I am not creative

Nor do I claim to be. Today, as I was reading through the Dispatch I found a pretty amusing article about what would happen had MacLean been here for when Murray backed out of The GM Search. In the article Me = Bob Hunter...you can find the entire article here.

Me: How you doin', Doug?

MacLean: What do you mean?

Me: Well, that must have been a blow losing Murray, huh?

MacLean: It's a nonissue.

Me: A nonissue? From everything we heard, he was the guy you wanted to hire.

MacLean: That guy? Why in the world would we have wanted that guy? You guys amaze me. Have you ever checked his record in Chicago?

Me: Well, yeah, but I understand that what happened with the Blackhawks wasn't all his fault.

MacLean: Let met tell you something. You can't print this, but he was no better than fourth or fifth on our list. We just talked to him as a courtesy. I'm telling you, some of those deals he made there. … Honestly, I don't know where you guys get this stuff.

Me: But last week, you yourself said he might be the best man for the job.

MacLean: Listen, we're gonna be fine. Fine. There are a couple of guys out there I didn't tell you about last week; they blow this guy away.

Me: Do you have any names you can give me?

MacLean: I can't talk about it. But the assistant GM in Edmonton, Scott Howson, we've contacted the Oilers people to get permission to talk to him, and I'm telling you, this guy will probably be in the Hockey Hall of Fame someday. And Dallas has a guy, Les Jackson, who would be perfect working with Hitch, and we all know how important that is to a successful franchise.

Me: So he and Hitch get along pretty well.

MacLean: It wouldn't be right for me to comment about that. But honestly, these guys are like brothers.

Me: But is he ready to be GM?

MacLean: Ready? Both of them have been ready. I'll tell you, everybody in the league wants to hire these two; it's hard to believe they haven't been snapped up before this. And here's the thing: They both love Columbus. They've looked at the talent we have here and they're amazed that we haven't made the playoffs by now. They think this is the absolute perfect situation. They can see us winning for years to come.

Me: But I read a report out of Canada that said Murray might have been made a little antsy over the fact that the Jackets still haven't had a winning season in six years.

MacLean: Those newspaper guys in Canada blow things way out of proportion. Let me tell you something: I was talking to commissioner Gary Bettman the other day, and he told me he thought we were on the cusp of a dynasty here. He can't believe how close we are. Believe me, whichever one of these guys we hire … well, you saw what just happened in Anaheim. A few years ago, they were having all kinds of trouble there and now they're Stanley Cup champions.

Me: But I thought that was why Bob Murray was one of the candidates.

Doug: OK, bud, need anything else?

As far as everything else goes...I don't really know. Scott Howson is supposed to meet with the Jackets owner. Kevin Lowe had this to say about Howson:

"I don't want to pump Scott's tires too much ... I've actually already done that," said Lowe, "but he's more than qualified. He's become very respected in a short period of time in our business. He would be a difficult man to replace, but our position has always been that we don't stand in the way of people looking to move up or on. It's always a complement, too, when anybody from our organization is looked at by another one."