Sportsnet 590 The FAN: Elliotte Friedman on the Jeff Marek Show and where things are at for the Ottawa Senators and their GM search.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Pierre Dorian is out as general manager. Steve Staios remains as an interim, an interim capacity as they begin their GM hunt. A number of names will pop up. I mean, Peter Chiarelli’s name is there. He’s been with Ottawa before, the Senators before Boston, from the area etc. Mathieu Darche is someone that you’ve talked about, written about, as well at the 32 Thoughts blog.
If you’re throwing darts here, where’s it landing for you, and Ottawa? I would have to, I would imagine that ideally, they would want someone who is bilingual knowing how much the cross border traffic and business is very important to the Sens.
Friedman: “Yeah, I would think that is true too. I think that’s definitely a thing. You know, like the one thing is, and this and I think I have a pretty good handle on this.
Pierre Dorian was supposed to do this year. Like I really think, you know, Andlauer has told people before he likes to set up in Montreal, he likes to Gordon – Hughes set up with two people. And basically, that’s the way it works in Vegas too. It’s always been McPhee-McCrimmon, two people in charge.
And he likes that and his whole plan this year was Staios-Dorion, unless anything came up and ended that. And this did. So Ottawa was not expecting to do a search right now. And so that’s where we are.
We, I, like put it this way, I do think Darche is, is a very legitimate name. He like, Andlauer when Montreal was doing the interviews where they eventually hired Hughes, Andlauer was on those calls. And in those days, he participated, and he saw Darche interview and, and, you know, people have told me it was a good interview. So I think he’s going to be a name in there.
But I think this is going to be a bigger search. They have time. They’re not going to rush it. And Jeff, if there’s one thing you and I both know here, there’s gonna be a lot of interest in this job. For one thing, it’s one of 32.
For another thing, it’s a team on the rise, like, and, you know, like, all a lot of their key players are signed. Like you don’t have, I mean, you’ve got us all you guys sort out the Pinto thing when the time comes. But Tkachuk is signed. Norris is signed. Sanderson’s signed. Chabot sign. Like, you know, a lot of the key guys, Stuzt is signed, like a lot of the, your core is together for a long time. So we’ll see who comes out of the woodwork.”