Bill Guerin is the perfect fit for his role with the Pittsburgh Penguins
Bill Guerin has become one of the newest members of the Pittsburgh Penguins front office staff, being appointed an assistant general manager, along with Tom Fitzgerald.
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General manager Jim Rutherford believes he is the perfect fit for the position.
“It wasn’t long ago since Billy was a player, so he understands what makes these players tick,” Rutherford said. “And he’s going to be my day-to-day guy that really communicates with the players. He’s going to be around the players a lot more in the room to understand if we have an issue at a certain time or if everything is going fine because when there’s issues, I like to get on top of it and deal directly with it myself.”
Guerin simply said that the change in role has been a whirlwind. Yes, he will have an incredible amount of interaction with the players, however his exact roles within the organization have yet to be stated.
Guerin is very familiar with being a dressing room presence. When he first came to the Penguins, he had one Stanley Cup under his belt, three Olympic appearances, 403 goals and 799 points in 1,168 career NHL games over 17 seasons.
Defenseman Brooks Orpik believes he is the perfect fit to be a player liaison, as he has the type of personality that everyone enjoys.
“Everyone seems to gravitate toward him,” Orpik said. “He just garners that respect right away, but more importantly, he’s a really, really good human being and that’s what everyone respects most about him.”
Guerin himself is excited for the next step in his career.
I’m looking forward to everything,” Guerin said. “I’m still learning. I’ve worked very closely with Jason Botterill and very closely with Tommy Fitzgerald and learned a lot from them over the last couple years and will continue to do so. We’re going to work together to get back to our winning ways.”