The Philadelphia Flyers are hiring former player Keith Jones as president of hockey operations, according to multiple reports Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know:
The team will reportedly also remove the interim tag from general manager Daniel Briere, elevating him to the permanent role.
Jones and Briere replace former president and GM Chuck Fletcher, who was fired in March.
Jones, 54, played three seasons for the Flyers at the end of his nearly decade-long NHL career. He has worked as an NHL broadcaster since 2005.
The Athletic’s instant analysis:
Why is Philadelphia going with Jones?
Jones is a popular figure in Philadelphia. For years, he’s served as a regular color commentator on local Flyers broadcasts. He was a part of a local sports radio morning show. And diehard fans still remembered him as a gritty role player on the early 2000s Flyers clubs.
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Now, he’ll be rejoining the organization, tasked with returning it to prominence as the team’s president of hockey operations.
With the Flyers envisioning the president of hockey operations role as more of a communication and public-facing one rather than overseeing all hockey-related decisions, Jones makes sense as a seasoned media professional fully capable of intelligently articulating a given message to the public. Jones doesn’t come with any NHL front office experience, so with the hire, the Flyers are making it clear that they fully trust Briere to run the team-building operation as full-time GM. Jones will surely have input as an advisor, but my guess is that the Flyers ultimately shied away from hiring a PoHO who would want direct, unquestioned power over hockey decisions. Jones will instead focus on facilitating communication between the hockey operations and business sides of the organization, and helping to sell Briere and the Flyers’ vision of the future to the public. — O’Connor
Backstory
The Flyers went 31-38-13 this season, missing the playoffs for the third straight year. Philadelphia amassed a 141-145-43 record under Fletcher, the ninth GM in franchise history.
Jones’ NHL career ran from 1992-2001. He played in 491 games, racking up 258 points (117 goals, 141 assists). Jones played five seasons with the Washington Capitals then three with the Colorado Avalanche before closing his playing years out in Philadelphia.
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(Photo: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)