THANKS, DALE: Tallon Hired As Panthers' GM
The Florida Panthers announced today that Dale Tallon will be their new General Manager, replacing Randy Sexton in that capacity.This makes two General Managers hired during this still-young offseason who had previously been in the Blackhawks organization. Atlanta's Rick Dudley was hired earier this spring.
We really owe Tallon a huge debt of gratitude. I'm note sure there was ever a more loyal company man. He was a great listen with Pat Foley for 16 years, then was Director of Player Personnel and Assistant GM before finally becoming GM in the summer of 2005.
His first two years as GM, he did the drafting, which was about all he was able to do with Bob Pulford pretty much doing Bill Wirtz's bidding for the organization. It meant a lot of bad hockey, a lot of empty seats, but also a lot of bright prospects.
He was fortunate enough in the 2006 Draft to have Jonathan Toews fall to him at the 3 spot, and the following year he had the number 1 pick, and chose Patrick Kane over Kyle Turris and James Van Riemsdyk, despite the consensus on Kane being that he was too small to play in the NHL.
He was also pretty solid in the late rounds. While the first-round pick of Jack Skille can now be considered a bust, his fourth-round pick the same year of Niklas Hjalmarsson will pay benefits for years. Not to mention the free agent signing of Antti Niemi.
Speaking of free agents, once Wirtz died and Rocky Wirtz and John McDonough loosened the purse strings, he signed Brian Campbell and Cristobal Huet. Now, whatever you think of those two players and the amount they're getting paid, the fact is this: On one day, with two penstrokes, the franchise was redefined. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that had the Hawks not signed Campbell and Huet, this team would not be a desirable location for the likes of Marian Hossa or John Madden. Even with young talent like Kane, Toews, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, and the rest, the old Blackhawks way was to nickel-and-dime young players until they were either traded or left of their own accord.
Even with the Hawks' cap issues that will once again be a popular topic for discussion once this season ends - also Tallon's doing, free agents will at least send feelers to the Blackhawks before committing elsewhere.
Now the salary cap mess. We'll probably never know exactly what happened in the Blackhawks office last year, but it's naive to think the General Manager is going down to Kinko's to send the paperwork to players and to the league office. Ultimately, he took the hit. Which, again, goes to his loyalty.
The bottom line is this: The team taking the ice in the Western Conference Finals was Tallon's creation. The players he didn't draft, he traded for. Patrick Sharp cost him Matt Ellison and a third-rounder. Kris Versteeg cost Brandon Bochenski. He did pretty damn well here. Unfortunately, he won't get his name on the Cup if and when the Hawks win.
He should get his own Stanley Cup for having the most thankless task in hockey history, eulogizing Bill Wirtz at the United Center.
Thanks, Dale.
Posted by Forklift at 5/17/2010 3:32 PM 
Categories: News and Notes
Tags: Chicago Blackhawks Dale Tallon Florida Panthers
Categories: News and Notes
Tags: Chicago Blackhawks Dale Tallon Florida Panthers
Why is he leaving?!?!
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Oh yeah, Bowman. Never mind...
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There's no denying Tallon had a very important role and left a lasting positive imprint in the making of the current Blackhawks team.
And we will never know what kind of power struggle went on in the front office.
Tallon also bears responsibility for his share of boo-boos, like the Khabibulin-Huet fiasco...two number one goalies taking up almost 13 million in cap space.
Adrian Aucoin, Martin Havlat and Robert Lang weren't exactly 'value-priced'. And where are Andrei Zyuzin and Steve Marr now?
Likewise, ponying up $3 large for Cameron Barker.
Fork's fave, Mr Versteeg, became a multimillionaire courtesy of DT.
But give the man his props, and good luck to him. The Panthers franchise has been even more dysfunctional than the Hawks were.
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At the time, the Hawks organ-I-zation took a big PR hit for reducing Tallon's role in the front office. Amazing what winning will do to some people's memories. Acoording to today's Sun-Times, the players haven't forgotten (and that's a pretty telling sign):
One of Tallon's impressive traits was his willingness to take the heat for the contract snafu that ultimately led to his reassignment and the criticism for mistakes he made early on, when he signed players who failed to relate to the new, faster NHL.
Things start and end with the general manager. That is why he was removed as general manager by president John McDonough, but also why he deserves praise for turning a 65-point team in 2005-06 into one that earned 104 and 112 points the last two seasons.
Does he get enough credit for reviving the Hawks?
''Maybe not,'' Toews said. ''That's why I, when I talk to him, I always remind him we're in here thinking about him and we don't forget the contributions he's made to this team and this locker room.
''Knowing where we are right now he would love to be here, but unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. It's always a good thing for him to be reminded that the boys haven't forgotten about him yet.''
That's another thing about Tallon. He was very likable.
''He was just a happy, go-lucky guy,'' Kane said.
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Dave, I would say Tallon did well by the organization, who chose to keep him on in an advisor role and apparently paid him handsomely to do so.
If you recall, the story of Tallon's ouster was broken by Comcast's Josh Mora, who said Tallon had been 'fired' the night before his reassignment was due to be announced.
Mora was apparently subsequently canned from Comcast for leaking the story.
Mora's leak stoked the media firestorm that had been started when the qualifying offer 'snafu' had been uncovered by TSN who, true to their habits, blew it up into a major disaster.
The mainstream hockey media, TSN and CTV Globemedia (including their newspaper empire) in particular, had previously raked Tallon over the coals repeatedly for his 'spend now' policies.
Now that same MSM gang turns around and suggests Tallon was treated unfairly by the Blackhawks.
Tallon had his positives and his negatives. It's a business, and business rules determine the fate of hockey executives like in any other.
When Dale Tallon says, "I've been a Blackhawk for 30 years and I expect to be a Blackhawk for a long time", as he did, one can see that as a statement of loyalty.
If he is taking on the task of trying to rebuild hockey in South Florida, one hopes he has an ironclad contract and a massive pile of cash in his bank account.
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Hopefully when he retires, Tallon will tell the whole story behind the qualifying offer snafu (either take the heat or admit that Bowman helped him mess it up)
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Dave, regarding the so-called 'qualifying offer snafu', was it ever a snafu in the first place?
When TSN did their self-proclaimed 'expose', Tallon insisted that the Blackhawks had acted in conformity with NHLPA guidelines. But TSN kept pushing this story to the front page and whipped up a frenzy around it.
The decision to shift Tallon out of the GM chair and into an advisory role may have been taken long before that.
In any case, Tallon has a new start, and hopefully, will earn more than enough to make his retirement extremely comfortable.
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Dave, so what you're saying is that the Blackhawks simply fell on their sword on this one? Despite the fact that they knew this would seriously impact their salary cap situation, at a time when they needed to get 3 large, long-term deals in place for their franchise cornerstones?
I'd call it a snafu.
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CT>you can call it a snafu if you like.
TSN called it a snafu.
As I pointed out, Tallon said at the time, Hawks had not committed a snafu. He insisted he had processed the offers correctly.
When the contracts were settled, Rocky Wirtz was philosophical in his published comments: "Well, we either pay them now, or pay them later."
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