Tom Fitzgerald, Rob Blake, and the race for 2022-2023 GM of the Year

On Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, one viewer asked if oft-criticized Oilers’ GM Ken Holland will be considered a candidate for the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award. The Oilers may be on a 10-game point streak, but hosts Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna mentioned executives that could jump Holland in line.

Frank Seravalli: Alright Mike, it’s time for our Daily Faceoff inbox question of the day. Chris asks: “Could Oilers’ GM Ken Holland be up for GM of the Year?” Chris thinks he could at least be a candidate. What say you, Mike?

Mike McKenna: I’d be surprised. I do like the Ekholm trade at the deadline, but how many other eye-catching moves were made to make the Edmonton Oilers better during the season? I think he’d kind of be a longshot; there’s other GMs I feel had to do a lot more with a lot less this year. What say you?

Frank Seravalli: I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets votes or consideration, but I would put a few guys ahead of him.

I would put Tom Fitzgerald of the New Jersey Devils. The John Merino trade was big, they reshaped their goaltending with Vitek Vanacek, and then there was the big Timo Meier trade at the deadline. 

The Rangers have obviously done big things with Chris Drury adding two pretty significant pieces in Tarasenko and Patrick Kane.

I also think of the Minnesota Wild and their GM Bill Guerin. They didn’t make a bunch of eye-popping moves but the Filip Gustavsson one was a stroke of genius, especially because they shaved a million bucks off of their salary cap by flipping Cam Talbot. After the boldness of the Parise and Suter buyouts, this team is this competitive with $12.5 million in dead cap space. It’s hard to win in an $82.5 million league with a $70 million ceiling.

I probably also need to give a little love to Rob Blake of the LA Kings. When you think about their summer, how many people were really talking about Kevin Fiala coming in and leading the Kings in scoring this season? We just talked about the Korpisalo and Gavrikov trade and how that’s paid huge dividends for the Kings in net. It was unpopular at the time to trade away franchise icon Jonathan Quick, but it certainly seems to be the best move for the Kings.

Thanks to Chris for our #AskDFO question of the day.

You can watch the entire episode here…