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He wasn't fired for hiring Torts. He was fired because as often happens with bad franchises, a lot of their best players left eventually and he made some bad decisions trying to replace them. The Merzlikens contract is still a doozy. I said his tenure wasn't perfect. But he took over a moribund franchise and made them pretty damn good for a few years, probably a lot of that was a result of his hiring Torts (no I don't want Torts now). His tenure got untracked as they often do. But, if he can make a good coaching hire and tweak this roster into one that makes them into a really good team and regular playoff participant for a few years, sign me up.

Seems overly simplistic to label it like that. Kekäläinen has more front office experience than Murray times 7.

Neither did Punch. I’d take his reincarnation in a heartbeat

I’m with ya. I think Jarmo is the guy that can at least get us in playoff contention, and I believe it can be this season. The point spread in the division is very narrow, Buffalo can still get in, they need some changes, goaltending solidified down to 2 and a couple of additions.

Oh ok so we are back around to the Murray template

Don't worry. It won't be Appert after the season. If Pegula ever had the slightest notion of replacing Ruff with Appert, it would have been done today by naming Appert as the interim coach for the rest of the season. Appert's best chance of ever becoming coach here is if the team all of a sudden goes on a tear with some significant playoff runs and Lindy retires on a high note.

Per Wikipedia, he went to Jokerit when he didn't get the St. Louis Blues GM gig, but did some Liiga time and turned it and his STL team-building of the 00s into the Columbus job. He helped put together the Sens from 1999 up until 2002, meaning his influences included the core that became those very good 2006-2010 teams. He did help assemble the rosters that would become some decent Ken Hitchcock-led STL seasons. Most of the players he would've been associated with had moved on by the time the Blues won their Cup. Seconded!

I know someone who knew him personally, and he is truly a "no-BS" type. The hope is that TP is realizing there are people who know more than TP.

^ This

So what’s the first big move JK makes? Does he devolve into looping TP into major hockey ops decision-making?

Kekäläinen has a Bachelor's from Clarkson and a Master's in Econ from Tampere Univ. He's served in hockey front office since 1995 and in NHL front office almost nonstop since 1999. Looks like the only break is when he was GM of Jokerit in the Liiga (2010-2012) before becoming GM of Columbus in 2012.

Jarmo wasn't fired for hiring Torts. Columbus had 4 playoff runs after that. If he was fired for hiring anyone, it was for his involvement in the hiring of Mike Babcock, which turned out to be a huge mistake & embarrassment for the team, considering what had been going on with Babcock and the photo sharing debacle that Babcock was involved in.

I'm sure it's buried in this thread but Kekäläinen is the most experienced GM ever hired under Pegula by decades of experience.

Watch that end up having been Lindy himself

You might call it Pagulatory.

No more Sabre retreads either.... No Michael peca, no Jay Mckee, no Dominek Hasek... NO MORE SABRES!!!!

I think over now is happening intensely.

Seeing him screw up the Ullmark negotiation in an effort not to "block" his young goalies, none of whom have panned out, and then having Ullmark win a Vezina with the Bruins while the Sabres have continuously been shopping in the goalie bargain basement bin has to be one of the stupidest, most emblematic gaffes of his tenure. This is the moron that was given almost 6 years to destroy a franchise.

I like “proclivity” better. I knew “condition”wasn’t right. Writing while watching my granddaughter and I can’t multi task as well as I once did. Notice what I did there? And yes, we are far off point.

An interesting perspective. The way the second sentence there is worded is slightly confusing, but if I understand what you're saying correctly, I would disagree that it's a universal condition, especially when a success is involved. I don't even know if "condition" is the correct word, maybe more like "proclivity". Alas, I agree it could be taking the topic too far all things considered.

That's so very Marv though.

He did

I could live with some shakeup among the assistants. The fact that Lindy had to keep the same old crowd was just.... weird.