RICK SCUTERI
The finalists for the NHL's inaugural general manager of the year award were announced Thursday. The fact that the league is finally recognizing the achievements of the team builders is probably overdue, although it'd have been better framed as an executive of the year award, which would theoretically make it more broad-based. Most years, it would probably go to a GM anyway. The fact that it is limited to 30 possible candidates makes it a little self-serving, since the voting is being handled mostly internally, although five writers - hand-selected by executive VP Colin Campbell - also cast ballots. Based on two of the three finalists - the Phoenix Coyotes' Don Maloney and the Nashville Predators' David Poile - it looks as if it will resemble coach-of-the-year voting; and reward who does the most with the least.
So in the same way that Scotty Bowman, who makes all the lists of greatest coaches of all time in any sport, only won a single Jack Adams, it'll likely mean that someone such as the Detroit Red Wings' Ken Holland, who consistently assembles a winning program year after year, will never get a real shot at the award. You hope that it doesn't evolve into a hired-to-get-fired scenario, the way the coach-of-the-year award has become. Last year's Jack Adams runner-up, Andy Murray, was cast out before the season ended by the St. Louis Blues; the previous year's runner-up, Guy Carbonneau, is doing TV for Hockey Night In Canada, watching Jacques Martin coach the Canadiens. And a couple of winners - Bob Francis in 2002, Bill Barber in 2001 - are long gone from the NHL head coaching ranks.
GMs do have more stability than coaches, but there has been a kiss-of-death quality associated with the award in the past, which really only proves one thing: That sometimes you can make something out of very little for a brief time, but it is a difficult sleight-of-hand to perform year after year.