’t tell you much about Jarmo Kekalainen other than he was of Finnish descent. I did do as much research as possible reading several pieces on the hiring on sites from USA Today to NHL.com to ESPN.com (I know, don’t laugh but I like Pierre LeBrun). The hiring was lauded in every article I read. Here are some interesting comments/quotes that I picked out in some of these pieces.
Mike Morreale of NHL.com spoke with Goran Stubb, the NHL Director of European Scouting, and this is what Stubb had to say about Kekalainen:
"Jarmo has an excellent feeling for players and knows how to put the puzzle together," Stubb said. "I have never worked under him, so I do not know if he is hard or not. But understand, both players and management have a lot of respect for him and his inside knowledge of hockey."
Kevin Allen of USA Today wrote this about Kekalainen in an article today:
“Kekalainen seems like the best choice because he is a respected talent evaluator that is coming to a team with a history of not doing a good job of assessing talent. The Blue Jackets' poor draft record is a primary reason why the team has only made the playoffs once in franchise history.”
Pierre LeBrun spoke with several people in the league for a piece for ESPN.com. Boston GM Peter Chiarelli, who worked with Kekalainen in Ottawa, told LeBrun this:
"It’s well-deserved for Jarmo," Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli, who worked with Kekalainen in Ottawa, told ESPN.com Wednesday. "One thing he’s really good at is that he finds skill players who have grit, which is hard to do; he does a great job at that."
LeBrun also spoke to a couple of Western Conference executives unnamed in the article who both used the word “arrogant,” to LeBrun when describing the new Jackets GM. On the flip side of that is another comment made by Stubb in the NHL.com piece written by Morreale:
"In my opinion, Jarmo is easy to get along with," Stubb said. "He is honest, fair and a 100-percent professional in the world of hockey.
"He is highly respected in Finland and I'm sure he will do a great job as a GM in the NHL."
Based solely on what I have read I would say the hiring of Kekalainen is a good one. The Jackets have simply not drafted well in the entire history of the franchise and getting someone whose specialty is player evaluation is a smart move. Kekalainen appears to be a good get by John Davison and Jackets fans should be excited for the future.
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