00:02elliot friedman maybe the most prominent nhl insider his 32 thoughts podcast gave us a bit
00:09of an update on the red wings gm search i want to play that for our audience and we can
00:13discuss
00:13but there are names now associated with this job four names specifically that come up from elliot
00:20friedman two internal ish and two that are very much external from other teams right the internal
00:27ish is that they aren't red wings people it's not draper or horkoff it's internal ish because
00:36they're detroit tigers people that's right not just jeff greenberg but another member of the
00:42detroit tigers front office is being considered for this job his name is andrew thomas he's an
00:49assistant gm he has a hockey background as well this is what elliot friedman had to say about
00:54the internal candidates
01:35so the name andrew thomas has not been discussed right but that is a guy from the tigers who was
01:41with the wild the other name from the tigers that's been discussed is jeff greenberg and
01:45elliot friedman gave a little more background on greenberg
01:49so
01:54so
01:55i'm
01:58so
02:00i'm
02:19i'm
02:20he's
02:21he's brought him up a couple times now right i'm starting to get the sense that he is a front
02:26runner if not the front runner to get this job um
02:31i think it's i think maybe your feelings on that are simply because of how long this process
02:38is taken and where we are in the process and the fact that we're only a couple of weeks away
02:43from training camp starting for the detroit red wings but his name keeps coming up
02:48different insiders are bringing him up yes but until what what he had to say there
02:54doesn't give me the sense like you that he's the front runner i i would wonder if they think
03:00andrew thomas is eventually going to be ready for a position like this and we've heard the fact that
03:07maybe they would hire two for a position would they hire jeff greenberg as gm and bring andrew
03:12thomas over as his assistant and i just worry about you know how that's going to look and if
03:17it blows up in their face wait you did this long search late in the game took your time just
03:22hire
03:22your own guys two people down the hall you didn't even go outside the family you hired two guys from
03:28your baseball team
03:31they're going to be set to fail from the start in terms of the public perception on them yeah no
03:35kidding now the other way is you just john stop me if you heard this before you hire someone who's
03:40currently working in an nhl front office that's the other way to go and that's elliot friedman's
03:46other two names
04:10so kelty is as he mentioned assistant gm in san jose brett peterson is the assistant general manager with the
04:17florida panthers those would be true outside the family hires all right not being a part of the
04:22interview process which one of those four if those are the four final names get your final four set up
04:29which one would you prefer i mean doesn't it doesn't it pretty obviously hire the florida panther
04:35guy i would think so that that's the indication i would surface level analysis you're like hey yeah
04:39we're just kind of the class of the league right yeah i mean two times stanley cup champs they had
04:43a
04:43setback last year but people think they're going to be right back in it this year and and it's not
04:47like i know people say well they have the advantage of being in florida and the state taxes and i'm
04:50whatever we could debate it they've been in florida for their entire history and it's not like they
04:55were winning stanley cups for all of it right there have been teams in in dallas there's been teams in
05:00in the state of texas in in the state of florida there have been teams in states where they don't
05:05have
05:06uh a state income tax and now all of a sudden it's the biggest issue of signing free agents
05:10yeah it's to me it's about if you build it they will come if you're an attractive place with good
05:14players that people can win at you can figure a way to make it work now that's the other big
05:18takeaway
05:19from elliott friedman so red wings want to be the red wings again tom i want to get you in
05:24on this but
05:24just so people get the final little bit that i thought was interesting this is a driver they want
05:29to be a destination again
05:57tom
05:59i think peterson fits the profile here like you do the background check he's a former agent
06:06it's a very attractive thing these days for current gms a lot of them a lot of the younger
06:11successful guys have been agents it's a pro player league now yeah with yep and knows how to deal uh
06:16has relationships yeah has uh been with carolina or florida since uh 2020 uh they've had a ton of
06:25success since then two cups and i maybe another final in there um didn't they go to the final as
06:33the
06:33eight seed or is that one of the years they won it that is true i think anyways uh has
06:39been part of an
06:40absolute future blockbuster this is the way the nhl is trade we actually went out and acquired
06:46matthew kachuk and changed their franchise and then now brady kachuk uh i to me he would seem like
06:54the whole run yeah yeah from that group i think we're all kind of saying the same thing yeah and
07:00if you
07:00want to make this destination for players you also have to have not just the winged wheel you don't have
07:07to have just hockey town you don't have to have just the history you have to have somebody that can
07:13sell their vision to free agents and you've got to have somebody that has that type of cachet
07:20that can sell it and i don't know if if jeff greenberg and andrew thomas say they're a tandem
07:25in this new venture for the red wings are they able to talk to free agents and sell that type
07:34of
07:36philosophy that they would have yeah look and there's also the talk that this could be a role
07:41where they hired a couple people could they get one internal one external one tigers guy that they
07:46trust and then someone else to actually run the whole thing from an outside organization i would
07:50just want the outside guy to be the head honcho right so if it's brett peterson and his assistant
07:55is andrew thomas they're grooming him for the future or for you know his future maybe then so be it
08:01yeah i think you could sell that to people what's going to be a tough sell and i'm already
08:04seeing it on text they better not hire a baseball guy to run this team i don't know about enough
08:12about greenberg's time in chicago to to really have a sense of it doesn't feel like he's got enough of
08:20a background okay so i'm that that's that that's my hang-up that's that's where i don't know and i
08:27need
08:28somebody to explain it to me how that would work since he's been in baseball how does that translate
08:36to success on the rink so he spent more time professionally with baseball i believe he was an
08:44intern with the diamondbacks he was with the cubs briefly with the blackhawks and now the majority
08:50of his time the tigers so he's he's been in baseball much more than he's been in hockey now
08:54one thing that elliot friedman did say that like he was part of a hockey family growing up greenberg
08:59his dad was like muriel amuse agent i i don't know i don't have his whole biography greenberg there is
09:07some hockey dna in there but not enough where this is the the detroit red wings let's get a hockey
09:13guy
09:13through and through well okay so jack has grown up in a football family all right and and he has
09:19been
09:19to many football games he's grown up with me watching and analyzing and doing all this i don't
09:24think it qualifies him to be the general manager of the detroit lions agreed so you're looking at
09:32things here peterson has the cachet around the league that's the one thing i worry about greenberg
09:39on because there are there's parts of me that will give him a shot i'm not gonna be one of
09:43these
09:43people that oh they took all this time and then they ended up hiring from within they're not in the
09:48best of positions to begin with that's that's other people's fault not jeff bring greenberg's
09:52the the goal here is to get the right guy all right and i do think he would probably provide
09:57a new young energy within the franchise and uh analytic support base that eiserman did not as we
10:05found out from that one report um that he would be at least with the new wave but there's no
10:10way he
10:11i almost for greenberg to be hired i have to hear that peterson turned it down
10:17and and let's not throw out the other guy so kelty apparently he's been a hockey guy
10:20then they're taking their second choice yeah and that happens look i mean the the detroit lions
10:27allegedly took their second choice with dan campbell right good point the second campbell yeah
10:34the other campbell uh but kelty's with san jose they got a nice young core if this guy's interviewed
10:39in other places like nashville and he's a hockey guy i mean i certainly keep an open mind with him
10:43too
10:43i like the idea of for the first time in over 30 years going outside the family it's basically 40
10:48years since jimmy devilano showed up going outside the family and a true reset because this thing has
10:54been rotten i mean they're in the middle everybody knows 10 years without the playoffs i don't want
10:59them to take the easy way out and that that's not fair to jeff greenberg but that's how it's going
11:04to sound and land if they hire jeff greenberg it's going to feel like they're taking the easy way out
11:08hey we're up a creek no one will take this job we can't get anybody to do it this guy
11:13has an office in the city we'll just move them over that that feels like the easy way out
11:20i okay so yes that's one way to look at it the other way to look at it is we're
11:25going to make
11:25the hard choice and the unpopular choice but we think it's the best one of going with jeff greenberg
11:31because of whatever plan he has sold them on we think is the best plan moving forward
11:38because if they're going to take a lot of shots from everyone and i think a lot just from this
11:46station that says you you know you went with jeff greenberg who spent a majority of the things that
11:52you talked about a majority of his career in baseball and now you expect him to bring hockey
11:57town back one of the most iconic prestigious fallen on hard times organization and this is the best you
12:03can do so but yeah i so i would say that's actually the tougher choice to make than it is
12:08just hey we're
12:09going to change you know the mailing address on your office thumbs up or thumbs down if it's greenberg and
12:15what do you make of what elliot friedman shared about his intel on this job some of the names and
12:19some of what the goals are it's 97 one
Comments