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All is quiet on the Penguins second round of interviews for general manager except for one rumor that has surfaced. Regis “Pierre” McGuire has been granted a second interview for the vacant position.
Why would Pierre be granted another interview?
Is this just a courtesy to a friend or are things about to get real on this front?
Mike Colligan of The Hockey Writers raises a very good point:
One thing I know is that I don’t want the Penguins hiring him. Perhaps he could do the job, he fancies himself on being hockey’s walking talking encyclopedia, but I want nothing to do with the PR circus that is going to come along with hiring him. The Penguins need somebody who is bright, calculating, and low key. Not an attention seeker looking to show other people how smart he is.
More importantly the Penguins need somebody with experience:
That 20 year old article? Well you can find that gem
here. Probably one of my favorite hockey articles ever written.
Here’s a sample from the article:
Many times he privately said after a game how he outcoached the other guy. But it was something never really made public until May 3, when McGuire proclaimed that no coach in the NHL ``can outwit me.'' That quote ran in The Hockey News and raised eyebrows all over the NHL.
His fascination with trying to outwit the other coach may hurt the Whalers in the long run. Instead of playing kids such as Robert Petrovicky or Kevin Smyth long after it was apparent the team was out of the playoff race, McGuire would fastidiously match lines, go with aging veterans and make sure certain faceoff alignments were always followed. Instead of development, he seemed just to want to squeeze out two points.
Once when he was an assistant coach, McGuire bragged about his strategy to shut down Mario Lemieux. This was after a 7-3 loss and four goals by Kevin Stevens.
On the bench, players said McGuire would taunt the other team, saying he couldn't believe the opposing coach was allowing him certain line matchups. This braggadocio led Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr to mock McGuire in December. McGuire got Jagr for an illegal stick, and after Jagr jumped out of the penalty box, he scored on a breakaway. Although he had scored big goals in two Stanley Cup championships, Jagr called this overtime goal the biggest of his life because he humbled ``that know-it-all.''
Here’s the deal, nobody would ever accuse Pierre of not being one of the hardest working guys in the entire hockey business, but how much of that hard work can be translated into success in a front office position?
Pierre may know where every single hockey player played his amateur career from ages of 12-14 but that is jeopardy knowledge, that isn’t useful information, that isn’t hockey smarts. It would be more useful if Pierre memorized every team’s player usage charts and relayed that information along to the viewer. Now that would be pertinent information that people would find useful.
Anybody who has entered the medical field or physical education field has had to take human anatomy and physiology classes in order to earn their degree. The way I view Pierre’s hockey knowledge would fall in line with a human anatomy class. To be successful in that class you need incredible memorization. You need to memorize each and every body part. You need to know the origins and insertions of muscles, you need to know the landmarks that are on each bone, it is quite intensive to learn it all. This is like memorizing every player’s hockedb page, something Pierre is very good at.
Where I think Pierre would struggle is on the physiology side of things. In physiology you need to know all the parts from anatomy class, but now you need to understand how all the cells and parts of the body work together. I’m not so sure Pierre’s knowledge can translate into the how or why things are working. This would be what I consider the most important part of the GM job. Knowing stats and information is one thing, understanding how to utilize the information and apply it successfully in player evaluations is completely another thing.
Lastly, I believe that Pierre has a massive ego and I don’t think that is a very good quality to have when it is at an extreme level. There is a difference between confidence and arrogance and I think Pierre falls into the latter category. That trait can lead to brash moves and not ones that will actually make the team better. Furthermore, I believe that his ego would get in the way of utilizing analytical data. Pierre strikes me as the kind of guy whose ego is so big that he wouldn’t lean on analytics because he thinks he already knows it all. Nobody knows it all, nobody can watch every single game, nobody is above using analytical data.
Perhaps Pierre McGuire proves this entire article wrong in the future, I just hope that opportunity comes with another franchise.
Thanks for reading!
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