A look at Blackhawks GM candidates and their odds for landing the gig

When Stan Bowman stepped down Oct. 26 as the Blackhawks' president of hockey operations and general manager, the team handed the reins to a former intern on an interim basis.

Almost four months later - with the Hawks in the midst of interviewing to fill the GM position - there are some who believe 33-year-old Kyle Davidson will emerge the winner.

The five other candidates who have interviewed with Danny Wirtz and Jamie Faulkner bring a variety of skills and levels of experience, but none seem to stand out.

Let's handicap their odds.

Scott Mellanby

A native of Montreal, the 55-year-old Mellanby enjoyed a 20-year NHL career, playing for Florida, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Edmonton and Atlanta (now Winnipeg). He racked up 376 goals and 476 assists in 1,431 games and appeared in 136 postseason contests.

Mellanby was an assistant GM for Montreal for seven years. He resigned in November 2021 after being told he would not succeed Marc Bergevin as GM. The duo helped the Canadiens qualify for the postseason four times, including last year when they lost to Tampa Bay in the Stanley Cup Final.

It was quite a Cinderella run for Montreal, which was 24-21-11 in the regular season. This year, the Canadiens are an abysmal 8-33-7 with the league's worst goal differential at minus-85.

Mellanby, who has now interviewed for at least five GM openings, was in the running for the Florida Panthers job in the summer of 2020.

Bottom line: Deep resume and impressive playing career means he should be in mix.

Peter Chiarelli

If experience was the No. 1 factor, the Hawks would simply hand the job to Peter Chiarelli. Not only is the 57-year-old the current vice president of hockey operations in St. Louis, but he was also the GM for Boston (2006-15) and Edmonton (2015-19).

Chiarelli gets a lot of heat - we're talking nuclear level here - for the slew of bad moves he made with the Oilers. Among the worst:

• In June 2016, he shipped Taylor Hall (the 2018 MVP) to New Jersey for Adam Larsson.

• In 2015, he acquired D-man Griffin Reinhart from the Islanders for first- and second-round picks. Reinhart played just 29 games for Edmonton, while the Isles used the first-round pick to take Matthew Barzal (87 goals in 328 games).

• He traded sparkplug forward Drake Caggiula to the Hawks for Brandon Manning.

On the flip side, the Bruins won the 2011 Stanley Cup and reached the 2013 Cup Final under Chiarelli's watch. Phil Kessel, Tyler Seguin, Brad Marchand, Milan Lucic and David Pastrnak are just a few of the impressive players drafted by Chiarelli.

Like Bowman, Chiarelli had a tough time managing the salary cap and made some atrocious trades that may have cost the Bruins another title or two.

Bottom line: No GM is perfect, but Chiarelli's list of bad decisions outweigh the good.

Mathieu Darche

Darche carved out a 12-year pro career, playing most of his games for Montreal and Tampa Bay. Darche has been the Lightning's director of hockey operations since 2019. The 45-year-old Quebec native has seen firsthand how a team keeps its best players while adding to an already impressive roster. The Lightning are the two-time defending Cup champs and are 31-11-6 this season.

Darche has a business background that includes a commerce degree in marketing and international business from McGill University.

Bottom line: Darche should be a top contender if he impressed in the interview.

Eric Tulsky

In his eighth season with Carolina and second as assistant GM, Tulsky specializes in analytics. A Philadelphia native, Tulsky has undergraduate degrees in chemistry and physics from Harvard (1997) and a Ph.D. in chemistry from UC-Berkeley (2002).

The Hurricanes have become one of the best teams in the league the last few years. If Tulsky's analyses are a big reason why, perhaps he could be a big part of an Oakland A's/Moneyball-type turnaround in Chicago.

Bottom line: A dark horse candidate, Tulsky has strong support among some fans.

Jeff Greenberg

Greenberg is the assistant GM for the Cubs, which makes this a somewhat surprising choice, but the Hawks talked about wanting to create a unique hockey operations department.

So what would a baseball guy bring to the hockey world? Well, things certainly worked well (on the ice anyway) when Rocky Wirtz hired John McDonough in 2007. This is a different situation, and maybe Greenberg's outside-the-box perspective is what the Hawks are looking for.

Bottom line: This seems like a stretch.

Kyle Davidson

Do all roads lead back to Kyle Davidson, the 33-year-old who has been in the organization for over a decade? They just might.

Not only has Davidson seen how a championship roster is put together, he also witnessed how quickly it can fall apart thanks to a litany of bad moves and horrendous signings by Bowman.

Davidson's knowledge of the roster and inner workings of the Hawks could be a big asset, but it's also worth wondering if he's too close to the situation. Is he willing to make the tough decisions, like possibly trading Patrick Kane and/or Jonathan Toews? Or would a fresh set of eyes be more beneficial?

A composed and steady Davidson impressed Nov. 6 when he explained why he fired Jeremy Colliton and promoted Derek King to interim head coach. Perhaps this is another Theo Epstein in the making, an up-and-comer who can reshape a roster in his image and restore the Hawks to glory.

Bottom line: With question marks surrounding the other candidates, Davidson might be the front-runner.