Working upward from consultant (2014) to analyst (2015-17), to manager of analytics (2017-18), to vice president of hockey management and strategy (2018-2020), and then serving as an assistant general manager (2020-2024) before being named the team's interim general manager on May 24, Canes owner Tom Dundon said that Tulsky is "ready for the opportunity" in the team's press release this morning.
“I’ve grown a ton. I came in with some soft skills that came from other industries, but zero working knowledge of a hockey team," the new GM reflected. "Over the 10 years, I’ve been really fortunate to have some great mentors and some coworkers who have helped me a lot and I’ve learned a lot about how a hockey team runs and what I need to do to help it be successful.”
Now the head man, how does Tulsky want this hockey team to run? And how does that differ from Don Waddell's tenure at the position?
“I think our team is going to continue to run very similarly to how it has. I don’t think our organizational philosophy is changing," he answered. "I will have some tweaks to some of our processes and some of the ways we go about executing on that vision, but I think our vision is staying pretty consistent.”
Preaching the value of input from Assistant General Manager Darren Yorke, who will continue in his current role, Rod Brind'Amour, and the rest of the hockey operations staff, Tulsky believes in having an environment in which everyone contributes, and more importantly, one where everyone has the information needed to provide a valuable contribution.
“There’s a lot of components to the job of general manager, but one of them is when it comes time to make a decision, making sure we have all of the information we can, all of the viewpoints we can, and synthesizing that and integrating it into a decision that the whole group is comfortable with. One that everyone feels comfortable signing off on. That’s a big part of the role of a leader,” he shared of his outlook.
