Penguins co-Owner Ron Burkle and co-Owner & Chair Mario Lemieux on Friday said coach Dan Bylsma “absolutely” could keep his job after the team fired GM Ray Shero, according to Gene Collier of the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE. Lemieux: "If he was fired today, there’d be a lot of teams lined up for him. ... A new GM will come in, evaluate the hockey operation, and we’ll go from there" (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 5/17). The AP's Will Graves noted Penguins Assistant GM Jason Botterill will serve as GM "on an interim basis," but Penguins President & CEO David Morehouse called Botterill a "candidate to take over" on a permanent basis. Morehouse said, "It's not a complete rebuild. This is a team that has had a level of success. What we're trying to do now is get from good to great" (AP, 5/16). Burkle said of the state of the franchise, "We start here with a lot of great qualities. We've got a community that gives us a lot of support, the fans, the youth hockey, a lot of different areas that allow us to run to the cap if that's the place we need to be. And we wake up every day with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. So we wake up in a pretty good place. We aren't happy to be in the top quartile. ... That's good enough for some. It isn't where we want to be." Morehouse added, "This is a team that has a lot of assets already. So what we're trying to do is systematically figure out how to get to a higher level. You do that carefully. You do that in a way that allows you to make either major or minor adjustments" (PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 5/17).
NEXT IN LINE: YAHOO SPORTS' Nicholas Cotsonika wrote firing Shero was the "easy part," but hiring a new GM is the "hard part." The Penguins "have a list of candidates and expect it to grow now that the job is open," and one "name to watch" is CAA Sports' Pat Brisson, who represents Crosby. Brisson is "well-respected" around the league but also "makes a lot of money" as an agent. The "question is whether he wants to give that up for a shot at the Cup" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 5/16). The PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE's Collier wrote trying to "make sense of what appears a spectacular half-measure will pretty much qualify as an Olympic sport around here over the next few weeks, but the one big truth in it all is that while ownership clearly sees the need for change after five postseason flameouts in five springs, it is not entirely comfortable with change, especially if change means the subtraction" of Bylsma and Botterill (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 5/17).
