Talking out of his ass.

Posted by Wade on 08/01/08 at 07:45 AM ET

How much sense would it make to hire Bowman after the bulk of free agency for the season has completed, and then in a few months fire or demote the Tallon and give Scotty the GM job?

It makes no sense. If they do that, one of the following things will be true:
- Tallon’s signings all panned out well, in which case it wouldn’t make any sense to replace him—you don’t start building a team in one direction and then stop in the middle of success to start over
- Tallon’s signings were mostly busts, in which case, Scotty’s not going to be able to do much as a GM until next off-season anyway, especially considering the Hawks will likely be so tight against the cap that if they don’t make it work this year with what they have, they have to just wait to start over (unless they want to trade one of their good young players… which would be stupid)

What I think is more likely is exactly what we saw in Detroit—Scotty’s title will suggest he’s nothing more than a consultant—but when you’re getting consultation from Scotty Bowman on the game of hockey, you do what he says more often than not.

Posted by Nathan on 08/01/08 at 07:49 AM ET

I think there’s roughly a 0% chance of Bowman becoming GM in Chicago, and not much more than that of him becoming coach.  He’s upper management now.

That said, he reportedly would have joined the Leafs if they had been willing to give him more control over hockey operations, it’s likely that was his condition for joining anywhere in the league.  If he just wanted to be with his son, he could just move to Chicago and tell the Wings not to call him more than once a week.

Bowman had a pretty minimal role with the Wings (by his own choice), but when he started to get the itch again to get involved, there wasn’t any room left big enough for him.  He wants to do more than just give the coach tips for the power play and watch prospects.

Posted by Ryan from Toronto on 08/01/08 at 01:37 PM ET