Las Vegas NHL team to hire Kelly McCrimmon as assistant GM: Report
The Las Vegas NHL team will reportedly hire Kelly McCrimmon as assistant general manager to help GM George McPhee mold the expansion franchise.
McCrimmon, 55, is the head coach, general manager and part owner of the Brandon Wheat Kings. The University of Michigan grad has worked in Brandon, one of the top teams in the Western Hockey League, since 1988.
Las Vegas has not officially announced it has hired an assistant general manager.
Junior hockey analyst Guy Flaming first reported the news that has since been confirmed by TSN’s Darren Dreger and Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
Despite McCrimmon’s lack of NHL experience he’s highly respected in hockey circles. The last several years, many high-end NHL players have come through Brandon writes The Hockey News.
McCrimmon is the owner, GM and coach of the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings, a powerhouse team that won the championship this past season and has frequently gone on deep playoff runs. In the past few seasons alone, McCrimmon has developed NHLers such as Brayden Schenn, Mark Stone and Ryan Pulock, plus prospects Jayce Hawryluk, John Quenneville and Ivan Provorov.
Potential 2017 No. 1 draft pick Nolan Patrick currently plays for McCrimmon in Brandon.
The Hockey News also notes that McCrimmon has a business degree from Michigan and an MBA from Queen’s University.
In recent years league teams have moved towards analytics to get an edge on their opponents. Also the business of the salary cap has made team finances more complex. These factors have led to a push towards people in management roles with college degrees, rather than players who simply moved into organizational positions after their playing days are over.
This seems to follow the Toronto Maple Leafs management model to some degree. Toronto hired longtime London Knights general manager and co-owner Mark Hunter in 2014 as director of player personnel and Hunter has drawn rave reviews for his knowledge of young players in order to help rebuild the team.
Former NHLer Murray Craven has been assisting McPhee with Las Vegas staff choices, amongst other duties, and could have played a role in this decision.
Vegas owner Bill Foley had indicated he had an idea for an assistant general manager in place the day the NHL announced it would expand to Las Vegas, though at that point McPhee had yet to be hired.
“We have a really good guy we lined up who we really like that has good experience particularly on the scouting side as assistant GM,” Foley said.
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