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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, it's Bob Stauffer. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Oilers Now ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. This is Oilers Now from the 880 Chet Studios, brought to you by World of Spas. We're going to get quickly into the show in less than a minute's time.
Hibbington Oilers General Manager Stan Bowman will join us, the Oilers, and we've kind of alluded to this over the last couple of weeks. Uh... and we'll end up talking to Stan about some significant changes and go from there, because there have been. And away we go. And it has to do with the Oilers' management structure. So, anyhow, Stan Bowman coming up today at 4.10 at 4.35.
NHL Hockey and Rodgers, Ron McLean for Century Casino at 5.05 today. Oilers Regional TV Color Analyst, Louie DeBrus for GCL Diesel. And hockey blogger, Bruce Kerlock for Reface Magic today at 5.35. We will tell you that you can reach us at any time in the River Creek Resort and Casino hotline at 780-451-7000. 8,800.
Brendan Ulrich and myself went out to the River Cree today to go see Janie and the team and Lisa Marie and everybody. And, man, oh, man, the expansion that's taken place out at the River Cree.
Chapter 2: What significant changes were made in the Oilers management structure?
Off the charts, Embers. I had no idea that Embers had grown that much. But online gaming is awesome coming to the River Cree. More at the RiverCreeResort.com. You must be 18+. And you can keep Texas on the Ashley Fine Flores text line, 780-451-8800. Find the new floors you always wanted at 143rd Street, 111th Avenue, or head to ashleyfinefloors.com for more.
Our Oilers Now Headliners today is our opening guest, Stan Bowman. For Wilhock Beef Jerky, others can try to imitate, but nobody can duplicate the great flavor of Wilhock Beef Jerky, only available in Leduc, Alberta. And we welcome back to the show, Oilers GM, Stan Bowman. Hello, Stan. How are you doing? I'm doing great, Bob. How are you doing? Good. Well, there's lots of news. There's no news.
And then there's a little bit of tough news today. And I guess we'll start off with the changes that were made specific to your hockey operations department, some changes. Significant promotions. And I know that one of the questions that I'm getting is you had a couple of existing assistant general managers in Bill Scott and in Keith Gretzky. Keith runs the farm team.
Bill's been involved for years in contract negotiation and that sort of thing. But you now have three more assistant GMs. Kurt Hill, Assistant GM, Player Procurement. Kelly Larson, promoted to Assistant GM, Player Development and Innovation. And then Toby Samulainen, Assistant GM, European Operations. So let's start with Kurt Hill. You had Kurt work for you before in Chicago.
Give me the mindset of elevating Kurt out of the Western Hockey League, where he was GM, and into an Assistant GM role in Player Procurement.
Sure. Yeah, I'll back up a little bit and try to explain maybe the process we went through, and then we can talk about the people individually. So when I started, like I started late that summer, it was basically August, and I remember one of the first things I talked to Jeff Jackson about was the need for us to be innovative and to be operating differently
than we were, but also it was a difficult time to try to make that all happen that year. And I wanted to get to know some people in our organization and understand what their strengths were, what their skill sets were. And looking at the big picture of the modern hockey operation, it's a very complex thing compared to where it was 10 or 15 years ago.
So in order to be effective, I think you need the proper leadership in a lot of new areas, which maybe weren't highlighted or accentuated in the previous five or six years. But with the way the game is going and the complexity of being a successful front office, I think there's a lot of work to be done. You're right.
We had a couple assistant GMs and they do a great job, Keith Gretzky and Bill Scott. But there's a lot of work that, a lot of additional work that I think has to be done. So we decided to take our time to try to determine how we should go with it as well as who are the right people for these roles. This is something that's been in the works for close to two years now.
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Chapter 3: Who are the newly promoted assistant general managers in the Oilers organization?
Yeah, Michael's done a tremendous job and I'm so excited to work even more with him. You know, he's done a lot of impressive things and I didn't know him when I got here and boy, we're lucky to have him, I can tell you that. I've had a chance to work with different people in the past and, you know, that's been the analytics part of the organization, something I tickled. a big interest in.
I'm really passionate about that. I've got a background in that myself. I think what Michael's vision for how we're going to take this to the next level is impressive. He's just got a great perspective. Anytime I ask him a question, He takes time. He gives me a thoughtful answer. He's got data to back up his response. He also brings a lot of ideas to me.
I always tell him there's no dumb ideas, even some off-the-wall things. He is not hesitant to bring them forward. I think that's the culture we're trying to bring here. It's been impressive to see and to get to know him. His team has been outstanding.
They've made huge strides in the last 12 to 15 months with the system that they've developed and that they've been enhancing and rolled out to all of our personnel. It's such a huge tool. We use it so many times every single day. And we're continually, you know, creating new modules to it and new features. And that's all through Michael's leadership.
So I couldn't be more excited about where we are and where we're headed.
Did those tools play a factor in you guys targeting Vasily Pakolzin?
Yeah, they play a factor in everything we do. So all the decisions that we make are grounded in some type of a project that started. Usually it can spin off into different things, but I think the foundation of everything we try to do is to look at The analytics alone are not the answer, but scouting alone isn't the answer either.
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Chapter 4: What is Kurt Hill's role as Assistant GM of Player Procurement?
You've got to blend them together. The more you can do that effectively, the more good decisions you're going to make. Like I said, we've got an excellent group here. Innovation is a word I've used a lot, but I really think that's important because If you just look at where you are and you try to stay there, you're going to get passed by.
There's a lot of bright people in the game of hockey throughout the NHL, and they're looking for what's next. So we are as well, and I think that's the only way you can do it.
All right, Stan, I want to switch focus here. Evan Bouchard got absolutely crushed today with a hit by Ryan Lindgren at the World Hockey Championship. For me, it was predatorial. He was out before he hit the ice, obviously unlikely to return in the tournament. Have you received any update at this time from Hockey Canada?
Yeah, they've been great, actually. Kyle Dubas has been very proactive, giving me as soon as the play happened, he had
he texted me um and i've been texting with evan as well so we're in touch with him uh obviously you know he's injured but uh he's doing he's doing well like in in terms of uh you know like thankfully it's not worse than it was but clearly it was a terrible hit disappointing to see that happen um but um you know thankfully it's it's may and uh you know a long time till training camp so i think
You know, everyone in Edmonton knows how great Boosh is. I think maybe some other teams are seeing how effective he is playing great hockey for Canada over there. So it's unfortunate that that he's not going to be playing the remainder there, but, um, but I think, I think he's going to be okay.
And I got to ask you, uh, I mean, you, you make these management changes, uh, about a week and a half ago, we were, we were doing the, you know, the Chris Nott or a week ago, I guess the, the Chris Nott block, uh, situation where he and, uh, Mark Stewart were relieved of their duties. I'm going to, was it a week ago or maybe it was two weeks ago now. Uh, anyhow, I digress. Um, uh,
Where are you at on the coaching search? Could you tell me what you've got to kill me, or is it the Cadbury secret, or do you continue to work away at this?
Yeah, we're going to do a process. We've got nothing to announce right now, and I don't think it's fair to the people we've been speaking to to be giving details on that. But we're... taking our time, making sure that we don't rush into anything. And, you know, it'll happen when it happens. So I don't have an answer on that.
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