Justin Cuthbert and Julian McKenzie discuss Pierre McGuire’s brief return to hockey operations after Ottawa fired him on Monday.
video transcript
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Less distinguished hockey people, executives, staff members, you name it, Peter McGuire would be considered one of them, probably the opposite end of the spectrum compared to Barry Trotz, even though they do opposite things. But after 10 months with the Ottawa Senators we believe we haven’t confirmed this through The Athletic, Yahoo Sports, TSN, SportCenter, I haven’t really seen it confirmed anywhere, I was just informed though that Pierre did McGuire is out because I think he’s the senior vice president of player development for the Ottawa Senators?
JULIAN MCKENZIE: Correct.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Basically, he was half of the two Dorions, and now we only have, or the two Pierres, rather, and now we only have Pierre Dorion, at least it seems. Very strange.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: I just want… I just want a little correction here. I can confirm that The Athletic has confirmed that Pierre McGuire is gone. So we have that.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Wonderful Wonderful. So Pierre McGuire is out of his spot with the Ottawa Senators. To begin with, it was a very strange decision. It’s a bit strange now that they didn’t see the process. But having two Pierres run the show seemed like a dumb idea, and it’s an idea that has now been abandoned. Thinking?
JULIAN MCKENZIE: This is what I want to know. What is Pierre McGuire’s legacy as SVP of Player Development? It’s not just Tyler Bouchard. Is it Tyler Bouchard? A lot of people like to draft Tyler Bouchard and say that’s it. Is that really?
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Was that your decision? Do we know that?
JULIAN MCKENZIE: That’s it. I don’t know.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: I don’t think he did anything.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: That is the question I am trying to ask. I don’t know what he did.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: give me meme I don’t think she did anything.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: Like, genuinely, like the only thing I vividly remember being able to say, OK, Pierre McGuire did during his tenure was take that damn picture of him in the box with Pierre Dorion fist bumping.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Yes.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: And we remember, I think, when that happened.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: It was a great meme.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: It was a great meme, but I don’t know what Pierre McGuire did. I don’t know if he did something, and that’s the question I have. Like, what legacy does he have in that position? Like, what was he? What did he really do? I’m not trying to discredit what Pierre McGuire… the knowledge that he has. I know a lot of people like to make fun of him with the way he handles analytics, but dude…
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Encyclopedia.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: The guy knows which daycare certain NHL players went to in their youth before going to the boarding school they attended. Man is smart for a reason. But I don’t know what this man did during, what, July minus May? He didn’t even have a full year at that job. I don’t know what he did.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Yeah, I don’t know either. So I don’t know why he wasn’t given the opportunity to continue this work other than the fact that Eugene Melnyk is gone. Obviously Melnyk passed away two months ago. Melnyk hired Pierre McGuire. Melnyk apparently advocated for Pierre McGuire. So I’m wondering if this is just, hey, this isn’t the direction we want to go anymore. We don’t need two Pierres running the show. We just need Dorion to make the decisions.
But then again, I don’t know who makes the decisions now that Melnyk doesn’t. I know the franchise has stayed within the family until now, but I don’t know why this decision was made, how it was made, the reason he was hired in the first place, the reason he’s out now. It never really made sense. I think we could try to erase this from our memories, but anything related to Pierre McGuire is just too much fun to do that. So that meme will live forever.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: Yeah. But even then, I feel like we didn’t– I wish we had more time, because I really feel like there was a lot more potential for us to really go through–
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: I mean, it could have been a reality show.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Like a Sens TV thing, where you see him and Pierre Dorion kind of in an elevator and they’re just talking about… I’d love a five minute snippet of Pierre Dorion and Pierre McGuire… I keep saying Dorion. Like, he’s French. I understand. Pierre Dorion and Pierre McGuire–
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: That is my bad.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: No friend. Dude, look, I’m the guy from the French province here. I should know better. I’d pay just to see five minutes of those two guys talking about the player they want in the draft or what they think about a player and what philosophies each of them has. I would pay money just to hear how that discussion would go.
Better yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pierre McGuire in the next few weeks, maybe not even in the next few weeks. If I’m Mitch Melnick on TSN 690 in Montreal right now, who, for context, Pierre McGuire spent the last few years as a 5:00 pm guest on the Drive Home Show on TSN 690. If I’m Mitch Melnick, the host of that program, I’ll call Pierre and tell him, man, what happened? And I’m listening to that interview, and I know he’s telling us everything. He is telling us what is happening.
Because there is no reason, no way, no reason why Pierre McGuire should be in the situation he is in now after less than a year on the job. Something happened.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Yes, something definitely happened. I think McGuire unintentionally on camera would be better than Melnick intentionally on camera. I feel like he shreds draft prospects in the draft room like someone inadvertently shooting him would actually produce, as you pointed out, some pretty good content. I think he would have been funny if we could see more of Pierre McGuire. In fact, I would have liked to see him try to improve an NHL roster. Like, I wanted to see the Pierre McGuire experiment, but we’re not going to get to see that. His mark will not be indelible on the Ottawa Senators.
JULIAN MCKENZIE: You have to play, you have to play Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will Remember You” at some point in this segment just to be reminded of the Pierre McGuire era that was.
JUSTIN CUTHBERT: I’m sure it’s looping in Ottawa right now.
Reference-ca.sports.yahoo.com