FanHouse Scotty Bowman

Stan Bowman is well aware that there's a public perception he got his new job as general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks because his dad, Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman, is a senior consultant with the team.

That doesn't bother him a bit.

"One thing I learned from my dad is that you can't control what people say or write, because they don't have all the information," Bowman told FanHouse on Tuesday. "I know what happened. My body of work can stand on its own. And ultimately, it comes down to performance, so I try not to worry too much about it. You just try to focus on your job."

The last 36 or so hours have been quite interesting for the Chicago Blackhawks. It started early Tuesday, when word got out that general manager Dale Tallon was fired (he was actually re-assigned) and replaced with assistant GM Stan Bowman.

When former Blackhawk star Martin Havlat got word, he used Twitter to express his frustration with Tallon's removal. He then spoke (thus avoiding that darn 140-character limit) to TSN's Darren Dreger. When he did that, he chucked Blackhawks president John McDonough under the bus. McDonough got his chance to respond Wednesday.

The four scheduled meetings between the Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks in 2009-2010 just got quite a bit more interesting.

It wasn't enough that former Blackhawk Martin Havlat appeared to rip the organization on his Twitter page after Chicago chose to sign Marian Hossa and let Havlat go to Minnesota as a free agent. Now, Havlat is taking aim at the firing re-assignment of general manager Dale Tallon.

The first game of the Dan Bylsma era in Pittsburgh looked remarkably similar to the last couple of games in the Michel Therrien era. In other words: it was a loss. Of course, the Penguins haven't even had an opportunity to practice under Bylsma and break in a new system, so, obviously there's a lot of work and not a lot of time to do it.

That said, the Penguins fell, 3-2, in a shootout loss on Long Island Monday afternoon, capping off a rough two-game stretch where they picked up only one of a possible four points against Toronto and the Islanders.

What They're Not Saying is a collection of made-up quotations attributed to real people.

As noted earlier today, Scotty Bowman has left his cozy perch atop Mt. Red Wing to become rival Chicago's new Senior Advisor, Hockey Operations. Here's a sampling of reactions to the move from around the League:

"Did it just get hot in here or is it me?" - Denis Savard, Blackhawks Head Coach

"That's a good decision for him if it makes him happy, but just a month and change after it was first reported... why the rush, Scotty?" - Mats Sundin, Unrestricted Free Agent

"I'll miss watching Matlock and catching the early bird special with him, but the kid's gotta do what he's gotta do." - Chris Chelios, Detroit Red Wings

"We didn't want him anyway. Everything here's cool." - Baghdad Bob Cliff Fletcher, Toronto Maple Leafs GM

I'm sure you've heard or seen some responses that I've missed -- share 'em in the comments.

Scotty Bowman has declined and spurned many advances from the likes of the Toronto Maple Leafs and other NHL clubs to be a coach, adviser or mentor for their organizations. Why should Bowman, who already has plenty of Stanley Cup Rings, the most wins by an NHL coach, and lots of money in the bank, need to come out of semi-retirement and leave a perfectly cozy job with the Red Wings?

As rumored last month, the Chicago Blackhawks were the latest team to offer a position to Bowman. Whatever straw the Hawks threw in front of Bowman finally broke the camel's back, because the legendary coach is now joining the Chicago Blackhawks front offices in an advisory role: Senior Adviser, Hockey Operations.


I wonder what the Hawks offered that made Bowman finally change his mind. Was Bowman bored of winning all the time with the Wings? Was his role so small (think Gordie Howe's days as a pencil pusher) that he felt unappreciated?

One obvious factor is that Scotty wants to join his son, Stan, who is an Assistant GM within the hockey operations department of the Hawks. Reverse Nepotism, eh?

The Hawks are already a team on a rapid rise to success, and adding Bowman to the club will only help them make the transition from pretender to contender.

Score another one for Rocky Wirtz!

You've got to love the way media works. The media has its sources and sometimes they can help to create some fun rumors about people. A lot of times, the persons named vehemently deny such rumors. Sometimes the media turns out to be right (Melrose to coach Tampa Bay) and sometimes they, you know, get sued for libel (see: Sean Avery and the Fan 590). To help mediate these discrepancies and figure out who is telling the truth and who isn't, I give you FanHouse's newest occasionally reoccurring and poorly named segment Conflicting Reports! Hooray!

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In today's episode, we're dissecting a rumor that's hot and fresh right of the presses. It's from St. Louis radio guy and Hockey Buzz blogger (those have a GREAT rep) Andy Strickland. What does Andy have for us? No it's not the latest on the Blues, it's about the Blackhawks (he should know, right?). Anyway, Andy shared the following juicy tidbit with the blogosphere:

Sources have indicated to me that NHL legend Scotty Bowman has been offered a position with the Blackhawks in which Bowman would oversee everything regarding hockey operations.

His son Stan (named after the Stanley Cup) is currently the Assistant General Manager, Hockey Operations with the club.

Word is Bowman is expected to accept the job.

So what are we to make of this?

Our esteemed leader asked me a simple question: "Between Pittsburgh and Detroit, who can rightly claim to be the 'Team of the 90's?'"

While blurting out "Detroit, dummy!" was my first instinct, I decided to look deeper into the question and come up with the best answer.

While Detroit has been a powerful team for the longest and Pittsburgh went through some very lean times (and near bankruptcy) before Sidney Crosby came to the rescue, let us not forget that the Pittsburgh Penguins were once scarier than the prospect of washing Lindsay Lohan's puke-drenched toilet.

Imagine a Power Play unit with Ron Francis, Paul Coffey, Jaromir Jagr, Mario Lemieux, and Larry Murphy? Yeah, I bet a lot of goaltenders were wearing adult diapers in the early 90s.

Let's do a little comparison shopping, shall we?

STANLEY CUPS: 2 apiece. The Penguins opened up the 90s with two consecutive cup wins, and then the Wings pulled off 2 straight cup wins of their own later in the decade.

OVERALL RECORD: Detroit wins this one by 27 wins.
Pittsburgh: 411-279-90-6
Detroit: 438-248-98-2

In a perfect world, tonight's game between the Eastern Conference leading Ottawa Senators and the Western Conference leading (and the closest thing the NHL has to a juggernaut this season) Detroit Red Wings would have been hockey's answer to Patriots/Cowboys. Yet the NHL hasn't exactly solid it as such, with the barrage of promotion and interview opportunities it gave to, say, one of those early Crosby/Ovechkin games. Maybe post-Winter Classic event fatigue, All-Star Game announcements and Ovechkin's contract signing have sucked the air out of the room. Maybe if the game was on a more widely available American television platform than HDNET, it would have cranked up the hype machine more. Maybe if Ottawa was relocated to Las Vegas before the game.

Whatever the case ... never fear, FanHouse is here. We've plucked the brains of several prominent Red Wings and Senators bloggers for previews, predictions and snappy answers to stupid questions about the Ottawa/Detroit inter-conference smack down.

The Jack Adams Trophy, awarded for the coach "adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success," might as well be called "Coach of the Most Improved Team Award", since the winners of the award tend to be exclusively coaches who turn a bad-mediocre team into a playoff-bound club.

Like Eric Cartman over at The Puck Stops Here, I agree that the Jack Adams seems to be a 'right place at the right time' award more than rewarding the league's best. Just look at the fact that there have been 28 different winners for the 33 times the trophy has been given out, and that Scotty Bowman only ever won it twice! How can the league's most legendary coach win just twice? Would there have been any other coach you'd want for your team during his era? Probably not.

Therefore, poor Mike Babcock of Detroit probably won't win when the real votes are tallied, despite the fact that he's coached the Wings to an amazing 33-8-3 record thus far, and the Wings are top 4 in both Power Play in Penalty Kill. The Wings are also #1 in Goals For and Goals Against. *gulp* Yes, the Red Wings are truly a well-coached team, but the voters will simply say that the Wings were already good, and Babcock has the most talent to work with out of his peers. Babcock definitely deserves to win, but I doubt he'll get the award.

So, who are the other contenders?