In surprising move, Carolina Hurricanes fire GM Ron Francis

Tuesday night, the Carolina Hurricanes surprised the hockey world when they stripped the general manager title from Ron Francis.

It is not surprising the Carolina decided to make a change to their front office. What is surprising is they did it with only a month left in the season instead of waiting until the offseason. Ron Francis was not technically fired, but instead given a new title. Francis is now “President of Hockey Operations” for the Hurricanes.

Ron Francis was the general manager for the team since 2014. In his three and a half seasons, the Hurricanes did not make the playoffs once. However, Francis has built a solid team from the blue line out. Haydn Fleury is up and coming stars in the league. He was also able to keep and develop players like Jeff Skinner, Justin Faulk and Jaccob Slavin that were drafted by the previous regime. Carolina has had a slow development strategy system recently, making sure the players are ready before putting them into the regular NHL lineup. Francis was also responsible for drafting Sebastian Aho, who is on the verge of becoming a star in Carolina.

For every good draft pick, there is a bad trade or contract to counteract the positives. A great trade was bringing in Teuvo Tervainen from the Chicago Blackhawks in 2016. The Blackhawks had to dump salary and couldn’t pay Teravainen going forward. The Hurricanes swooped in and picked him up by only giving up draft picks.

However, this summer Francis canceled out that good move by trading for and then signing Scott Darling to a long-term contract. Darling was a strong backup for the Blackhawks but never handled a starting role day-to-day. He struggled ever since he got to Carolina, not looking like a starter at all. He is under contract until 2021 with a cap hit of $4.15 million dollars a year. That is a lot of money for a backup goalie.

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New owner Tom Dundon has made it known he wants to change the way this team does business. “Keep improving everything, every day, all the time” is what Dundon said during his press conference. He has already tried different promotions to draw more fans to the arena.

There is a notion that Dundon seems like he will be a very hands-on owner similar to Mark Cuban in the NBA. This would be something unique for the NHL, where most owners are hands off when it comes to day-to-day operations. A fresh face could make big changes and move the league forward.