Follow @james_tanner123 When I heard the news, I did an imaginary spit-take.
Had I been drinking out of the toilet, I might have been killed.
Did the Coyotes really just hire Claude Loiselle? After checking to see that the calendar didn't read April 1st, I can confirm that it's really true.
But why oh why would they do that? It must have been the pâté.
This is the AGM who once said the Leafs got off to a bad and unrecoverable start to the season because of "injuries to McLaren, Orr and Mark Frasor."
Did it have anything to do with allowing a historical amount of shots against, having no defensive acumen on the first line, no top line centre and no #1 defenseman?
Seriously, how does the guy responsible for the salary cap of a team who maxed out their cap without a #1 centre, defenseman or goalie get another job in the NHL? Think about that: a maxed out salary cap without any of the three things you need to be competitive. It's like spending your entire grocery budget and coming home without bread, milk or vegetables.
This is the man responsible for the singing of David Clarkson (or at least structuring it in a buy-out proof fashion) the worst cap situation in recent NHL memory and the guy who wanted to throw money at David Bolland.
In Toronto he is despised, perhaps even more so than Dave Nonis.
His hiring is inexplicable. I would move to Arizona and do his job for half the salary. (I think, I don't know what they're paying him).
Not kidding: I'd be a better hire.
I don't think NHL teams should be hiring me, by the way.
This is a guy who would regularly go on Toronto Radio and say bizarre things, things like Clarkson being so good in the room that his play barely matters or that aforementioned thing about season going down-hill because of injuries to two enforcers and a bottom-pairing AHL defenseman.
The main reason people don't like Loiselle in Toronto is because of the perception that he constantly laughed at the idea of analytics and was responsible for the salary cap mess.
The fact that he is now involved in Coyotes decision-making is terrifying. They already are more in the Vancouver camp (Scott, Grossman, Vermette) than the progressive NHL camp and that isn't good.
This just makes it worse. Honestly, I don't know why the Coyotes do things like this. One day you're happy because they hire John Chayka and draft Strome, then the next you realize they're rocking a front office with Darcy Regier, Claude Loiselle and Don Maloney.
Anthony Leblanc has owned this team for a couple years now. I've heard rumours that he's urged the team to move into the new school, that he was responsible for forcing the rebuild and the youth movement and that he met some heavy resistance from management along the way.
Let's keep in mind that he inherited this management team when he took over.
Based on most of this summer's moves and the hiring of Claude Loiselle, maybe it's time he did something about that.