Brett Hull Named Stars Co-GM

I scoffed when the New York Islanders named backup goalie Garth Snow GM. For me, the 'good old boys' mentality of hiring former players in front office positions has just never seemed to make much sense. It makes perfect sense for a former goalie to become a goalie coach, but a GM? That seems like a completely different skill set.

When the Islanders eccentric owner Charles Wang awarded Snow the GM position he made it a point to note how impressed he was with Snows technological approach. To me, that sounds like Snow either knows how to put together a Power Point presentation, or he won the company fantasy hockey pool.

But the scrambling Dallas Stars have one-upped the Isles. After sacking Doug Armstrong the Stars named former NHL great Brett Hull Co-GM. Now when it comes to Garth Snow, I just kind of assume that he's not the best guy for the job, but Brett Hull, I know he's not the best candidate for the job.

Prior to taking a position in the Stars franchise, Hull spent time as an TV analysis on NBC, where we were subjected to rants that left everyone wondering exactly how such a great individual hockey player could know so little about the sport as a whole. He called out Pittsburgh Penguins centers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin for not being on the ice enough, suggesting they should both be eating up 30 minutes a game.

Now as an NHL game is only 60 minutes long, and Crosby and Malkin were centering separate lines, not playing together outside of the power-play. This would leave somewhere near 6 minutes a game for the 3rd and 4th lines. In fact no forward averaged more than 25 minutes a game last season, and both Crosby and Malkin were in the top 25 centers in ice time.

And that's just one example, later during postseason coverage Brett Hull and guest commentator Don Cherry, of Hockey Night in Canada, shared moments in which each viewers hockey IQ was lowered at least 10 points. Hull and Cherry joined forces to inform the viewing public that all the problems in the NHL revolve around players who wear visors and the crack down on fights.

And now that very same man, with a whole month under his belt as a special adviser to hockey operations in Dallas, will be making critical decisions as the teams Co-GM.

If your a Stars fan, at least you can take some solace in the fact that Co-GMing with Hull will be Les Jackson, who has spent over 20 years working his way up the organization, including the last 7 as assistant GM. Sounds like the kind of guy that deserves the position, too bad for him he'll probably spent half his time explaining to Hull that Brenden Morrow can't skate 10 minute shifts, and no matter how good a defender Sergei Zubov might be, he can't start in net on Turco's night off.