appeared on Real Kyper & Bourne on Wednesday<\/a> to go over all the details about the Maple Leafs\u2019 search for a new general manager and how there is just countless executives in and out of the NHL who are looking to get their hands on the position.<\/p>\nOne of those names is current Flyers senior advisor Dean Lombardi, apparently.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a ton of interest in this job. Like I said yesterday, there will be and now there is. I think they are getting people coming out of the woodwork and I think it\u2019s some of the obvious ones, and I think it\u2019s some of the non-obvious ones,\u201d Friedman said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe they\u2019ve already talked to Mike Gillis. I think there was a report today that they\u2019ve talked to John Chayka, and those guys are data-driven guys. \u2026 I\u2019ve heard Dean Lombardi\u2019s got interest in this job, or at least some role in this job. And I think you\u2019re going to find there\u2019s people all around the NHL who are going, who have current jobs, whoa re going to be saying \u2018I would like to at least throw my name in and be interviewed for that\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lombardi\u2019s name is mentioned more in passing and this is really the first time it\u2019s been brought up in relation to the Maple Leafs general manager job. It is certainly interesting that he is poking around to see if he can get an interview and potentially leave the Flyers organization.<\/p>\n
The veteran executive is a senior advisor along with four other people who hold the exact same title, and it\u2019s who you expect: Bob Clarke, Bill Barber, and Paul Holmgren for the Flyers representation, and then former Anaheim Ducks general manager Bob Murray as well. It\u2019s basically a retirement home for former executives to still get to voice their opinions on hockey operations of an up-and-coming team.<\/p>\n
We have no clue what Lombardi does with the Flyers currently, other than him just getting a guaranteed paycheck to return to Philadelphia. From 2003-2006, he served as a Western Conference scout for the Flyers as an in-between job \u2014 between being the San Jose Sharks\u2019 general manager for over a decade, to then being hired to eventually take the Los Angeles Kings to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships. Lombardi was hired by the Flyers in this senior advisor role in 2017.<\/p>\n
What might take Lombardi out of the running for the job in Toronto, is the fact that they apparently want someone more data-focused to be a general manager and running things with more numbers in mind. Lombardi\u2019s Kings team were certainly very good teams with the underlyings numbers heavily in their favor, but it is unclear just how accepting he is of analytics overall.<\/p>\n
And with names in the running like former Canucks boss Mike Gillis (who was way ahead of his time) and former wunderkind John Chayka, Lombardi might just be too much of a hockey man for the Leafs general manager. Now, maybe he could be in more of an overseeing president of hockey operations role, but that is also to be determined. <\/p>\n
Anyways, he has the comfortable position in Philadelphia and won\u2019t be moved unless offered something massive, which feels also unlikely. But he\u2019s still throwing his hat in the ring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs are making headlines despite having a typically horrendous season, all because they have fired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205],"class_list":{"0":"post-536822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116336013152023320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}