Don Maloney to be next Yotes GM

[coyoteshockeyfan]

The Coyotes have hired New York Rangers assistant general manager Don Maloney to be their next GM, a source close to the team confirmed Monday.

The Coyotes will hold a press conference Tuesday to announce the hiring.

Maloney, 48, was with the Rangers for the past 10 seasons. Part of that term coincided with Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky's playing days with the Rangers, from 1996-99.

Maloney was also GM of the New York Islanders from 1992-1995. The Islanders made the postseason twice under Maloney and advanced to the conference finals in 1993.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/90554

 

[Diamondback Jay]

Good hire. Maloney had some very solid drafts with the Islanders and did good things with the franchise.


Here's another article about him. Very positive thoughts about the guy.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/6458636?CMP=OTC-K9B140813162&ATT=142

Maloney could be hot commodity
Robert Picarello / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 104 days ago



Word on the NHL street — actually in the Edmonton Sun — is that Mark Messier wants to be the next general manager of the New York Rangers. Well, I'll tell you what, if I'm an NHL owner who's looking for a new GM, I'm hoping that current Rangers president and general manager Glen Sather kicks himself further upstairs and gives Messier the job.

Mark Messier won six Stanley Cups as a player and might be interested in chasing one as a GM.

But I wouldn't be hoping that Messier got the job because I thought my team would be able to steal a player or two from the six-time Cup champion. If I'm an owner looking for my next GM, the reason I'd want the Rangers to hand Messier the key to the GM's office is so I can go out and offer the kitchen sink to Rangers assistant general manager Don Maloney to come over to my city and rink, and run my team.

Right now, no owner is going to be able to pry Maloney out of New York without Sather stepping aside and bringing in a new GM because the former Ranger is under the assumption that he will be the next GM hired on Broadway after Sather. But Maloney should know that you can't assume anything in Madison Square Garden these days — especially when it comes to job security. Just ask former New York Knicks head coaches Larry Brown, Lenny Wilkens, Herb Williams and Don Chaney. Those guys lost their jobs because current Knicks GM — and coach — Isiah Thomas had James Dolan's ear, which is also the case when it comes to Sather and Messier. Both men are on solid ground with the chairman of MSG.

But trust me, if Messier is brought in to captain the Rangers from the front office, Maloney won't be looking for work for long. He'll either be retained by the Blueshirts or land in a different town running another NHL club. The guess here is he'll take the latter, and GM a team for the second time in his career.

Following his retirement from the game in January 1991 as a member of the New York Islanders, Maloney joined the Isles as an assistant general manager under four-time Cup-winning GM Bill Torrey. The Hall of Fame GM, who was responsible for drafting NHL greats such as Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin, Bryan Trottier, Clark Gillies and Pat LaFontaine, took Maloney under his wing and groomed him to be the next Islanders GM.

After serving two seasons under Torrey, Maloney took over the post in August 1992, and served as the club's GM until December 1995. During his tenure on Long Island, Maloney stockpiled the team with such young draft picks as Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan McCabe, Tommy Salo, Darius Kasparaitus, Scott Lachance and Zigmund Palffy, who all turned out to be good NHL players.

Less than two years later, Maloney went back to the Rangers, the organization that drafted him in the second round (26th overall) in 1978, where he was named assistant general manager on July 2, 1997. Maloney is currently is his 10th season in the Rangers front office serving as the team's vice president of player personnel and assistant general manager. He assists Sather on player transactions and entry level contract negotiations. In addition, Maloney is also involved with the club's professional and amateur scouting operations.


Don Maloney has demonstrated a knack for spotting young talent.

Maloney is one of the main reasons the Rangers have turned the corner in recent years and relied more on homegrown players like Peter Prucha, Fedor Tyutin and Henrik Lundqvist instead of the fat-cat free agents who, in the past, only came to New York for the big paychecks. Check the Rangers' minor league rosters today and you'll find gems like Marc Staal, Al Montoya, Brandon Dubinsky, Hugh Jessiman and Bobby Sanguinetti that every other GM in the league constantly inquires about.

There's no doubt in my mind that Messier will someday lead an NHL team to a Stanley Cup championship as a GM if he does indeed decide to take on that challenge. After all, he led a young Edmonton Oilers team to a Stanley Cup championship in 1990 when no one thought it could be done without Wayne Gretzky. Then he came to New York and slayed a 54-year-old dragon by bringing the Cup back to the Garden faithful for the first time since 1940.

But right now, if I'm shopping for a GM, Don Maloney is on the top of my list. His credentials, hockey smarts and eye for young talent makes him more suited to build a champion faster than the inexperienced Mark Messier. Then again, don't bet against The Captain. Messier has gone out and delivered the impossible on more than one occasion in his career.

 

[PJ1]

From a long time Ranger fan. Sorry to see him go. Would rather he stayed and Sather left or retired.

Good hire by the Yotes.

 

[ndjmc]

Here we go baby.....one piece at a time!!!

 

[coyoteshockeyfan]

"We want to go younger," he said. "Not only go younger, but create enough ice time for younger players to get better.

"Goaltending is something we have to address. If I can get a goaltender in here, all of a sudden, I'll be a genius. That's the first priority."

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/coyotes/articles/0601yotenb0602.html

It will be real interesting to see who he is able to bring in. Maloney is huge on Al Montoya who was drafted when he was with the Rangers. With Henrik Lundqvist firmly entrenched in New York, he could be available for the right price. The only real big goalie that could become a free agent this summer in JS Giguere, who is two wins away from he Cup. If Anaheim can't sign him, there's a chance the Coyotes could make a play for him as only a handful of teams need a starting goaltender. However, he isn't going to be cheap by any stretch.

 

[Diamondback Jay]

First off, I may be the only one here who feels this way, but I really am high on Tellqvist and think he can be at worst a serviceable goaltender on the NHL level.

With that said, Montoya was a BEAST at Michigan and on the World Juniors team when I saw him. I think long term, this guy's capable of being an All-Star Goaltender and would give the Yotes something they haven't had (sorry Cujo) since Nikolai Khabibulin left town-- a stabilizing force behind the pipes.

I also like Jiggy for sure, but I think Anaheim keeps him to be honest with you. I can't see the Ducks letting him get away, especially if they win Lord Stanley's Hardware.

Also, Minnesota has an interesting scenario with their goaltending situation.. Niklas Backstrom will become an unrestricted free agent if the Wild don't sign him by July 1st. After leading the Wild to the playoffs, and leading the league in save percentage this season, Backstrom showed he can be a #1 goalie in the NHL. If the Wild DON'T sign him, I say he'd be perfect here. If they DO, they'd be almost certain to trade Manny Fernandez, who again would be a great fit here.

Whichever direction Maloney looks towards, I'm hopeful and optimistic for the future of this team with him in charge, and especially like the fact that goaltending has been dubbed a #1 priority this post-season, whether it be continuing on with Tellqvist or getting one of the afforementioned.

 

[coyoteshockeyfan]

Don Maloney, the former New York Rangers assistant general manager who was hired as the general manager of the Phoenix Coyotes Monday, is spotting the field five lengths. He's here working with scouting director Keith Gretzky and director of player personnel Tom Kurvers, but otherwise the front-office has been stripped bare in advance of Maloney building his own staff.
This combine and the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, held in Columbus, Ohio, June 22-23, are where the new Coyotes' hockey philosophy will start. Maloney, a star player, started his front-office career with the New York Islanders. He said it has been amazing to watch the development of the Combine, which this year for the first time features psychological testing.
"The Islanders at that time was the right place for me to be," Maloney said. "I had very little idea of this dynamic, how organizations are built. I think attention to detail over a long period of time is how your strategy evolves on how to build a winner. We went through a tough time with the Rangers before turning it around. I learned so much working with (Rangers GM) Glen Sather, even from our failures, or maybe, mostly from failure. In the beginning, we tried to buy our way out of trouble, signing big-name players, but we had little success.
"My feeling is that you win by scouting better than the next guy. We have to draft better players, develop them better than other teams, prod them and push them and build chemistry among them until you have a core group. That's the problem with going after free agents before you have that core. We need players who grow up with us and buy into what it means to be a Coyote."
As for learning from failure, Maloney has a role model that might surprise you -- Devils GM Lou Lamoriello. From the 1994 Eastern Conference Final in which the Rangers beat the Devils en route to winning the Stanley Cup, the teams went in vastly different directions. The Devils the next year won the first of their three Stanley Cups in a decade while the Rangers wandered in the wilderness before turning it around two years ago.
"Even though we were bitter rivals, I watched and I studied what Lou did there," Maloney said. "He outworks everyone, out-thinks them and he knows what he wants in a hockey player. Plus, he has an unbelievable staff. When it comes to building a winner, no one does it better."
Rival GMs will likely find it hard to outwork Maloney. When he was asked if the demands of building a staff and evaluating players for the draft in three weeks with a short staff will require 80-hour weeks, Maloney laughed.
"Glen Sather gave me a lot of responsibility in New York and kept me busy," Maloney said. "I doubt I could be busier. I'm just getting paid better."

http://www.nhl.com/nhl/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=314866



He's got the perfect mentality and he's saying all the right things, now the tough part is that he has to prove it.