Dan Kingerski
After a decade at the top of the Florida Panthers, the Panthers annual underachievement cost GM Dale Tallon his job earlier this month.
Panthers ownership is looking at re-treaded candidates and unconventional candidates as they begin the search to replace Tallon.
Chris Drury, who is the assistant general manager with the New York Rangers, has already withdrawn from consideration.
Florida Hockey Now, and beat writer George Richards confirms from team sources that former Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli is not only a candidate but the one to watch.
Chiarelli, 56, served as the Bruins boss from 2006 to 2015 and built the 2011 Boston Stanley Cup winner. Just weeks after Boston relieved him of duties, the Edmonton Oilers hired Chiarelli to be their GM and President of Hockey Operations.
His tenure didn’t last four years in Edmonton. After several questionable moves, including trading former top-overall pick Taylor Hall to New Jersey for stay-at-home defenseman Adam Larsson, and giving backup goalie Mikko Koskinen a three-year, $13.5 million deal, Chiarelli’s tenure ended abruptly.
The Koskinen contract on Jan. 21, 2019, was Chiarelli’s last Edmonton transaction. Edmonton terminated Chiarelli the following day.
Other candidates for the Panthers GM job have emerged, as well.
Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported on Saturday that former Pittsburgh Penguins head coach and longtime broadcaster Eddie Olczyk has interviewed for the vacant Panthers gig.
Olzcyk coached the Penguins in 2003-04 and part of 2005-06. A full-season NHL lockout interrupted his tenure. Olczyk coached a rookie Sidney Crosby and all-time great Mario Lemieux in Lemieux’s final season. However, the Penguins dismissed Olczyk in December 2005, and the Penguins finished with the worst record in the NHL.
Olczyk has remained in broadcasting since 2006, both nationally with NBCsn and with Comcast Chicago. In 2017, he announced he was battling colon cancer. He was able to announce he was cancer-free in 2018.
He also published an autobiography entitled “Beating the Odds” last October.
The Panthers have several looming decisions with big-name free agents.
Mike Hoffman, Evgenii Dadonov, and Erik Haula will be unrestricted free agents in October. The Panthers acquired Hoffman via trade two summers ago, and the winger scored 36 and 29 goals in the last two seasons, respectively.
The Panthers have not made the playoffs in four seasons and have not won a playoff series since 1996.
Tallon was fired earlier this month and is currently under investigation for racially charged language inside the NHL Toronto bubble.Tallon strongly denied using such language and affirmed support for the Hockey Diversity Alliance in an exclusive conversation with Florida Hockey Now.