My Thoughts On the Columbus Blue Jackets Hiring Don Waddell
Folks, it’s happened: the Blue Jackets have their general manager (and president of hockey operations and alternate governor). His name is Don Waddell, who up until about a week ago was the general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes. As a Blue Jackets fan, I have thoughts about this, so allow me to express them fully here.
Don Waddell is the John Tortorella of general managers. Allow me to explain. Tortorella is the best head coach in Blue Jackets history. Admittedly, that’s not saying much, and in the grand scheme of things he’s merely an “alright” coach. Yes, I know he won a Stanley Cup, but that was twenty years ago and the last time he made it past the second round was 2012. He’s competent, but you’re not winning a Cup with him (anymore). Same with Waddell. He’s likely to go down as the best general manager in the organization’s history and like Tortorella, that’s mainly because the competition for that title is rather lacking. He’s a competent GM but you’re not likely to win the Cup with him running things. Still, though, the Jackets should find more success under him than at any point prior (once again, the bar is at rock bottom as every organization in the league currently has had more success than the Blue Jackets).
The thing is, this hiring is still a very Blue Jackets hiring. In the last decade or so there have been only two requirements for getting a job with the Blue Jackets ownership, management, or coaching: you’re in-house or you’re a part of the old boys network. Those kinds of hirings are what got the organization in this mess to begin with and they seem to have no interest in moving on from that philosophy. The only difference with this one is that at least Waddell is competent at his job. So no, this is not a “new era” or proof that the Blue Jackets are turning a new leaf. They’re doing the exact same thing as before, just in this case, it was a good hire instead of a blatantly bad one. Waddell is here as an old boy to babysit the in-house Rick Nash until Nash can take over as general manager. It’s rather transparent that Nash becoming GM eventually is the long-term plan in Columbus. If that weren’t the case, someone like Tulsky or Darche (my top two targets) would’ve been targeted instead. But, what we heard all along was names like Bergevin and Holland. Names that clearly were meant to babysit Nash. This isn’t a plan I’m all that fond of.
If you can’t tell, I’m not over the moon with this hiring. It’s not bad and is overall good. This organization right now is in a better place than it was before the hiring of Waddell. It’s still far from ideal, though, and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done but I doubt will. Number one, Mike Priest needs to go. Number two, Pascal Vincent needs to be let go. Eventually, down the line, John Davidson needs to go as well, but this hiring was competent enough that he won some grace with me and I’ll let him stick around a little bit longer. I mean, you can’t get rid of EVERYBODY at once. Plus, Priest is far more damaging than JD is to this organization. Every single bad decision this organization has made in the past 17 years has one common denominator: Mike Priest. Every. Single. One. It’s long past time for him to retire to the Bahamas. Then this organization can really start looking like a real organization.
To finish this off: in a vacuum hiring Don Waddell is a step forward for this organization and seems to show that they’re serious about winning. When you look at what’s going on behind the scenes, though, it’s really just the same old story but this time with more competence. I’m not confident their long-term plan will work out, but at least in the short term, this organization will do better.
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