NEW YORK ISLANDERS HIRE MATHIEU DARCHE AS GENERAL MANAGER

NEW YORK ISLANDERS HIRE MATHIEU DARCHE AS GENERAL MANAGER

You’re listening to Up the Turnpike with hosts Mitch Anderson and [Music] Mattal. Hello and welcome to a special live stream edition of Up the Turnpike. Matt O Liry alongside Mitch Anderson. Mitch Islanders have a new general manager, it seems. Oh, sorry. I’m just getting used to all the French Canadian. I’m going to have to speak with Patrick, I’m assuming, and now Mat. So, I’m just getting learn to speak French Canadian people. There you go. So, uh, the news has been put out, but according to multiple reports, Pierre Lebron, Elliot Frman, uh, people on the Islanders, Pete as well, Arthur Staple, Stefan Broner, Andrew Gross, all of them are confirming that the next New York Islanders GM will be Matthew Dar. So, uh, we’ve talked about this a lot about him as a potential candidate. Seems like we’ve talked about him and Burjan probably the most over the last month, right? Is that not crazy to say? It’s been nearly a month. It’s been just over a month. Yeah. Since they let go of of Lamarella and created that vacancy within the president of hockey operations, general manager department and have been looking to fill it ever since. Um and they went with their guy we thought was going to be the front runner anyways in Meter Duff because he has been basically on the cusp of every general management hire for the last two or three years now. Yeah, he’s he’s been the assistant general manager now for uh or the vice president of hockey operations now of the Tampa Bay Lightning since 2019. They won two Stanley Cups during their time, went to a third, um, and has gotten, as Mitch mentioned, multiple interview opportunities, uh, over the last few years, and finally gets a job. He’ll be a first-time GM, which Mitch, there’s always a little bit of risk in that. That’s, you know, when you’re hiring a first-time general manager, but um, certainly one of the more qualified guys who haven’t been a general manager yet. Yeah, absolutely. For some reason, I can’t find his name on the website for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Um, maybe that’s just something I’m doing wrong here. Although, this is front office, I suppose. But still, it should still be there. Um, apparently, uh, they don’t have their general manager listed. Yeah. Director of director of hockey operations. There you go. 2019. So, um, yeah. Sorry, I’m I’m forgetting the question you asked me leading into this. Exactly. I brain farted going like, “Oh my god, this obviously confirms the news.” Right. Yeah. No, I was just saying like there’s always some risk involved in hiring a firsttime general manager, but of the guys around the league and gals who haven’t, you know, stepped up to a GM role at this point, he’s one of the more qualified candidates to make the leap. Yeah. And you can see that just in the comments here, like Gary right away saying, “This is great news.” And absolutely even Matthew saying like this is the best case scenario. Um what do you think this means? Palms M are our fa we’ll get to that one that’s a little bit ahead but right now yeah it seems like great news and you’re right like he has never been solo general manager but it’s not like he’s coming out of nowhere right when they like the Toronto Maple Leafs hired Kyle Dubis what was his job before that as he was just assistant general manager and even then not very um you know in the job for a while and was the general manager of the Sue St. Marie Greyhounds before that. So like, okay, uh, the resume wasn’t necessarily maybe as deep as it was for someone like Metsu Dash, who’s been with the Tampa Bay Lightning for a long time, um, with a ton a ton of success around him in just regular season and playoff success. Yeah, they’ve had both a lot of regular season and playoff success. Now, before he got there, the Tampa Bay Lightning were also good. It’s not like they stunk for years and it was his doing that that turned it around. But like they finally did get over the hump, you know, it felt like uh winning the cup in 2020 um and 2021, the year before he came, they had 128 points. They were one of the best regular season teams of all time and then got bounced in the first round. 113 points the year before that. Uh, so clearly like roster was pretty good, but something we talked about was um how after they lost the Stanley Cup in 2022, roster went over some changes. They lost a lot of key guys. Steven Stamco’s not there anymore. Uh, Alex Khorn, another good example. Um, and and there’s others that they’ve lost over the years from, you know, those Stanley Cup teams. But uh we think, you know, they did a good job reshuffling the deck a little bit and getting themselves to being a 100point team again this past year. Absolutely. And just constantly reshuffleling the decks, bringing in new talent. Um an important question here by Keg, although asked it twice. I understand sometimes squeaky wheel gets the grease, but I don’t have to keep asking it too too many times. We will get to your questions. Um what makes the hiring of this guy that good? That is a fair question, right? because we don’t actually know what exactly he has done daytoday or we can’t pinpoint the moves under his stewardship. But I think what makes this hiring so good is that it’s not some kind of rehash guy that has done nothing anywhere, right? where we’re not talking about a Ken Allen who has failed to do anything in in in Edmonton even though he was given a a big roster or isn’t able to find talent within the NHL to bring into his team to generate successful seasons as Mess has seemingly been able to do or or manage the cap as well, right? Although they have a benefit of being in Florida, I guess, but I get it if you’re going to say I I don’t know what this guy does because he actually hasn’t done anything on his own. Uh but it’s you look at the track record or what he brings um from where he was and that’s a good thing for the Islanders on top of the fact that it just changes what we have. What we had had before just wasn’t working and was this stale kind of old man philosophy almost quite literally uh and it’s just a big a big change from that alone is a benefit. Yeah. So, usually what I feel like happens a lot when in all of sports, right, when you change a coach or a general manager, you’re kind of going a completely different direction than the guy you previously just had. And it Mitch I thought laid it out beautifully talking about Lou comes in very old school mindset. Uh, which is fine. They had success early on and then we just know that it got stale and it wasn’t working and they needed to make a change. And Dar kind of represents the the new school philosophy, right? like he’s um you know up and coming with a really good franchise over the last you know well really long time but since he was been there in 2019 the last six years they’ve been one of the best teams in the NHL over that span and you’re hoping he takes what he learned there and is starting to apply it here and the Islanders you know make some key changes right like we were talking uh at least on the podcast yesterday and we’ve seen it on on comments before we saw it in even in my video on on our page on our YouTube page about Brandon and Shanahan being like, why would you want this guy? He hasn’t done anything for 11 years in Toronto. Which is fair push back, absolutely fair. But then you look at this guy’s resume and you’re going, well, he’s won multiple cups, not as a player, but as an executive. Um, he’s brought regular season success. So, he’s bringing the two. And even as Gary is saying here, Dash is a stats guy and a contract guy. He also oversaw player performances of potential trade options. like he’s kind of had his hands in just about everything that you need to rebuild this team going forward. So, it seems like it would be a good hire. And as Michelle is indeed saying, they haven’t technically announced it yet. They they every single insider for both the New York Islanders and the NHL has said this out that the phrasing is expected to be announced later today. So, at some point, how about that, man? Your prememorial day Friday news drop uh for the New York Islanders. That would never happen under Lululem. It would be five o’clock Memorial Day announcement coming through. Maybe even six, probably six o’clock. That’s when the announcement would come through that they made hire for a GM. No, the F. You know what? I I think that makes a lot of sense. Trying to b not bury it, but do it on Memorial the beginning of Memorial Day weekend. That sounds very Lamarillo. like if we would get this just a couple hours later like this comes out at 4:00 on Friday afternoon that that seems to hit with how many times I got stuck trying to leave the office and and couldn’t during the Lou era it classic politician stuff when I worked on in in a politician’s office you would release news when I shouldn’t say when no one is watching but typically when no one is watching because Lou just didn’t care about doing that kind of stuff whereas this new Islanders under John Collins very much wants to capitalize on news cycles. Uh, and doing it now and doing it soon would be great and a sign of change that is coming. Definitely a sign of change. Uh, Mitch, the next thing that I think we should get uh, pulled up here is it seems like as of right now, Matthew Dar is the only hire that they’re going to make. So, no president of hockey operations, it looks like. Yeah. So, Arthur Staple is showing that. There it is. Um, so from what he’s heard, Dash hiring likely takes Brendan Shanahan off the table for the aisles president spot. No other hire is imminent. Sources say plenty of time left in the offseason for that to change according to Arthur, which is true. Of course, he has to add that caveat because it’s not confirmed that we’re only hiring him yet until we hear otherwise. He’s got to say like things can change. Um because the Islanders had been operating under a president of hockey operations general manager thing um or position as a luell there is a sense within the organization at least I believe so that they want to have a separation of duties but you’re seeing other teams kind of do as the Islanders did and just have one guy run the show. It would strike me as odd to go from someone like Lou who controls everything to doing it again with someone who doesn’t really have the experience, if you will. Um I I still suspect the PH is going to step in at some point. Do you do you think so too? Yeah, I don’t think they’re going to make like if the question is are they going to make Dar the GM and president of hockey operations, the the answer is no. Um I would say I I don’t believe that to be the case. Now, are they going to hire a president of hockey operations immediately? It seems like based on the wording, uh, that’s not going to be the case, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point they maybe look to add one. Yeah. As I say that and as I think about it, like why would you hire a GM and not a PH first? Like, let the president of hockey operations hire the general manager. If if they’re doing it this way, whereas the GM is hired first, to me, that kind of indicates that they’re not going to go with the president of hockey operations, other than probably just giving the title to John Collins. Yeah, that’s true. Maybe they do that. But does he have the hockey side or is he more of the business side? I think he’s more of the business side, which is kind of fine. You need a guy to staff your hockey, like your hockey staff and let the GM do the actual player staff and obviously have the GM, you know, have a say in in in who he’s bringing in in like the analytics, scouting, so on and so forth. Yeah. So, that I think we’re going to we’ll put a pin in that. We’ll have to see end up deciding to do something, but again, kind of just reacting as the news comes out. It seems like that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Yeah. And so now it’s well what what do we like we’re seeing a lot of comments here like what does he do next type of thing and I’ve seen a few like bring in Marner um even like Isaac Howard here right Alon saying go get Isaac Howard that is a disgruntled if you will um Tampa Bay Lightning first round selection yeah from 22 I believe I think that’s right uh who’s pretty goddamn good um I don’t know what that means for him in terms of building this franchise but he’s got to hit the ground running at this point Right. He’s got a month or so before the draft and he gets a draft first overall. He’s got to get his stuff together. Yeah. And you know, I’m I’m sure a part of the interview process is the vetting of the plan. At least I would hope it would be, right? Like can you imagine that you don’t bring it up? Uh so we’ll ask you every other question except for what would you do with the first overall pick? That seems like it would be very very early in the in the questions, right? But obviously ownership, Collins, the whole thing would have had to been sold on Dar’s plan. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gotten this job. But you’re right, it’s a very short timeline from now May 23rd to the draft all the way on June 27th. Yeah, a lot has to be done as soon as humanly possible. We are May 23rd here. So, you’ve got a month plus three days, if you will, to the draft or 4 days, 27th, 28th, I think, for the draft in June. Um, but uh we we need to figure out that first overall pick. He doesn’t need to come in, I believe, into the uh the discussions into the interview process being like, I’m going to draft this player cuz the owners don’t they don’t know. They don’t know anything about who who should be be going first overall. They need a concept of what he plans on doing with this franchise. They all do and they clearly liked his concept better than others. Yeah. And you know, for the last little bit, it was the back and forth between, you know, Burjan or or or Dar and they end up landing on Matthew Dar. And I would have been okay with uh Mark Bersan, I think. But there’s I I personally feel like there’s more concern just because he did the job once already and sure there were little bits of success, but there were also some real head scratchers where Dar having the unknown almost makes it more appealing. Yeah. because you don’t have the obvious warts there, right? Like they’re going to be some there obviously some pitfalls in in his GMing, if you will, future GMing. They’re all going to have it. Um it’s can we minimize those or can he minimize those and maximize his strength? Uh and can he make it work for us? I’m looking for a commitment to youth, a commitment to attacking hockey, um, and a commitment to developing players. I I’m I’m really really interested to see what he does with Bridgeport. What the hell he’s going to do there because that’s that has to change as humanly as quick as humanly possible. Yeah, it does have to change quickly. They need to plan for the draft. Free agency is right after that, too. What are they going to do with their own guys, right? Like, you have some important RFA decisions with Simon Holmstrom and Siplov and Romanov and Dobson. It’s it’s all going to come very quickly. Yeah. And then we’re still getting questions here from like Nick and even Smartup about like Shanny’s coming up next, right? Do you think that they hire Shanahan? As Arthur Staple said, I don’t know, man. It doesn’t seem like that might be the case or that will be the case. could change obviously, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case. From what we saw with with tweets previous to this, it was that um the Islanders were maybe even leaning towards um towards Brendish Shanahan as the number one candidate and I guess he didn’t want or they didn’t like what he wanted to do or vice versa and so they they pivoted to their next best guy which is I think that our number one in everyone’s hearts was Matsu Dash. Yeah, he was my number one guy um at at that point once it was announced who the finalists were going to be. So, I’m good with it. Yeah. And then Yeah, like Jacob, do you think they they keep a I I don’t know, man. It I would like that. I think that there’s a good coach in Awa if you give him the players that he needs to execute. But I can also hear the case of like, oh has not done that well and the one player he wanted was Anthony Duclair and that didn’t go so well. He even threw him under the bus himself. Yeah, he he did. I think just guessing I think Patrick W is going to stay. I think so too. And even then like um Anthony Duclair was the one player he wanted. It was a player he liked to have, but I’m sure it wasn’t like his list. Number one was Anthony Duclair and then Lou was like, “Cool, done.” I’m sure he had like six or seven names ahead of that, right? I would hope so because it was that was the big ticket free agent edition last off season and we both kind of were like, “All right, see the vision, good value, but what else?” And then nothing else happened. You’re right. We’re Kylo Ren on the at at going more and they said, “Nay, nah, we’re all set.” Yeah. Um, exciting stuff that we now potent, it seems that we have a general manager. Again, like Michelle pointed out, they haven’t, they being the Islanders officially sent any sort of press release saying they hired him, but it does seem that that hiring is going to be made official within hours. At some point today, I would fully expect to to see that tweet. Islanders News. Matthew Dar named as next GM ownership. Scott Malin and John Leiddki say quote we’re excited what Matthew Dar can bring to this organization. Put a bow on it. Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. Exactly. And like thank you Lou. Right. This this clearly puts the end although who knows maybe like special adviser to the GM Lou Leello shows up at some point. Well supposedly wasn’t it uh ownership ad uh adviser to the owners that listed as because he would have no wasn’t the report that he would have no say over roster control. That’s correct. Thank God. I I just can’t see him agreeing to that. That doesn’t seem like a losing. But who knows? Who knows? Maybe Lou is just done. Yeah, I do. Matthew, I pronounce it at done. At Walker. It’s the big like four-legged walker from Star Wars. Oh, I call it an atat. Anyway, the Star Wars references are going to go over my head. Fair enough. Anyways, anything else you want to get to on this here? No, I’m excited. It seems like the chat is as well as they should be. Um, I’m sure when they when they do an official announcement and opening press conference, we’ll have more reactions to that, but I think we just kind of wanted to come on quick, give our initial thoughts, and I’m excited, Mitch. Honestly. Yeah, I I’m also excited. Like, Left Lock, probably the best pick out of the bunch. um a lot of of happy happy campers here in Islanders Land. So guys, before you head out of here, please make sure to like the stream. Really helps us a lot. If you’re not subscribed, make sure to subscribe to the channel. If you’re watching after the fact, comment in your thoughts. We appreciate you. I’m Matt Orier. He is Mitch Anderson. And we will catch you next time.

Matt and Mitch react to the New York Islanders hiring Mathieu Darche as the next GM of the New York Islanders

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