Q&A with Kelly McCrimmon

Kelly McCrimmon isn't unlike any GM in the NHL these days in that he's staring at a heaping bowl of uncertainty right now. He has done his work, built his team and put his organization into position to contend for a Stanley Cup. Now he must wait.
It should be noted, McCrimmon is always quick to point out his current lot in life isn't different than anyone else's. We're all in the midst of a pandemic and we're all wondering what's next.

The NHL could start its season on January 1. Or it could be mid-January. Or early February. It's all an unknown.
Technically this is the off-season although for hockey people the biological clock says different. November is hockey time.
McCrimmon has been busy since his team lost to the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference Final. He re-upped goalie Robin Lehner and added defenseman Alex Pietrangelo in free agency. In order to make those moves, Vegas needed to lose salary in other areas and traded center Paul Stastny and defenseman Nate Schmidt.
Pietrangelo is a top-5 defenseman in the NHL and Lehner is a top-10 goalie. McCrimmon has improved his roster this offseason.
And while it feels like hockey has stopped, McCrimmon's hockey operations staff continues to work.
There will be an amateur draft in 2021 and the massive raft of work which goes into a successful draft is ongoing.
The Henderson Silver Knights are also part of McCrimmon's portfolio and the effort to get them on the ice also moves forward. Starting a franchise from scratch is a massive undertaking.
So, McCrimmon is busy even if his NHL team isn't yet playing.
We caught up with the GM on Thursday morning and here's the bulk of that conversation:
GL: How do you balance the importance of winning now with the importance of building a strong future?
KM: Well, it's a balance. I think the first part of that process is you need to always be mindful of continuing to develop your organization and building organizational depth. I think we've done that. I think you're starting to see players on our team now, we didn't have any rookies on our team in Year 1, that was the nature of expansion. I think you saw this year, with some of the players that played with our team for different periods of time, Hague, Glass, Roy and Whitecloud for example. The American Hockey League, with our team in Vegas now, will continue to be a really important area of development for our prospects. The amateur draft is a lifeline of our team. We've tried to work hard to give our staff an opportunity to find players and at the same time we've acquired a surplus of picks which we've used to improve our team so there's been a bit of a balance there. The second part of it is you need to honestly and objectively assess where your team is at and make your decisions based on that. We feel we've done that, and that brings us to where we are today.
GL: How do you know when to, and how often to, step back and take an honest perspective of your roster?
KM: I've always said as a manager one of the most important things you must do is be objective in relation to your own team. It's easy to fall in to stretches where you overestimate your team, and it's easy to fall into stretches where you underestimate your team because it's an emotional game. That objectivity and the ability to properly evaluate where your team is at and where your team is going is critical because that's the foundation of how your decisions are made. There's qualitative factors that are part of that decision making process and there's quantitative factors that are part of that decision making process. We involve a lot of people, in terms of the breakdown of our team, the coaching staff, pro staff, analytics team and management. We think we have a good handle on where we are and what we need to do.
GL: Prior to draft and free agency, did you go through that deep look at your organizational roster?
KM: It's ongoing. As a manger, you're always at a 35,000-foot level when you're running your organization. Certainly the day-to-day impacts your decisions, but you always have that responsibility to look at it objectively.
GL: Take us through the emotions of a trade?
KM: Trades are a part of the game. Yet, when you are dealing with your own players, you're always in a position where you're worried about their welfare. The nature of the job is you have to make those decisions.
It is never easy, but again decisions like this are part of a manager's responsibility. Players know that, and managers know that, but that does not make it less painful for anyone. Sometimes it is salary cap related, sometimes it is more of a pure hockey trade, and there are occasions as this past season where you are moving futures to improve your team immediately.
GL: What is it like as a contending general manager in the NHL and not knowing when the next season will begin?
KM: The uncertainty has affected everybody, in all walks of life. Certainly, the NHL has been impacted with some of the things that have happened this year with the season pause, with the restart, the bubble, all those things that we did as a league to award the Stanley Cup, and declare a champion. Now all 32 teams are anxiously waiting for what lies ahead optimistic that we will resume play on time and when I say on time I mean in January, that's everyone's hope. You have to find a way to function through the uncertainty because you don't have a choice. So, that goes right back to the 12th of March that we have all dealt with that. Our business, our industry is dictated to us by a calendar. Any given year you have your set of critical dates that line up with the year before, these serve as your guide posts as you go through a season into the off season and unfortunately we don't have that with the certainty that we would like. You have to adapt and right now for NHL teams in my opinion it's very much what you might see in the month of August. That's a time where there is not as much going on and that's what you see in the NHL right now. There are still some free agents that haven't signed, there are still a handful of arbitration cases that have to take place but for the most part it's pretty similar to what you would see in the NHL in late July or August. That's where we are now, I have empathy for the players as well because they have a biological clock of how they go through their offseason, how they train, when they want to ramp up preparation for training camp starting on a certain date but again it's no different than any other aspect of our business. You have to adapt and work your way through it, hope for better times ahead.
GL: Have you had any opportunity to shut down this offseason or are you finding it hard to settle?
KM: Well there have been two breaks. So, from March 15th till we were done in the bubble I felt there was no down time mentally. We were always waiting for what those next steps were in relation to the possibility of there being a regular season still to play or playoffs still to play. Based on that, there was no break, it was right through and you have interviewed me before , we got a lot of work done during that period of time but in terms of that time where you might feel you could step away, personally I didn't feel we had that at all. If you go from March 15th right through free agency is a better window or time frame and that's why it helps me personally and I guess everyone handles things differently. It helps me personally if I put things in relation to where things would be ordinarily. So, as I said this is late July or August in terms of where we are at in our offseason, where we are at in relation to what is hopefully training camp and our season beginning. So that's helpful in terms of the mental part of it.
GL: So, you're on verge of when you would typically take some down time?
KM: Yeah, I think you can mentally step back a bit, that's what I'm saying. Where I never felt that at all through the pause, it was unfinished business, we hadn't finished 2019-20. It still was hanging over you and waiting for what those next steps were. Now we finished the 2019-20 season and we are preparing for 2020-21. That's where the draft comes into play, free agency comes into play, then the time after free agency, the time when the league goes quiet and then hopefully the time when teams begin to ramp up, when training camp begins and you're on to that next season.
GL: How are your scouts doing their jobs right now?
KM: In person when possible. Relying on staff to know their areas extremely well. A lot of video and constant communication. Their work is going to be very challenging this year.