Ottawa Senators Announce the Hiring of Pierre McGuire

On Monday morning, the Ottawa Senators surprised many when they announced that they had hired Pierre McGuire as senior VP of player development.

For years, McGuire has been linked to numerous NHL jobs, including being interviewed for both head coaching and general manager positions. While this role is neither, it is still a very prominent one, and will give McGuire work after his time as a play by play analyst had come to an end with the NHL’s contract with NBC coming to an end.

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McGuire, 59, is known for his great hockey knowledge and facts, and is considered by many to be a hockey encyclopedia. Despite his great knowledge however, it hasn’t translated to great success behind the bench. He was able to be the head coach of the Hartford Whalers for 67 games in the 1993-94 season but had a record of just 23-37-7. In this role, it was reported that players often mocked him and has little to no respect from him, while others in the organization commented that his arrogance turned many off from him.

Stanley Cup Potential

Given McGuire’s extensive hockey knowledge, general manager Pierre Dorion has been in touch with him multiple times since the end of the regular season and was finally able to make something work. The often quirky Mcguire has been on record as of late saying he loves the direction the Senators are going, and believes they have a very bright future ahead of them.

Despite Dorion making the hiring, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk made it clear he was ecstatic about the hire, and believes McGuire will be a key ingredient to this team potentially winning a Stanley Cup in years to come. McGuire himself made it clear that he is willing to do whatever is asked of him in order to help this team reach that goal, while also making sure to add that he has no intentions of gunning for Dorion’s job.

This hiring is quite surprising in a number of ways. One of course is that McGuire is back in the NHL, but the other is how well the organization did at keeping this quiet. In the past, there had been rumors about McGuire joining teams’ front offices, but with this one it seemed to come out of nowhere. It remains to be seen how it will work out, but it certainly has people talking.

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