George Richards, FHN Publisher
Bill Zito was at his home office in Columbus on Tuesday when he got a call he had been waiting for his whole life — and it came from the Florida Panthers.
After seven years under Jarmo Kekalainen as an assistant GM of the Blue Jackets, Zito was now getting his chance to run his own team.
When team president Matt Caldwell initially called, Zito said, he missed the call.
When the two finally hooked up, Caldwell offered him the job as the 11th GM in franchise history. While on the phone, Zito looked out through the glass doors of his home office.
Zito saw his wife Julie outside the room.
Emotions caught up with him a bit as he recalled the feeling on Wednesday.
The Zito family (the couple has three children including twin daughters) has been through so much over the past couple of years with Julie battling breast cancer, moving to South Florida for a fresh start — and to have it be his team — is something he says he cannot wait to embark upon.
“I was dumbfounded when Matt called me,’’ Zito said at a video press conference from BB&T Center with Caldwell by his side.
“I looked through those glass doors in the office and saw my wife. … It was a very special moment. Very special. Wonderful. I can’t … my brain hasn’t stopped working, thinking about everything this job entails. The excitement is overwhelming me right now.
“I can’t wait to get to work.”
Zito has long been the sidekick of Kekalainen whom he has been tight friends with for years.
The two were close while Zito was building up a powerhouse player agency and Kekalainen was working in St. Louis.
When Kekalainen landed his first big job as GM of the Blue Jackets, it wasn’t long before Zito put his agent shingle away and joined him as assistant GM.
“It was invaluable, such a great learning experience,’’ Zito said to a question posed by Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch.
“Just the practical aspects of hockey, learning from (John Davidson) … I can’t discount what JD did for me both on a professional and hockey level. Learning from Jarmo, my best friend; Mike Priest, Torts.
“The hockey side of things, the players … going through all the processes hockey-wise. It’s difficult to go through all of it in this forum, but as an agent, I learned a lot about teams from the outside. I needed to get inside to learn a bit more in how to prepare myself how to do this. I made mistakes and I learned.”
Over the past seven years, the Blue Jackets were transformed from one of the worst teams in the NHL to, while not one of its best, at least one of its most consistent.
Columbus has made the playoffs in each of the past three seasons and four of the past five, mainly with a core of homegrown players — or ones who were acquired in trades.
When free agents Sergei Bobrovsky (coincidentally), Artemi Panarin and Matt Duchene left for greener pastures last summer, the Blue Jackets were thought to be dead on arrival.
Then the team suffered one injury after another.
Yet they survived.
The Panthers have not been a team which has handled any type of adversity well over the years, so the success Columbus had despite all its many roadblocks were noticed around the league.
And, in Sunrise. While the high-priced Panthers foundered (especially in February), seeds of change had been planted.
“It was all about performance,’’ Caldwell told me when asked why the team made the decision to move on from Dale Tallon.
“The results kind of speak for themselves. Vinnie bought the team seven years ago and we have been to the playoffs once. At the end of the day, we have to win. …
“We thought we were going to take a big step forward this year — and while we didn’t think we were going to win the Stanley Cup, at minimum, we had to make the playoffs spending to the cap with Joel Quenneville as coach.
… We needed to go in a different direction.”
The Panthers have a pretty solid group to work with although Zito comes in ready to work. He’ll have to.
Florida has four pending free agents as well as some players it wouldn’t mind moving before next season eventually comes.
For Zito, however, all of that stuff will come.
There will be trades. He will draft guys come October. There will be signings.
Right now, however, Zito is going to be on the fast track to learning what he’s got in Florida.
He flew in from Columbus on Wednesday morning after having a long telephone chat with coach Joel Quenneville — whom he has always been friendly with dating back to his agency — about the job at hand.
Captain Sasha Barkov also sent a welcoming text to his new GM, one that wasn’t read until Zito landed in Fort Lauderdale.
“It is humbling to even think about working with Joel,” said Zito, who got a five-year contract.
“I was still an agent when Chicago won their first Cup in 2010 and had some players on that team. I spent a lot of time watching them. I have nothing but the upmost respect — and the excitement to learn from him.”
The Panthers are not the most attractive job in the NHL. If it was, there would not be an opening.
But it is not an unattractive place to be either.
The Panthers still have talent, still have an owner in Vinnie Viola who wants to win. There are some intriguing players within the pipeline, but, there is work to be done.
Zito says he is ready to take it all on.
His brain, you see, hasn’t stopped going since Caldwell handed him the controls of his own team.
“There’s a 100 percent rule,” he said. “I am going to ask 100 percent from the players. You give 100 percent, be the best player you can be.
“Commit to winning all the time. And in turn, I promise to give you 100 percent to be the best GM that I can be. I will give you everything I have whether it’s drafting, scouting, whatever it is. I’m going to give 100 percent of my best effort to help you.”