During a recent episode of the Bob Stauffer Show out of Edmonton, former Columbus Blue Jackets general manager and current president and CEO of the American Hockey League Scott Howson joined the program to discuss stories from his lengthy career in hockey.<\/p>\n
At one point, Stauffer recalled when Howson left the Edmonton Oilers in 2007 to become Columbus\u2019 general manager. Howson had spent nearly a decade with the Oilers, working his way up through the organization before landing the GM job with the Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n
When he left Edmonton, Howson didn\u2019t bring anyone from the Oilers with him, something executives will often do when taking over hockey operations for a new organization. But shortly after arriving in Columbus, he identified someone already there who he believed was worth keeping an eye on.<\/p>\n
That person was Chris MacFarland.<\/p>\n
Stauffer recalled being told about MacFarland nearly two decades ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was somebody that you told me about,\u201d Stauffer told Howson. \u201cAnd you said, \u2018Bob, you need to keep your eye on this guy. He is really smart, he works really hard, he\u2019s understated.\u2019 And he is now the president and general manager of the Nashville Predators after being the GM of the Colorado Avalanche, and of course we\u2019re talking about Chris MacFarland. You\u2019re probably not surprised that he had the career trajectory that he has.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howson wasn\u2019t wrong.<\/p>\n
MacFarland spent years working his way up the front-office ladder after joining the Blue Jackets organization in 1999. Howson was the one who gave him an elevated role as an assistant GM in 2008. When Jarmo Kekalainen came in years later, MacFarland was lost in the shuffle and ultimately jumped ship to Colorado to serve as Joe Sakic\u2019s assistant.<\/p>\n
He eventually took over as the team\u2019s general manager in 2022 after the Avs won the Stanley Cup. MacFarland held that position for four seasons before leaving Colorado this summer to become Nashville\u2019s president of hockey operations and general manager.<\/p>\n
MacFarland\u2019s tenure as Colorado\u2019s GM ultimately didn\u2019t result in another Stanley Cup championship, but his career trajectory over the past two decades is quite the success story. From a relatively understated front-office presence in Columbus to running hockey operations for two NHL franchises, MacFarland has steadily climbed the ladder.<\/p>\n
And Howson saw that potential almost 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s perhaps the most interesting part of the story. Long before MacFarland became an NHL general manager, Howson recognized the qualities that would eventually make him one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a recent episode of the Bob Stauffer Show out of Edmonton, former Columbus Blue Jackets general manager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3644,5180,1651,144,897,230,5179,5,4],"class_list":["post-641070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-blue-jackets","tag-bluejackets","tag-chris-macfarland","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-columbus","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-columbusbluejackets","tag-hockey","tag-nhl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117078420615162892","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641070","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=641070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}