The Carolina Hurricanes announced that Ron Francis has been named the president of hockey operations. He was previously the general manager of the team. New owner Tom Dundon indicated that he was looking for a change in the day-to-day hockey personnel decision making.
[NEWS] Francis Named President of Hockey Operations
The team will conduct a search for new general manager.
📰: https://t.co/dqPEcdqzIT #Canes
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) March 8, 2018
Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon: "Since I took control of the team, I've had a good chance to be around and assess the operations. There are a lot of good people working in the organization, but I feel that a change in direction is needed when it comes to hockey personnel decisions."
— David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) March 8, 2018
Ron Francis Named President Of Hockey Operations
The Carolina Hurricanes have announced that Ron Francis has been named the team’s president of hockey operations. This season, the team has a recorded of 29-27-11 record and sit in sixth place in the metropolitan division. The team was 130-130-53 in the three-plus seasons while Francis was the general manager. The Hurricanes failed to make the playoffs in the first three years when Francis took over and are unlikely to make the playoffs this year.
In the three years as general manager, he has made some moves that haven’t panned out. This past off-season, Francis signed goaltender Scott Darling to a four-year, $16.6 million contract which includes a modified no-trade clause. The plan was for Scott Darling to be the number goalie and have Cam Ward back him up. Darling is 10-16-7 with a 3.09 goals against average and a sub .900 save percentage. He also signed forward Victor Rask to a six-year, $24 million contract. Rask has been one of the teams most disappointing players this year. He has just 12 goals and 28 points in 65 games this season.
What This Means for the Team’s Future
The Hurricanes will now have to go out and find another general manager to replace Francis. It was reported that the new general manager will be reporting directly to Dundon, not Francis.
Dundon who became the Hurricanes majority owner on January 12, 2017, said that his plan was to keep the team in Raliegh for the foreseeable future. The team will look to build their team around forwards Teuvo Teravainen and Sebastian Aho who have been the top two goal scorers this year. They also have a young and promising defence corps that includes Jaccob Slavin, Noah Hanifin, Justin Faulk, and Brett Pesce.
