Who's pulling the strings?

I sometimes wonder what the *insert favorite obscenity here* is going on in the front office in Chicago. I've complained non-stop about the fact that we over-signed Brian Campbell and picked up extraneous goaltending depth with Christobal Huet. But I think in a lot of ways Dale Tallon has done a good job, assuming we declare a "mulligan" on his first year which would have been the first year after the lockout. This summer though has boggled my mind endlessly, which has led me to question who's really calling the shots.



We all know the sports world is a dog eat dog world and an old boys playground. Since John McDonough became President of Operations, the front office choices have somewhat boggled my mind. We all know that Dale and Denis Savard aren't "John's Guys". To say he didn't select them. He's just stuck with them for right now. In back to back years Mr. McDonough has become the President of Operations for two Chicago sports teams. The year before he did the same job for the Chicago Cubs. You can almost draw a straight line and follow the same system of player movements between the two franchises as he took over the reigns. First step is to make a giant hoopla about how great the fans are and how giant the team is. Done and done. Step two sign ridiculously huge contract with biggest name on free agent market. Done and Done. Step three fire manager and bring in new guy. Done with the Cubs. Not done with the Blackhawks yet.



John got offf his script a bit by bringing in Scotty Bowman. It was a shock and surprise to hear that Scotty was coming to Chicago's front office. I was actually excited about a move that would bring a proven winner to Chicago as would any true fan. However I find it hard to believe that Scotty Bowman is going to be part of any franchise that isn't going to give him alot of say in how things run or what things are done. The guy knows what he's doing. I can't imagine he's sitting in his office not saying a word about anything.

So what I really want to know is: "Who's pulling the strings?". Is it the GM (Dale Tallon), The President of hockey operations (John McDonough), or the special advisor (Scotty Bowman)? Because it seems like there are almost too many hands in the soup kettle.