Sens hiring Pierre McGuire Doesn’t Tell us Anything we Didn’t Already Know
The Sens kicked off their off-season today with a bang, and have begun to address the long-depleted front office.
Former NBC analyst Pierre McGuire is coming to Ottawa as senior vice-president of player development. While McGuire has seemingly been in the running for every vacant position around the league the past few off-seasons, the end of NBC’s broadcast deal with the NHL seems to have led him to finally return to the hockey operations side of things after over two decades in broadcasting.
The move came as a shock both in Ottawa and around the league. Immediately, everybody is trying to find out if this is Sens Sickos or not.
y’all don’t realize how big of a troll to the rest of the league pierre mcguire winning a cup with the sens is gonna be
— The Big Sens Freak (@TheSensDipshit) July 12, 2021
There is also the question of what this will mean for the Ottawa Senators from an actual hockey perspective and I think the answer might be… probably nothing? I know that may not seem like a plausible answer given the cascade of content his hiring has produced, but when you start to dig a little bit, this is more or less business as usual for the Ottawa Senators, just with a bigger name involved.
Where do the Sens stand on analytics?
It’s not hard to see where Pierre McGuire stands on the old-school/analytics spectrum when he had to say he does not hate analytics in his introduction.
Ottawa Senators newly hired senior vice president of player development Pierre McGuire: 'It's not that I hate analytics but I believe in scouting'https://t.co/rbNv2zA67r
— TSN 1200 (@TSN1200) July 12, 2021
Hiring McGuire may seem like one of the ultimate old-school hires, it more or less fits in with the current Sens front office. Director of hockey operations Tim Pattyson spent some time as a data analyst, but the Sens’ number of analytically inclined staff fall well behind just about every other team.
A few more adjustments and updates #NHLAnalytics. pic.twitter.com/Ed6b4bEbR7
— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) July 6, 2021
Some of this can be attributed to the Sens’ front office being fairly bare-bones all around. While they may not be quite as old-school as McGuire, Pierre Dorion, DJ Smith, and the rest of the staff mostly fit into the same mold.
The Sens affinity for these old-school big boys who bang and crash has sometimes paid off (Brady Tkachuk) and sometimes has not (Erik Gubranson) but the hiring of McGuire does not change the overall mindset of the front office.
Is Pierre Dorion’s Job in Danger
While McGuire’s title would suggest he’ll be mostly involved on the development side of things, there has been speculation that he might be the Pierre-apparent to assume the GM role.
There’s a definite possibility Dorion isn’t the GM this time next year, but the addition of McGuire doesn’t really move the needle here. Dorion is entering his sixth season as the Sens GM, which means he’s starting to creep up the list of longest-tenured GMs in the league. Mix in four consecutive playoff misses and the fact that he’s in the final year of his contract and it starts to look like he may already have been on thin ice before this hiring.
The Sens haven’t switched GMs since 2016 when the late Bryan Murray stepped away for health reasons, so the fanbase may not be used to the usual churn of an NHL front office. Melnyk has likely contemplated Pierre Dorion’s future in recent months and may have already created a shortlist of possible candidates to replace him. The fact that the team may have actually hired one of those candidates is not insignificant, but it is far from unusual or surprising.
So where does this leave us? The hiring of Pierre McGuire indicates both an old-school approach and Dorion’s potential exit, but neither of those things should be major revelations.
This likely won’t be the last piece written on Pierre McGuire, as he’s certainly liable to say or do some fascinating things during his tenure in Ottawa. For now though, it’s business as usual for the Sens.