Catastrophic GM candidate strongly linked to the Chicago Blackhawks.

It has been a difficult week to be a Chicago Blackhawks fan, and unfortunately the team looks like they aren't doing their fans any favors when it comes to their ongoing search for a new general manager.

The Blackhawks were embarrassed on a national scale this week when team owner Rocky Wirtz had a rather ugly outburst during a live town hall meeting. Wirtz was asked what the team had done, and would be doing, to ensure that an incident like the one involving Kyle Beach never happened under their watch again but, despite the organization's promises to be more transparent moving forward, Wirtz lashed out at those asking the tough questions and refused to answer them whatsoever.

Now we are hearing, for the second time, that a truly catastrophic candidate is being given serious consideration for the vacant general manager's position in the Blackhawks organization, and that is the last thing you want to hear if you're a Blackhawks fan that has been dealing with a relatively bad product on the ice over the last several seasons.

Earlier this week during an episode of TSN's Insider Trading, National Hockey League insider Darren Dreger revealed that Peter Chiarelli, a general manager with a brutal track record in recent years, was being seriously considered for the position in Chicago.

"Sources indicate that Peter Chiarelli, who is working with Doug Armstrong and the St. Louis Blues, has been contacted by the Chicago Blackhawks and will interview for their hockey operations vacancy, among others," said Dreger on Insider Trading. "So, this could move very quickly."

I am sad to report that it sounds like Dreger wasn't kidding when he said things could move quickly in this regard. On Saturday morning Dreger provided an update on his report from earlier in the week, indicating that not only would the Blackhawks be moving forward with an interview involving Chiarelli, but that the interview is expected to take place on Sunday.

Chiarelli, it would appear, continues to ride on the success of his Stanley Cup winning tenure with the Boston Bruins, but as anyone who paid close attention to that team would know, he had very little to do with that achievement.  In fact it was Jeff Gorton, who currently serves as executive vice president of the Montreal Canadiens, that built the team that would go on to be a force in the National Hockey League for several seasons.

After Mike O'Connell was fired by the Boston Bruins it was Gorton, who was an assistant general manager at the time, that was promoted to interim general manager. During that time he made some truly spectacular deals including trading goaltender Andrew Raycroft to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for goaltender Tuukka Rask, a move that still haunts the Maple Leafs' fan base to this day. 

Gorton would also trade away a fourth and a fifth round draft pick to move up at the 2006 NHL Entry draft, trading for the New York Islanders #71 pick at that event, and would go on to use the pick he acquired to select Brad Marchand, a player that continues to be a dominant force on the Bruins roster nearly 16 years later.

Perhaps the biggest move of Gorton's tenure however was signing defenseman Zdeno Chara who would not only be a dominant force for the Bruins for many, many seasons, but also served as the captain of the team that eventually captured hockey's holy grail, the Stanley Cup.

Chiarelli it would seem has received much of the credit for Gorton's work during that time, but in reality he is responsible for one of the worst trades in recent Bruins history. In 2013 Chiarelli traded Tyler Seguin, Rich Peverley and Ryan Button for Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith, Hoe Morrow and Matt Fraser in a deal that Bruins fans still haven't fully recovered from. I would argue that this was the most significant move of his tenure with the team, and it is rightfully remembered as an unmitigated catastrophe.

Flash forward a few years and Peter Chiarelli is general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, and once again catastrophe is the word of the day. IT was Chiarelli who, in the summer of 2016, signed veteran forward Milan Lucic to a ridiculous 7 year contract that carried an average annual value and cap hit of $6 million per season. The contract would not only prove to be a horribly misguided deal, but it was also heavily loaded with signing bonuses thanks to some shrewd work from Lucic's agent, making it effectively buyout proof. Several years later it still remains one of the ugliest contracts in the National Hockey League and one that put the Oilers in a horrible position, although Lucic has since been traded.

After playing 55 games for the Oilers in 2018 - 2019 and recording fairly pedestrian numbers with a 2.93 goals against average and a .906 save percentage, Chiarelli decided to open the Oilers vault to the Finnish netminder. Chiarelli awarded Koskinen with a 3 year deal that carries an average annual value and cap hit of $4.5 million per season, and unsurprisingly he has never lived up to the money he is still being paid even now. That decision has largely prevented the Oilers from seeking a legitimate upgrade in net, although thankfully for them the Koskinen contract expires at the end of this season.

All of this to say that the Chicago Blackhawks are potentially making a franchise defining type of mistake by even considering Chiarelli as an option for their vacant general manager position, as would any team giving Chiarelli the time of day for any front office position where he would have any level of influence on personnel decisions. Of course as Dreger points out the Blackhawks are currently interviewing other candidates as well so it is by no means a forgone conclusion that Chiarelli will get the job, but the fact that he is even being considered for the position should be of great concern to the Blackhawks fan base.

If he were to be hired, it would be a total catastrophe.