July 18, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

In case you missed yesterday’s piece, I wrote about the attributes that Edmonton Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson will be looking for in the next general manager of the Oilers. Jackson wants someone that has been a part of a successful organization, someone that has worked with superstars, someone that has a track record of developing players, someone that has a progressive attitude, and someone that is a good communicator.

Related: What is Jackson looking for in the next Oilers GM?

I also recently put out a two-part piece highlighting a long list of potential candidates and their connections to Jackson, the Oilers franchise, or the city of Edmonton. This is part three of the piece. I have whittled the list down to what I believe are the five best choices to be the next GM of the Oilers based on their connections to the team and Jackson’s wish list. I have listed the candidates in alphabetical order by their surnames.

Related: Oilers GM Candidates: Part One – The Former NHL GMs

Mathieu Darche

Darche could be an interesting candidate because he has a lot of varied but useful experience. He has been an NHL player, he was a part of the labour negotiations during the 2012-13 NHL lockout, he was a high level sales executive, and he’s currently an NHL AGM. Darche has knowledge of hockey, sales, and negotiation. Those are all skills that would translate well to a GM position. He has also interviewed for four other NHL GM positions in recent years. Being a part of an organization that won back to back Stanley Cups will do that for you, I suppose. 

The Lightning have long been regarded as a team that uses analytics heavily. Darche is not an analytics person himself, but coming from an organization that utilizes data makes me think that he at least sees value in the data. Darche worked with Oilers Video & Coaching Analytics Coordinator Mike Fanelli with the Lightning (which I failed to point out in my first piece about potential GM candidates), so Jackson has a sense of how the Lightning used analytics because of Fanelli.

The Lightning have no shortage of stars that Darche would have worked with including Steven Stamkos, NIkita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Brayden Point. However, it’s important to note that the Lightning’s drafting record has slipped in recent years after being an organization that built a championship team predominantly through the draft. No player that was drafted by the Lightning since Darche’s first year there in 2019 has played more than 23 NHL games. Jackson noted that the ability to develop players is important to him, and Darche has no track record of being able to do that.

Paul Fenton

Fenton inherited a Minnesota Wild team that earned a playoff spot by finishing third in the Central Division with 101 points in 2017-18. They lost to the Winnipeg Jets in five games in the first round of the playoffs that season.

Things didn’t go well for Fenton in 2018-19. The Wild were only able to muster 83 points, and they missed the playoffs. Fenton didn’t make any major changes to the roster prior to that season. The only significant move that summer was re-signing Jason Zucker after a career year. Zucker’s performance predictably slipped in the first year of that contract. It got a little better in the second year of that deal, but he was traded to the Penguins during that season.

Fenton made a couple of trade deadline moves to make his team younger at the 2019 trade deadline. He traded Nino Niederreiter to the Carolina Hurricanes for Victor Rask, which ended up being a terrible trade. Then Fenton traded Charlie Coyle to the Boston Bruins for Ryan Donato and a 2019 fifth round pick. Coyle is still producing for the Bruins, whereas Donato has bounced around the league after playing parts of two seasons with the Wild. Fenton redeemed himself by trading Mikael Granlund to the Nashville Predators for Kevin Fiala, who he knew well from his time with the Predators. Lastly, Fenton signed Mats Zuccarello to a five-year, $30 million contract after the 2018-19 season. That deal worked out nicely for the Wild.

It feels like the Wild fired Fenton out of anger over the team not making the playoffs in 2018-19 after a strong season in 2017-18. Fenton made some good moves and some poor moves, but I also feel that he wasn’t given much of a chance by the Wild. It was a roster that went largely unchanged until the second half of Fenton’s only season there, and they went from scoring the eleventh most goals in the league in 2017-18 to scoring the fourth fewest goals in the league in 2018-19. At some point, it’s on the players more so than the manager. The 2018-19 Wild feels like one of those situations.

Fenton played a huge role in player personnel decisions with the Nashville Predators. He was the Director of Player Personnel for them from 1996-2006, at which point he was promoted to AGM for the team. The Predators were consistently a strong team while Fenton was there, and the organization drafted and developed a remarkable number of fantastic players with Fenton on staff, including current Oilers Mattias Ekholm and Viktor Arvidsson. Roman Josi, Juuse Saros, Shea Weber, Ryan Suter, and Pekka Rinne are just some of the other big names that were drafted and developed in the Predators organization while Fenton was there.

Fenton worked under former Predators GM David Poile for many years. Ray Shero, the man who led the Pittsburgh Penguins to three Stanley Cups, also learned under Poile. Shero was an AGM with the Predators from 1998-2006.

Fenton is a part of the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers front office right now, which has a large hockey operations team. It consists of GM Bill Zito, three AGMs, four advisors to the GM, and a Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations. That makes for an environment with a lot of different voices wanting to be heard, but they have had success. Being a part of that team is an indirect sign that Fenton is a decent communicator.

Fenton does not have a pre-existing direct professional relationship with Jackson or the Oilers, but other people in the Panthers organization do have relationships with Jackson.

Mark Hunter

Hunter has been a part owner of the London Knights since 2000. The Knights have enjoyed a long run of success under Hunter’s direction. They have been to six Memorial Cups, and they have won two of them. They have won five OHL championships since 2000. They have also churned out a long list of NHL players including stars like Patrick Kane, Corey Perry, Mitch Marner, and Evan Bouchard.

It’s clear that they’re doing something right in London. Being a consistently competitive team in the CHL is really difficult given the volatile competitive cycles of most teams due to the short life span of a CHL player. The Knights seem to find a way to find fantastic players and develop them properly. Hunter clearly understands what a competitive team needs to succeed and how to develop players properly. 

What we don’t know is if it would translate at the NHL level. The Vegas Golden Knights were rewarded for taking the chance on Kelly McCrimmon, who had a similarly long career as part owner and GM of the Brandon Wheat Kings. Similar results would be the hope if any team was to hire Hunter.

We know that McDavid and Draisaitl want to win, and that desire will stay with them for the entirety of their careers. Hunter has demonstrated the ability to keep a franchise competitive for an extended period of time. That could be a huge factor in the decision making process.

Hunter co-owns the Knights with his brother, Dale Hunter, and Columbus Blue Jackets Director of Player Personnel Basil McCrae. Hunter has an Associate GM, Rob Simpson, as well. McCrae and Simpson have both been the GM of the Knights at times in the past. All of these men know hockey, and I can imagine that they don’t always agree on everything. The Knights also have twelve scouts on their staff. All of that tells me that while there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen with different voices that need to be heard, the organization has found a way to excel. That doesn’t happen without open communication, which suggests to me that Hunter is a decent communicator.

The only thing that worries me about Hunter is that I’m unsure of his stance on analytics. Kyle Dubas, his co-AGM with the Toronto Maple Leafs from 2015-18, famously relies heavily on analytics. Dubas was chosen for the Maple Leafs’ GM job in 2018 in large part because of his use of analytics. The Knights don’t have any analytics staff listed on their website. All of that makes me wonder just how much value Hunter puts in analytics. The Oilers have Michael Parkatti, a stats and data guru, on staff. Parkatti can handle the data, but it would be up to the new GM to actually take that information into consideration when making decisions.

Jackson said that he wants to hire someone with a “progressive attitude”, and I’m not sure that I would characterize Hunter as “progressive”. I could be wrong on that, but that’s just my impression.

Related: Oilers GM Candidates: Part Two – The AGMs

Paul Krepelka

Krepelka just won a Stanley Cup with the Panthers. Krepelka has only been in hockey management in the NHL for six years, but he has been a part of two great organizations in the Panthers and the Carolina Hurricanes. He was the Vice President of Hockey Operations for the Hurricanes for two seasons, an AGM with the Panthers for three seasons, and the Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations for the Panthers this past season. He also spent a year in the hockey operations department of the Norfolk Admirals in 2017-18.

Krepelka was an agent for twenty years, including time with the Orr Group while Jackson was there. Krepelka was an agent to Eric Staal and Jordan Staal among others. Agents are involved in scouting players, developing players, and negotiating contracts with teams. The skills directly translate to an NHL GM job. 

According to The News Observer, Krepelka sold his stake in the Orr Group after becoming frustrated with the agency business in general. He eventually spoke to the Hurricanes GM Don Waddell and current Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon about joining their team. Krepelka said this of Dundon: “He’s bringing a different element and management style…Traditionalists aren’t used to it in the NHL. I hit it off with him. I liked his energy, his passion.” 

Dundon is far from a traditionalist in the hockey world. Krepelka’s comments about working with Dundon suggest to me that he also has a progressive attitude. Krepelka has clearly worked with star players as an agent and in hockey operations roles in the NHL. He even has a professional relationship with Jackson from their days at the Orr Group. He’s a part of the massive hockey operations team with the Panthers, which I have deemed to be an indirect sign of having decent communication skills. Krepelka checks off a lot of the boxes that Jackson seems to covet.

The one big thing that Krepelka does not have is a track record of developing players. His time with the Hurricanes was too short to offer a fair assessment of his ability to develop players. The Panthers were short on home grown drafted and developed players on their 2024 Stanley Cup championship team, aside from Anton Lundell.

Ryan Martin

Martin won a Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008 as their Director of Hockey Administration. He would’ve been exposed to some of the great Red Wings like Steve Yzerman, Niklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg. 

Martin was the GM of the Grand Rapids Griffins from 2014-2021. The AHL season was not played in 2020 due to the pandemic, and there were no playoffs in 2021. The Griffins made the playoffs in every season from 2013-14 until 2018-19 under Martin, including a Calder Cup championship in 2017-18. While those Griffins teams were strong, the Red Wings’ drafting and player development took a bit of a hit as the franchise fell down the league standings after a long run as an annual championship contender.

The Hartford Wolfpack had not made the AHL playoffs since 2015 before they made it there in Martin’s second season at the helm in 2022-23. Now they have made it there for two straight years. Oilers Head Coach and former Wolfpack Head Coach Kris Knoblauch would be able to describe Martin’s ability to communicate and other work related attributes since the two worked together as recently as last November.

Wrap

Realistically, there are no candidates that check all of the boxes. It’s super rare to find the “perfect” candidate. The five that I have discussed here all have a lot of positive traits, but none of them check every single box. Having said that, I believe that these five candidates most closely match Jackson’s desired qualifications.

I will share my final prediction for who I believe will be the next GM of the Oilers on Monday.

Honourable mention: Jason Botterill, Jim Benning, Mike Barnett, Keith Gretzky