Seravalli: Blackhawks begin ‘outside the box’ leadership analysis

It’s been a little more than seven weeks since the independent investigator’s report rocked the Chicago Blackhawks to the core, with news that front office members covered up the 2010 sexual assault of prospect Kyle Beach at the hands of then-video coach Brad Aldrich.

That report resulted in the departure of President of Hockey Operations and GM Stan Bowman – and has provided Blackhawks ownership with time for soul searching.

The Blackhawks are slowly beginning to pick up the pieces, but Chicago’s front office puzzle may not be put back together in the same way.

In fact, it wouldn’t be a surprise for the Blackhawks develop a front office structure that hockey has never seen before.

What is about to unfold in Chicago is a two-fold process.

Sources tell Daily Faceoff the Blackhawks have hired well-known pro sports consultant Mike Forde from Sportsology to a year-long contract to assess and analyze the team’s current hockey operations structure and how it stacks up compared to the best-in-class practices from organizations across other sports.

Forde has been dubbed the NBA’s “GM kingmaker” and has been involved in numerous high-profile candidate searches. Forde is a former Premier League executive with Chelsea. While he has worked with the parent companies of other NHL clubs, including the Devils and Capitals. This deep dive on the Blackhawks is expected to be Forde’s first into the NHL.

The second part of the process is also already underway, which involves the Blackhawks doing their own due diligence with other major professional sports franchises. Led by CEO Danny Wirtz and President of Business Operations Jaime Faulkner, the Blackhawks have been in conversation with C-Suite executives from other franchises to pick their brain on front office structure, composition and other important ingredients.

Sources say the Blackhawks’ brain trust recently met with Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and former Seattle Mariners assistant GM Joe Bohringer to gather thoughts on what may turn out to be an ‘outside the box’ hiring process for hockey. (Hoyer and anyone else the Blackhawks have met with are not candidates for future positions. The Blackhawks have a direct line to the Cubs: Faulkner’s husband, Colin Faulkner, is the Cubs’ chief commercial officer.) Those conversations are expected to continue with others from various leagues.

Once the Blackhawks have received the appropriate audit guidance from Forde and the appropriate intelligence from the pro sports community, they plan to then map out a model for hockey operations and exactly what is needed.

Only then are the Blackhawks expected to begin searching for candidates to fill those roles – and there is no guarantee that whomever Chicago hires will fit neatly into a box with his or her hockey background.

What happened to Kyle Beach is awful and inexcusable. There is no getting around that. The Blackhawks organization’s reputation has suffered extensive and perhaps irreparable damage.

However, sources say Wirtz and Faulkner have viewed this moment in time as an opportunity to question past practices, consider new alternatives and dream big to better position the team for the future. It will take something big to reinvent what was considered one of the NHL’s gold standard franchises – with three Stanley Cups captured in a five-year period amid unprecedented popularity in the United States’ third-largest market.

Until then, the Blackhawks seem to be quite comfortable with interim GM Kyle Davidson steering the ship, who will almost certainly get a long look to continue in that role whenever the search process does get underway in 2022.