Pierre for GM? Is it really that crazy?

As you may know (if you haven't been living under a rock for the past 2 weeks) that Pierre McGuire had his second interview with the Penguins for the open GM position. As I was scrolling through twitter when it got covered yesterday, it kind of boggled my mind that so many people would have that much backlash for a man as smart as Pierre McGuire.

We should start by saying that the 4 of us that contribute to this blog, may be the only 4 people in the country who actually like Pierre McGuire. If you get past the fact that he is a little creepy, the man knows hockey more than just about anyone.

So we wanna look at this from the aspect of, is Pierre McGuire really that bad of a candidate that everyone thinks he is?

Let's start by looking at the list of other potential candidates.

Jason Botteril - Pittsburgh Assistant GM (Interim)
Tom Fitzgerald - Pittsburgh Assistant to the GM
Julien BriseBrois - Tampa Bay Assistant GM
Paul Fenton - Nashville Assistant GM
Jeff Gorton - New York Rangers Assistant GM
Norm MacIver - Chicago Assistant GM
Dave Poulin - Toronto (something)

Let's now cross a few names off of the list.
Jason Botteril and Tom Fitzgerald. By keeping those two around, the Penguins would go from making a big change to crawling back into the pool. Botteril will be an excellent GM some day, but not in Pittsburgh. He would be deemed as someone who is exactly like Ray Shero, and that's exactly what the Penguins need to get away from. Fitzgerald would be the same considering he was Shero's assistant. Nothing wrong with the two of them, but I'm not sure if one of those two are chosen, it really resignates in much, they may keep Dan Bylsma, and the entire organization remains stale.

Paul Fenton. Cross him off because you don't want to continue down the Nashville track. That was Shero's biggest weakness. He tried to build the Penguins like the Predators. Build on D and forget about Forward even though he had two superstars at Center. Fenton should be immediately crossed off.

That leaves us to Pierre, BriseBrois, Gorton, MacIver, and Poulin. BriseBrois or Poulin seem like the likely candidates, but are they really that much better than Pierre? Another question would be, will an Assistant GM be ready to become the GM of a team already? I know the same question would revolve around Pierre, but it's really no difference.

Which one of those guys do you think know hockey more than Pierre McGuire? I get it that BriseBrois, Gorton, MacIver, and Poulin aren't necessarily househould names and some of you may just be hearing these names for the first time, but are they really that much better than Pierre?

Pierre would more than likely be a world class scouter and more than likely could help fill the needs of this roster. He also has a pretty good working relationship with many General Managers in the NHL currently and that definitely would be a good thing for the Penguins. One would also tend to believe that Pierre would find a good coach to replace Dan Bylsma.

Another thing to consider is that Pierre has very close ties in the Penguins organization and also was a part of the 1991 and 1992 Stanley Cup teams in Pittsburgh and it would be deemed that he would be pretty close with Mario Lemieux.

In closing, Pierre McGuire may not be the best candidate for General Manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins, but he's also not that much of an idiotic choice as well.

We aren't really sure what is going to pan out over the next couple of days as the Penguins should announce by mid week who the GM is, but we won't be surprised and we definitely won't hate the fact that it could be Pierre.

Go Pens.