How Does This Make Any Sense?

In just his second year in the National Hockey League, the Philadelphia Flyers looked no further than second-year forward, Dave Poulin, to succeed Bobby Clarke as captain when the future NHL Hall-of-Famer hung up his skates following the 1983-84 season. When Clarke announced that he was stepping down as the Flyers general manager on Oct. 22, it seemed only natural that Poulin's name would be one of the first, along with former Flyers Ron Hextall and Pat Quinn, to possibly replace Clarke. Such is what David Unkle of Slam!Sports is reporting today. (Poulin is apparently a hot topic right now, as ESPN's John Buccigross interviewed him last week.) I have two minds of thoughts on this: on one hand, this makes no sense whatsoever. Poulin has no experience running an NHL team. None. He has no experience running any level of team, for that matter. The closest experiance that he can call on is as the coach of the Notre Dame ice hockey team and as a part-time scout for the Anaheim Ducks. How this qualifies someone to be an NHL general manager -- well, I just don't know. Now, on the other hand, for the Flyers and Ed Snider this move makes perfect sense. Poulin is a former Flyer -- and a captain, no less -- who was the heart and soul of the team for years. If he is at all interested in the job, this is all he would need to say to Snider in the interview. If hired, he would be the second former captain to be named the team's general manager, following in the footsteps of Clarke -- as Unkle mentions in the article. In the end, there's no way this can prove to be true. This would be even worse than allowing Holmgren to stay on. To follow a general manager who, by his own admission, wasn't fulfilling his responsibilities to one who isn't even trained for them is absolutley asinine. Hire a new general manager who has no ties to the organization, one who has a clear vision -- not like our current interim GM -- and isn't afraid to implement the plan he puts in place. Poulin is not the answer. (Thanks to James Mirtle for the heads up.)