The Hockey PDOcast - 'The Franchise' and How NHL Organizations Operate

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Craig Custance to dig into his new book about how various NHL GMs and Owners run their organizations. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Craig Custins. By God, that's Craig Custin's music. Craig, what's going on, man? It's been way, way too long. It's, it's been, it's, the music is some old-timey song at this point. It has been so long, Dimitri. How are you? Good to see you. I'm good, man. So we've picked up some listeners along the way, you know, the PTOCAS has been growing a little bit over the past couple years, but we still have a lot of diehard, a lot of OG fans who have been listening since the very beginning.

I was noting in our season premiere episode earlier this week, this is the 10th year of the hockey Pediocast, which sounds ridiculous to say, I can't believe. Hey, happy anniversary. For 10 years, yes. Thank you. But the reason I say that is because you were once a regular guest of the program during the early days of the show. You'd come on.

I think they were coming on like every couple weeks at some point, and we were just talking about random stuff. I think very fondly of the book review we did for your behind the benches book, which we're going to kind of do a similar thing on today, just from a different lens. But it's been way too long since we did this. I really got nostalgic just thinking about how you and I used to chat all the time. I think the last time we spoke and I had you on was during the early days of the pandemic. We had known new games all of a sudden to watch because the world shut down.

So we just started rewatching old classics. and you and I did a deep dive of that 2009, Game 7 Stanley Cup final between the Penguins and the Red Wings. But it's good to have you on, man. I'm really excited about it. It's great to be here and shout out to all the original listeners that had to suffer through you and I doing watchability rankings and whatever else we were dreaming up in that moment in time. So you've been lurking in the shadows a little bit here, obviously. I think as people know, you took a bit of a backseat from your regular. day-to-day writing took on a bit of a more of a managerial role at the athletic, but little did I

know that this entire time, where at least the past couple years or so, you were just lurking in the shadows, biding your time, doing all this reporting and collection for this book you put out. And that's what we're going to do here today. We're going to kind of deep dive it similar to what we did with that aforementioned behind the bench book. I want to peel back a few layers. You were kind enough to send me a copy of it, so I got to enjoy it myself. I don't want to spoil too much of it because we obviously want people to actually get it for themselves and enjoy it. But I think this can be a bit of a supplementary content, I guess, to it. And maybe we can even get into some extra nuggets that maybe you weren't able to put into the final product just because

of the reality of that editing process and how books work. Do you want to just go through it, kind of like chapter by chapter and work our way through it? Let's dig in. Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, this is what I'm first curious about. So the process of putting together a mammoth project like this for yourself and kind of the legwork behind it. I think, you know, I'm going to butter you up here a little bit before we get into the meat of it. But I really mean this when I say it, like part of the reason it has been so disappointing not having you covering the sport on a day-to-day basis is because I've gotten to see you in the past, like how you work with this stuff and sort of how you're able to make people feel comfortable,

I guess, and get them to open up in a sport where that's really tough to come by, right? I think everyone knows the cliches in hockey with all the interviews. but also just the lack of transparency in general from teams, right? Like we can't even these days get clarity on which body part a player injures, let alone actual big sort of organizational concepts. And so getting these active participants in the sport to open up about their trade secrets and the way kind of things work behind the scenes. Sort of, I imagine that must have been a pretty challenging endeavors, certainly.

It helps that you have a lot of these connections and relationships already existing. But I'm kind of curious about that because for a personal point, perspective, I'd love to have some of these GMs and agents and various executives on my show, right? Because I think they can provide phenomenal insight and sort of clarity into why they did certain things. I just feel like it generally doesn't make for great podcasting because they're probably going to come on and not really say that much. It's actually insightful, right? It's going to be a lot of the stuff we've become accustomed to. You actually were able to sort of get a bit beneath that. Part of that was talking to people in their orbit just beyond the actual characters themselves. But what was all that like? Well, I appreciate it. So if I could just like pan back a second and just so the listener can understand what I was hoping to to accomplish here. And then we can dive into how like the process a little bit. But so the book is called the franchise. It's behind me.

So I should see what the subtitle is. The Business of Building Winning Teams, which that's changed multiple times. But I like where it landed. And the concept was similar to behind the bench where I would, you know, each chapter is focused on a different leader in hockey. and these are these are general managers owners uh you know director of player development in the case of Megan Duggan um just various people i think what i was hoping to do was to get um people at different points in their careers and at different levels so you you know it's and catching them at different moments um in the kind of the development of their teams so you know in some cases it was

george mcfee the literally i went to the ring ceremony after the goal the Knights won the Stanley Cup and then sat down and spent the next day with George. You know, you have those moments or it's, it is somebody like a Kyle Dubus when we were, he was running the Toronto Maple Leafs when we sat down, but this was, he was not coming off of a Stanley Cup. This was somebody who was really facing some real decisions in real time, which I thought made for a fascinating case study. And, and, you know, I had a couple of things that, to my advantage, one was, I've been doing

a long time. So there was there was some trust built in with a lot of the people that I was asking to spend time with. And I think that helped people to open up. I think when you're writing a book, it's it's a little easier. People will, you're not, they're not thinking it's coming out the next day and it's, it's not going to be on Twitter. Like the stuff I'm sat on for four years, like would have made, it would have been great for social, my social media presence, but you just can't. And and so there's, there's kind of the long term part of it. You know, and, and so I, I think that definitely helped the cause. And then what I really tried to do with this was to get people outside of,

when possible, outside of normal media exchanges. So just, you know, for instance, with Julian Breesbois, we went and played pickleball. And I'm like,

okay, here's somebody who's this huge competitor. I don't want to do this in the media room at the lightnings facility. And so, you know, he picked me up from the hotel in Tampa and just, he cleaned my clock and just killed me at pickleball but you know you get a glimpse into somebody and and so that's valuable as a writer but also then then when you're done with that and you're sitting down

at a coffee shop nearby it just changes the atmosphere a little bit it changes what the conversation's going to look like and and so I think that was intentional in the approach and I think all of that kind of led to what you're talking about is I think people did open up a little bit more and and we're a little bit more forthcoming. And also, I'm not asking about injuries and I'm not asking about trades. We're diving into philosophies in how did you handle this specific situation

and why did you make the decision you made? And we're getting into the whys a lot more because I'm a genuinely curious person and that's what I was trying to help the reader ultimately learn is why people do the things they do in these spots. That comment from Breezewell, by the way, It was kind of in passing in your book. And I think you put it in there for comedic effect, certainly,

but it was very subtle. I certainly had me laughing quite hysterically when he had the quote about how he's like, this would have been satisfying if you were able to actually test me in any way and make this a bit of a challenge. It wasn't really in this case. But theoretically, it would have been fun for me. It was such a shot by Julian to me. And I know what I made it worse, Demetri, is like when somebody's,

you can take it if somebody's busting you and you're like, ah, you know, He was trying to make a point. He's like, hey, you know, physical exercises. When you put in the work, he was making, he was trying to use it as an example. Like, he's like, had you been able to push me at all physically, that would have been a satisfying inter- he's like, but you didn't. And I'm like, wow. Jesus, Julian.

There are a couple of overarching concepts. And I think we're going to try to sort of organically weave them into this conversation. But the one that I wanted to start with was, and obviously this was very on the forefront in the Lule Amarillo chapter, right? I think he's become known as known for sort of the cloak and dagger kind of immensely secretive stuff by design, right? You noted how, um, yeah, the rep of sort of just like having these contracts signed and keeping it tabbed for the time being. And, and, you know, whether it was cap friendly before or now Puckpedia moving forward, these websites, like, try to get this information out there to build a database and us not actually knowing a lot of

these contract terms, just knowing that the players theoretically signed. And, and the conversation you had with him there, sort of how I get it from a lot of these interviews and kind of like declarations or just the concept of transparency, whether it's on a player or a team level, individually there's very little to gain, right? If anything, it can be sort of twisted against you.

Yes. So I get why people are generally reticent to do so. I think you could fairly argue, and I guess I am doing exactly that here, that in the big picture, more transparency for the sport in general, would do it a lot of good, just kind of like both for the league

the NHL as a whole, but also just the sport globally to bring fans in, right, to make them feel like they're part of it as opposed to just watching through glass or through their phones to establish that connection, right? To sort of,

it's obviously going to lead to financial gain down the road because you're going to get customers hooked and they're going to be giving you their money, but also I think it'll just grow the sport and its popularity, and that's something that NHL has certainly been lagging behind compared to some of the other North American pro leagues. And so, you know, that was really hammered home in that chapter.

But I think in general, I was thinking about that a lot while I was reading your book and how that's something that I wish was more of a thing in hockey, but I also understand kind of the pushback against it, I guess. Yeah, like, I think that that was probably the exchange with Lou where we went back and forth the most was because I, you know, we disagree kind of fundamentally. and, you know, he's, I believe, you know, the more, the more information you have out there, the more, you know, trade chatter there is out there, the more you can get hockey on the front pages and people talking about it, you know, it's better for the sport, like full stop.

And, you know, he's, he disagreed. I'm like, you know, we would go back. I don't even know how much of this I put in there. And I didn't want, like, this felt like really, really inside baseball. Do hockey fans really care if I can get information from Lou La Merlo? Probably not. But the point I was just trying to make the Lou at the time was, hey, you know, this is, it's good for the sport. It's good for growth.

And he's like, at the end of the day, he was just like, just win. That's it. Like, if you win and you put out a great product, the sport grows. And he's like, that's all the fans care about. He, you know, he pushed back that the fans would care about the information that I was trying to get or would try to get from him as a you know somebody covering his team um but he's just like it it doesn't matter and you know i think lou is protective of his players and you know i think that came through in that chapter two where where um i had a lot of people saying you hear a lot about loyalty to lula merlo and i'm

like okay that's fine but what does that look like in reality can i like what does lou do specifically to to gain that kind of loyalty and you know there's three or four stories that people told that it wasn't to sit here and say, hey, what a good dude, Lou is. It was more to like, how as a leader do you get that kind of organizational loyalty where I had a former player say, hey, right now, I haven't played for Lou for 20 years. But if something happened to me and I was in trouble, I wouldn't call my parents. I would call Lou Leverillo. And I'm like, okay, how does somebody get that kind of trust from somebody? And that was interesting to me. And I think part of it is because he understands the impact on families,

he understands the impact on the player when their names are out there and when they're being speculated about and to him, whatever tradeoff there would be for the good of the game to get it, you know, on Sports Center or whatever,

is not worth what he would view as a big negative for his organization. I guess where I just disagree with that and I guess it sounds like we're on the same page is at the end of the day, what there's 32 teams in the league right now, 31 of them are going to end their same. season with some sort of a loss, right?

Like they fell short of their goal. You didn't win the ultimate prize. And while, you know, a long playoff run can certainly do a lot from a team level for like just gate revenue and all that, but also for fans to get to cheer for them along the way and get to embrace that playoff experience, if that's all you're striving towards, like that's great. But I think the journey is just as important, especially on the fan level, especially now with the prevalence of social media and, you know, all of this stuff just being.

so publicly available. So I don't know, maybe I guess I am a little biased, right, because I've got this public facing podcast and it's my job to essentially provide a lot of commentary on this and his perspective.

You know what I mean? Like just cares about wins and losses, but yeah. He's measured at the end of the day, is his team standing at the end? Not our gate receipts of the league overall or ratings on ESPN higher. So that,

you know, I've learned as a manager how people are evaluated is where they that's where they end up focusing. And so I think that's ultimately the, you know, I was not in that short period of time where I was spending with him in his office. And then later we went and got a nice dinner

at a little Italian restaurant. I was not going to change his mind of this one. So in the book, you kind of, I mean, there's an illustrious list of characters, right, in GMs and people who run teams in different ways, owners as well that are involved. And then people in their orbit to kind of provide context for how they work, where there, a few,

a few GMs or people within the league that you wish you were able to or you gave a long thought to including in various chapters. Because obviously it kind of flows, right? And I think there's like natural segways by design from one to the other, especially as the book gets going. But were there any like, whether it's like a Bill Zito or or someone else? I know you wrote this before the Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup last year, obviously. but kind of characters that you would have wished were involved or they gave long thought to including. Yeah. This is too early in the interview and the regrets, but I've got, I've got a few here.

Bill Zito is a good one. I literally just sent him an email yesterday saying, hey, this book is out. He, like, he was influential and even some of the ideas in it. We talked concepts. And I wanted him to write the forward, which he agreed to do. then we ended up as just making a decision not to have a forward with the book. And so it was one of those things where throughout the whole process, I just assumed Bill would either have a chapter or his name, you know,

because I have so much respect for what he's done. You know, he, I have, I think I have this propensity to be most interested in people who have forged their paths, not as a former player. Like Bill Zito had to do it the hardest possible way, which was start his own agent, company, build up clients, learn how to run that, do that extremely well with guys like Tuka Rask and Tim Thomas. Wait, but, you know, we're going back on the day. And, and then gave it all up to become an assistant GM in Columbus. Like, this is somebody, like all of

these decisions he made and then wins a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers. And so that one's probably my biggest one. And I hate that he's not in this book because I think, mostly because I think people could learn a lot from him and all the decisions he made and he would have been great. And it just was one of those things where it just didn't, it didn't work. Like, it was intended to be there and it didn't work out. I think you're right to say, like, I went in with a list of people I was targeting, but what ended up happening is one conversation would lead to the next one. So for instance, I spent, you know, I wanted Kyle Dubison. I'm fascinated by Kyle. I think I relate to him on a lot of levels and how we think and operate. So I thought it

would be a natural conversation. And so I spent time with him, you know, again, trying to get him out of his normal routine. We met in a bookstore in Northern Michigan that was just, it was just kind of fun to walk up and down the aisles with him. And, you know, during the course of this interview, this is, you know, post one of the playoff, you know, disappointments in Toronto. And he said, he just referenced kind of casually an incredible conversation he had with Washington Capitals, then GM, Brian McClellan, who he had turned to it for advice, who had faced a very similar situation with talented teams that were underachieving. And he's, you know, Kyle said, Brian was unbelievable. And the insight he gave me was unbelievable. And I was just like, great. Like,

what was it? Like, spill. Like we're writing a book here. And Kyle was like, no, this is, it was a very personal conversation. And it was, you know, this was, not meant for publication. But it just teed up the next, you know, the next call I had to make was to the capitals and to try to get, try to get their story. And then that naturally led to George McPhee. And, you know, so there was a lot of threads that, that kind of led to the narrative of what you saw, Dimitri.

And, and then there was just stuff that I didn't, wasn't able to get because of, you know, people didn't want to do it. Like Steve Eisenman, I have Jim Nill in there. I thought there had Julian Breeswa in there. And there was just a really, you know, real natural connection to Steve Eisenman. I'm in Detroit. Steve,

you know, I've been covering Steve a long time. And it was just one of those things where, you know, wasn't able to get the time I would need. Steve was probably like, I'll tell you, but then I'll have to kill you.

I'll have to kill you. Yeah. He's not, he was not interested in. No. Kyle's probably listening to this right now, just pacing some bookstore in, in Pennsylvania right now,

just listening to us talk. So, okay. My one suggestion would have been, I guess if you had asked me, my recommendation would have been Lawrence Gilman, obviously not a GM voice necessarily, but could have certainly contributed to both the Kyle section, but also the Rutherford one we're going to talk about

in a little bit here from a Canucks perspective, because I know he's got some interesting stories, especially with dealing with ownership. All right, let's get into a chapter by chapter. I'm going to kind of go through the ones that I thought are most interesting. I actually thought the one you start with with Breezebaugh, beyond getting dismantled and pickleball, was very insightful

because it wound up actually being prophetic, right? You sort of did the reporting for this and writing it and then a lot of stuff that I think is played out since then

it's provided insight for, right? One of them in particular being sort of this concept where as a GM, you have to essentially make a decision

and then be decisive and move on it regardless of what the outside or public perception is going to be like, right? And then we saw this past summer

how the Stephen Stamco situation played out. I'm sure I don't disagree with the end result conclusion they reached, which was we don't want to pay for what he's done for organization. We want to pay

for what a player is going to do moving forward and it's not really worth it or we can't really justify it at this point. I'm sure they probably could have handled it differently from a PR perspective, but that sort of gets the core of what you're saying there in terms of I guess the way he moves as a GM.

Yeah, it's one of those things when that all happened, I was sitting there going, man, I wish the book was out because I could I would love to just say, hey, everyone, you know, turned to page 23 to understand why he's doing what he's doing here. And, you know, there was a version of it, you know, what is, what is in the book is the Ryan McDonough situation, which is not all that dissimilar, where you have somebody who is the heart and soul of the lightning defense, who, as Julian says, you know, in one of the interviews, this is somebody who is tight with, you know, other families and there's kids and they're

playing together in the neighborhood. And this, you know, these are human beings. And these are human beings who, who bled for the team and raised a Stanley Cup. And they went through just the hardest thing together. And, you know, in that, in the case of Ryan McDonough, there was a point where waivers were an option there. It was like to get where they had to get to make the move they had to make. Like there was, that was the leverage they had. And, you know, Julian Breezebaw was the person that basically had to make those decisions.

And, you know, I've talked about this, but I think one of the, you know, that what makes a great leader is your willingness to make those tough decisions. And I think that there's a few themes that come up throughout the book. But, you know, you see it with George McPhee and some of the coaching changes he made in Vegas. You see it with Julian Brisebois, with Ryan McDonough and later Stephen Stamcoast. You see it with Lou over and over again where people that are so loyal to him and then, you know, he fires them. And these are people I would talk to after the fact and who are still loyal to him. And I think it was George McPhee who said it. And he said the second you're unwilling to make those tough decisions and do it in a timely fashion when they need to be done, you're done being able to run the team.

Like you should get out. And I think Julian one of his strengths is it's almost cold-hearted. And I'm not saying he's cold-hearted because he's not, but you have to just be ruthless in your decision-making. in time. I really related to the part about the interview process and sort of the particular attacks that they did. They did in terms of just like rather than sort of your generic interview questions of what are your strengths and weaknesses and kind of I think everything that everyone, I'm sure, has gone through at some point in their walk of life is actually providing the real life scenario and then kind of judging sort of how you'd handle it. And I find that fascinating.

Obviously there's so many a big, one of the biggest parts of being a coach is not only, dealing with personalities and kind of doing that stuff in real time, but obviously the tactics on the bench and everything as well. And that's arguably the most important part of the job, right? So I think that part was really interesting. I don't know if I've ever even told you or talked about this on the show, but I think what was it back in the spring of 2017 before the Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft. I went through a bit of that interview process with them, right? I had a few sort of interviews, obviously not in a coaching position, but sort of thrown at me in that exact same way from that organization of kind of like, all right, let's say one of our head scouts

comes to you in a meeting and says, all right, we really want this player and that player's analytics are really bad. Like, how are you going to be able to handle that? Right. And at that point, I was like, I don't even really know what to say now. So it's very interesting. I obviously did not wind up getting the job and it wound up working out fine. As I said, you're 10 of doing the show. I'm very blessed, but... I'm going okay for you, yeah. Yeah, it's incredibly interesting. And obviously, those conversations from either a coaching or final office perspective

are happening pretty much every day within a team concept. Yeah. So I think for me personally, one of the most fun things about doing this was I could immediately take these strategies and these stories and these interviews and apply them in real time to the job I was doing, which was, you know, at the athletic now, you know, managing a large staff in interviews. viewing people and changing jobs and doing all these various things that are that are kind of tangentially related to what what these leaders are doing. And that's a very concrete thing that

I've stolen from Julian. And essentially, he said two things in the interview process. And the reason, Demetri, we were talking about it was because I thought Julian maybe better than anybody in the book was good at identifying coaches and hiring people that maybe weren't, were less than obvious candidates and going back to Guy Boucher and I think Hamilton was when he hired him and this is, you know, and then John Cooper obviously is, that's a franchise altering, altering hiring. And, and, you know, at the time, you know, bringing him into the organization, I think he was in the USHL at the time, that was not an obvious hire. And so I'm like, well, how do you, how do you land on these guys? And he talked about the interview process. And there was two things that

stood out to me. One was he was really big on just like, getting at the interview and not having any kind of like pleasantries beforehand because he's like once you start making a personal connection with the person you're interviewing for the job, you lose your, you know, the ability to be objective. And so, you know, he's like, he's like, he's like something as as, um, something as simple as saying, oh, you know, you play pickleball or tennis, so do I. And, you know, five seconds in, he's like, your interview's ruined. And you've lost, now you've made this kind of personal connection. You like this person a little more. more and it's and you're not able to to do this in a way that's good for the organization.

And I thought that was fascinating. Because I'm, I think part of, you know, we all want to be liked. We want to have that, you know, you want to do this interview. You want to make a connection as somebody that's making the hiring. And he's saying the exact opposite. And then the second thing he was doing was exactly what you said was creating scenarios. And I literally, right before this call was interviewing somebody for a job and gave them a scenario and said, okay, this is happening in the news.

this is made you know what are your first steps how are you getting the most what stories are you writing how you know what and you just create these these things so you can see how people operate and you know julian's point was you know the best way to make a decision on a hiring somebody would be to get them in the organization for six months and then make a decision and nobody can do that that's not realistic so the second best is to sit there and present them with scenarios and try to simulate that over the course of the interview And that's way different than, you know, what's your biggest weakness or whatever people like to ask. I mean, it's a key part of his origin story.

But I would love even more. I feel like I could read just a whole book on the arbitration cases and kind of the lead up to that and sort of everything behind that. Right. Obviously, it's very prevalent in the NHL, even in real time right now with what's going on with Jeremy Swayman and the Bruins and kind of that like breaking of trust and kind of what that leads down the road in terms of the relationship and future communication. and that being sort of like his entryway into the sport is so fascinating because in one sense he took an unconventional path or unconventional background to get there and I can relate with that but then also it was a very conventional for him because he like worked his way up through the AHL essentially and had success there and then was able to sort of parlay that into more responsibility

at the NHL level to where he is now with the Tampa Bay Lightning so I thought that was interesting yeah there's there's more bio I think on Julian than maybe anybody else else in the book. And because I think I, again, I'm fascinated by people that take a different path to success than what is traditional. And, you know, my heart with this book is that people can sit there. I hope people are like taking notes. I hope people are saying, hey, this is something I can do in my real life.

And like my son is 19 years old. He's in college. He wants to be a college football coach. And I told him, you know, you don't have to read dad's book, but read the Julian Breezebaw chapter to see what, you know, what a 21-year-old Julian Breesbaud did at a law firm as somebody who wasn't a hockey player was actually more interested in baseball in tax law and how he basically made himself into a GM. And he did it by going into the basement of this law firm and finding a bunch of old arbitration cases

and creating this binder of information so that they could modernize the way they do arbitration cases. and then they started cold calling GMs and saying, hey, we can do your case and here's, here's why. And he did that by working till midnight and going in before his, I think he was an intern at the time, but before and after. And like that's, you know, you don't have to want to be an NHL GM to learn something from that. You just, you have to want to be good at what you're doing and realize that sometimes it's not just working your shift. It's going above and beyond to make yourself stand out. All right, Craig. Well, I think we're going above and beyond here.

Let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we're going to jump right back going to keep chatting about some of the other chapters in your book. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right. We're back here on the Hockey P.D.O.C. joined today by Craig, deep dive his book, The Franchise. Craig, in typical P.D.O.cast fashion, I was going to go through all these chapters one by one. We wound up spending 30 of our 50 minutes today on the first chapter and a lot of a pretty

reamble. So we're going to have to rifle through this and kind of, I think, unite a lot of these themes together, right? And I think one of them, both with the Calduba section, which we've alluded to, but also I think the Brian McQuillan one. And even I'd say the Tom Dundon Hurricanes one is sort of this concept. And maybe even the Breezewell one, because you kind of noted how they had to sort of time when they wanted to make moves of the deadline. They first did it. And then they kind of recalibrated and wound up sort of making these calculated decisions to pay a bit extra compared to what I think the general consensus was these players are worth because it benefited them in the grand scheme of things.

Is that concept of kind of both luck of what it takes to actually get to the mountaintop and be one of those one of 32 teams that can justify their season by having just won at all? And sort of how that works. And I think from a fan perspective, it can be heartbreaking. But I think it's fun, right? Because this is the drama of sports. This is why we watch. Why the playoffs are so fun, particularly in hockey.

They can be so chaotic. I think everyone can appreciate how much it's. takes both from talent and luck to actually win the Stanley Cup. But from a team perspective, I imagine it's got to be quite humbling, right, to sort of reconcile that you can have a great process, you can do the right job, and still lose in round one because you were the second best team, let's say, and you played the fourth best team because of the current playoff format in round one or round two, what have you. And these organizations have gone through a year over year.

Some of them kind of eventually use that as part of their origin story of how they kind of persevered through it and why I made it so much sweeter. Others don't get the chance to realize that and they wind up moving to different teams. And then in Dubus's case, maybe learn from it and adjust it at the second stop. But I'm really curious about kind of that concept and sort of talking about it with these guys who have both been on both sides of it, I guess, the ones who have come out ahead and also the ones who are still hoping to kind of have that be the next chapter in their story. Yeah, there's, I mean, that concept came up in a lot of the chapters. I think the ones you name specifically Kyle, the Capitals with Ted and Brian McClellan and Tom Dundon.

And let me just say this on the Kyle Dubas chapter because what I really hope people, I hope the lens in which people read that is almost as a case study for a moment in time versus pulling out quotes that Kyle said about this player or that player or this decision or that decision because I think, I think, I think if Kyle, if I was to do that interview now, he's probably, his answers would probably be different in how to approach things or, you know, even something as simple as this is a decision that I thought was, you know, I'd like back or whatever.

I think it would be different because he's evolved. He's got, he's on a different job. He's had the benefit of time. But, you know, in that case of that chapter, this is catching Kyle at this specific time. And I think that that makes for it's kind of a, its own fascinating case study. And it goes down to exactly what you say. Like, how do you weigh major decisions when there's a lot of outside factors that have nothing to do with good decision making, right? And even how much, let's use the Leafs. In this moment in time, Kyle was weighing, you know, a playoff disappointment. We talked a lot about his exit interviews and what those conversations were like.

and what kind of inputs he was getting from the players. And with the strategy, I wanted to get into a lot of the process. And then in doing so, was able to get some kind of interesting stories. But like, how did he handle that? And how much do you weigh what Austin Matthews is saying to you in this very heated moment in time versus being, taking a step back and doing what's right? And then when you're talking to the Washington Capitals and you're talking to Brian McClellan, how much do you even factor in his advice? because, you know, they win a Stanley Cup and we talk about it in the book and probably should have lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round, right? So you're kind of, you're heating the

advice of somebody who won a Stanley Cup, deservedly so. The capitals were always knocking on the door. So it's not to say it's not earned, but, you know, they'd be the first to tell you if, I think it was Panarin hit a post in overtime and they probably would have gotten bounced in the first round that the year they won the cup. So I think, It comes down to just having, it comes down to having processes that you believe in. I think it comes down to evolving. It comes down to making, and this is the whole point that Brian McClellan said, you know, is kind of referencing his conversation with Kyle was, you know, do what you believe in,

not what the fans are saying or not even what the players are saying. You have to have conviction what you believe. And, you know, and then moving forward and evolving. And I think all of these, you know, these leaders that have had success are good at that. I think one of the most interesting concepts for me, and I give a lot of thought to it when I do analysis, especially around the Traded Ladder trades or in free agency as well, is sort of this concept of the ownership's role and kind of what that plays in this, right? And you hit on that a lot in the later stages of the book. Obviously, there's a Ted Leone's section, Dundon specifically,

but I thought the most interesting one was the Jim Rutherford section, right? Because especially now in Vancouver, the success they've had so far, I think, can be directly traced back to that one particular strength. You highlighted, which was his ability to manage up, right? Where he's able to, because of both his personality and character, but I think also his reputation and his longevity in the sport, it carries a bit more gravitas, right? And so he's able to sort of keep a Mercurio or an owner who might be more at whims to just all of a sudden change directions on a fly or try to satisfy their own particular individual needs, even if it's not for the good of the organization in the long term,

he's able to sort of manage that. And at some point, there's only so much you can do certainly. Like, the owner's always going to win out there, the owner of the team. But being able to handle that and kind of play that role, we've seen that a lot more now as kind of like president of hockey ops or the vice president as opposed to just the GM role specifically. but I think they're kind of inextricable, right? And for us as analysts or writers or podcasters,

it's really difficult without having that peak behind the curtain to know kind of what's at play. I think we attribute a lot of this stuff, both the success and failure of teams, to the decision makers, right? But in reality, sometimes they're just kind of doing what their boss tells them to do. And I don't necessarily have a right answer for this

and you can jump in, but I find that sort of component of all this stuff, the team dynamic, the organization as a whole, so kind of compelling. Yeah, that was, so the interesting thing about Jim Rutherford is I caught him, again, this book has been years in the making. And so there, you know, there's some of these interviews took place. It seems like to me now ancient history. But I caught Jim after he had stepped down from his position with the penguins. He was still living in Pittsburgh. This is pre-Vancouver Canucks. And so, you know, that worked out great for me because he had a lot of time. And we met at this country club outside of Pittsburgh. And, um, And it just gave him the ability to be kind of really reflective on his career, but also on how he manages. And, you know, we get towards the end of the interview and just kind of threw it out there.

And I was just like, hey, Jim, you know, this probably should have been a good question early on. But I'm like, you've been doing this a long time. Like, what can you just pin it down to one thing you got to be, you have to be good at to succeed in your job? And to meet you, he didn't even hesitate. He's like, oh, yeah, it's managing up. And I'm like managing up. That's not, I thought we were going to say like great trades or scouting or something way more, I don't know, in line with what I would have thought. And I'm like, okay, please explain.

And if you think about his history, you know, he's coming off of whatever it happened in Pittsburgh. Before that, Pete Carmanos is, you know, this is a big personality. These are people that have a lot of opinions and how to run things. And gyms, you know, I would say is super powerful. is managing those people and he has a lot of experience in it. And then I was sitting there and, you know, he gets hired by the Canucks after our conversation. And I was actually not thrilled when, you know, I think it might have been Drancer or somebody in Vancouver asks him something about, you know, the biggest challenge. And he's sitting next to the owner, literally next to him. And he says,

oh, it's going to be managing up and managing this guy. And I'm like, oh, so here, you know, this great insight I was going to dive into. Jim, saving for the just made for, I'm like, save it. Yeah, because it's nothing sacred. But it actually made for this great, you know, then I could capture that moment too. And it, and it just, it drove at home more because you're like, okay, this is a franchise that hasn't succeeded. And, you know, when you talk to people about what the issue was in Vancouver, it was more often than not, it was starting at the top. And that's, you know, that's usually the case. And I think that is as a leader, as somebody that's building teams, it's building culture. I think that's a skill that is, invaluable. I think you have to develop it over time. I think all of us have some version of it. And that was Jim's point. He's like, you start it in elementary school. You're managing your teacher. You're managing your parents. If you want to get what you want, you have to have that ability. And it was a turn. I don't know if I saw coming. I completely agree with that one. I would say his other superpower, maybe even the more important one from a practical perspective,

is just acknowledging his own mistakes and then having a willingness to pull the shoot as opposed to doubling down, which is I think where we see GMs, other GMs get themselves in trouble. Now you could argue that towards the end of his tenure in Pittsburgh, there were too many times you had to acknowledge mistakes, right? And that could become an issue of it's like, if your biggest skill is like, all right, I messed up, man. And like, it's like, all right, well, we've heard that 14 times in the past two years. I think at some point maybe stop making so many mistakes. But I think that's a huge one, right? Especially from that GM perspective where I think you can become so personally invested in being right because that's where you're going to

being judged on and you sort of stake your reputation and claim on drafting this player high on the draft requiring this guy in a trade and then it kind of blows up in your face there's only so many times i guess that you can either blame someone else or extenuating factors like oh well he didn't mess with the coach or we had a miscommunication there eventually it's going to fall kind of at your doorstep right and so i find that one incredibly interesting um in terms of his sort of uniqueness in that regard compared to a lot of his peers. Yeah, he's, I mean, he's not afraid to fix a messes of his own making at times. And like, I think ultimately that comes from humility, which I think Jim has. And that was the other thing I focused on that chapter, his ability to listen. Like,

he doesn't have to be the center of attention. You know, Mike Sullivan told a great story about how on the road he always sat in on every coach's meal. And he would just sit at this table and, you know, they're having a stake in a beer or whatever and he's you know the quietest guy was the person in charge because he was just sitting there listening to coaches talk and and when when you think of his strengths about making trades at just the right time or seemingly always seems to know what the team needs that's in large part because like there's there's small enough ego there that he's willing to sit and listen and a person after person even you know going to vancouver i i talked to cammy Grinado for this book and just to get her insight who I think she's amazing and she said the same

thing about she's just like every day I'm just blown away here's this guy who's a hall of famer and just sits and listens and and I you know I you know listens amidst mistakes those are all things that aren't easy to do as somebody in charge. All right let's get to the Tom Dunden section. I want to end with that because you know hits on a couple of these core elements but I think the concept that's so interesting captivating to me is how the hurricanes sort of, and maybe this should apply more readily across the league,

right? Because of all the stuff we've talked about so far in terms of like you're running a business, right? And for you to be profitable, you need to make tough decisions. And I think it's very difficult to make those decisions sometimes if you are so heated or emotional about it. And so what they do is take a more sort of practical analytical approach,

which is assigning a value to essentially, everything and then strictly adhering to it, right? And when the price for it exceeds that, they're willing to move on even if people will be upset by it because they become emotionally attached to themselves. Now, you can certainly get into trouble and they have it as an organization in the past couple years of sort of rubbing people the wrong way when you're assigning values to human beings. And then all of a sudden it's like, well, how can you not take it personally if you're essentially saying whether it's directly or indirectly that you're you're just not this valuable to us.

It's like it's a pretty tough pill to swallow. But I find that part so interesting with them and sort of I wanted to talk about and broach that a little bit more with you here because there's a lot of these uniting elements for them that sort of encompass this book as a whole, but them specifically. Yeah. Like I think he might have been the most interesting to me to spend time with because just he was so different than anybody else and how he operated. and he's taking this mindset.

I think the interesting thing about Tom is that he's, he just has this real core belief that he can take anything in business. You know, a restaurant, you can give him the athletic, you can give him sports net, and he would be able to find some inefficiencies and find a way to make it better, find a way to make it more profitable. Like he is, it seems to, at his core, he seems to really believe this. And, you know, even like something as stupid as, you know, we were talking and then we walked over

and grabbed, I think we got like a milkshake or something at a restaurant nearby and just kind of taking a break. And the whole time we're talking, he's looking around and I could see him. He's like, oh, that, you know, that stand should be over there. And he was sitting there assessing the way this restaurant was set up. Because like this is how he thinks. Like this is, if we can get a little bit better and we probably can save 10 cents if we, you know, are better at predicting how much juice the players are going to need at breakfast. Like these are literally the kind of conversations we're having. And so that's a very different way of thinking in hockey than, you know, hey, we need this guy because he's great in the room or whatever. And and, but I think Tom's,

you know, Tom's point was we talked a lot about like how, you know, at times people were turned off by his approach. And he's like, look, it's not just hockey. Everybody, nobody likes change. Nobody likes somebody coming in and telling them, I have a better way. But, you know, if you're to the Carolina hurricanes and you're, you're losing money when he takes over, you haven't made the playoffs and whatever nine or 10 years like how can anybody at that point say hey this is you know we're on to something here so i you know diving into his methods was was really interesting i think there's a human element there that that i don't want to say it miss it i don't even know how the right way to say it like valuing there is some value and intangibles that can get lost

along the way and you know i talked to some people that were no longer in the organization just to provide that balance and to say you know what what that is like like. But I mean, really, I know they haven't won a Stanley Cup, but you can't argue with the results. If you're just talking about winning percentage and being in the mix every year. The only thing I was kind of, I was not mad at it, but like we were talking about value at the trade deadline. And he said, you know, we will never make a deal that would hurt us. You know, we have to, it's about sustainability in Carolina.

Like they just don't have the ability to make a deal that would hurt them two years from now for a tiny benefit at the trade deadline. And then they traded for Jake Gensel at the deadline. And I'm like, hey, I sent him a note. I'm like, you know, the book was pretty much written at that point. But I'm like this, I think there's a quote. Basically he said we would never do something like that. And he's like, wow, this is, you know, unique case. So I think there's, you got to have some flexibility in your core beliefs.

But yeah, he was, he was really fascinating. When you guys were getting a milkshake, I thought you were going to say he was wearing these like state of the art glasses straight from a cartoon and that allow him to like scan everything and instantly assign a value to it. And that was part of his mad genius. That's what he was doing. Like he was essential. Whatever his experiences were was that version.

Like his brain is operating that way. And he said it. And I'm like, man, that's, you know, that's, you know, whatever I said. He's like, it's a blessing and a curse, right? Like, you can turn a business around and you can make money on whatever. But, and you believe you can do it. But it's also like also sit and enjoy lunch. Like, you don't have to worry about where the host to stand is.

Well, the thing about them and listen, I'm very high on Eric Tulski for a variety of reasons. and I think a lot of the stuff they did from an analytical perspective was attributed to him and the staff they brought in around him to sort of build that out and that's great. I think they will miss at some point the stuff Don Waddell was doing for them behind the scenes because he had so many, his hand in so many different pots, right? And I think you noted this in the book about sort of how the evolution of front offices and NHL organizations, right? Like how many more resources are involved now behind.

the scenes aside from the cap sheet and player contracts and how staffs have been growing. There's just so much more delegation, I guess, of like niche specific roles to people. And the hurricanes are sort of, while they're an example of a modern organization and kind of that evolution in some ways, they also go the other way, I think, in some instances where it's like one person has like 12 different things they're doing, right? And that kind of goes in stark contrast, I guess, to the way some of these other organizations are operating, right? And Waddell was doing a lot of that stuff for them. So I think it's interesting where it's not necessarily just black or right, right? Like there's a bit of a gray

area there as well. And they're a good example of that. I mean, you would talk to Don and he was, he was like, we're putting on like a rodeo or something this week. Like the guy running the hockey operations had had to like, I don't know, order concessions. So yeah, he was somebody that was being pulled in a lot of different directions because, you know, it's in the spirit of being as efficient as an organization as possible. And or, you know, another word would be cheap,

right? You're trying to cut corners or save money where you don't think it, there's an organizational payoff to spend. And, you know, that's, I guess that's the give and take there. All right,

Craig. Well, this was a nice little taster, I think, for what people can come to expect from the book. I'll give you a chance to, to plug it. When is it out?

What's the best way for people to access it? What's the best way for them and enjoy it? Is it pool side with a, with a nice, cold refreshing beverage? Is it cuddling up beside a fire? What's the best way to dig into this book? I don't think it's a beach read. I mean, you tell me.

I feel like a lot of this book in the reporting of it, you're like setting the scene and you're like, yeah, we're poolside. I'm wearing a polo and slacks. There's people in bikinis drinking margaritas. I'm like, what's going on here? Is this about hockey? No, I just try to put people, like, look, I think one of the things that I have

the ability that I want to bring people with me. Like, I can, I get access at times for whatever reason. that's my position in the media landscape. And so all I'm trying to do is saying, take the reader and say, hey, you may not get this opportunity, but I want you to feel like you're there. I want you feel like that you're sitting next to me at some resort in Boca Raton with Brian McClellan.

And, you know, that's all that is. But yeah, just to plug it, it's October 15th. You know, get it wherever you get books. And if you do get it, let me know. I just, I love feedback, tweet it out. I'm going to be shameless in retweeting anybody who buys it. And, you know, I'm going to be obnoxious on social media for the next month or so. But to be clear, this is the only interview you're doing about the book, right?

Yeah, yep. I said PDOCAST and that's it. Okay. This is one and done on the podcast. All right, pal. Well, I'm glad we got to do this. It was great having you back in our lives. Hopefully we don't wait another four years until the next time you're back on the PDOC to chat.

My only plug here on the way out is the Discord community we're building for the PDOCs. it's the best place to keep up, to be involved and participate. I found it to be such a valuable resource, just genuinely amazed. Like during the peak dog days of the summer when there's nothing going on and people are by the beach or by poolside, I go in there and people are just talking about various things and all that. It was just active the entire time. So I can't wait to see what it's going to be like when we have actual games to discuss. So if you want to get in there and be involved, the invite link is in the show notes.

If you're having trouble finding it, just shoot me a message and I'll get you sorted. Craig, co-assigned everything you said about the book. I really hope people go and enjoy it and use this podcast as a supplementary source for it. And that's all for today's show. Thank you for listening. And we'll be back on Monday with plenty more of the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.