[liamenator]

It remains baffling to me that they pulled Maloney from his closet office, where by his own admission he had been withering away waiting for the phone to ring, and handed him POHO.

Most of us hoped that he was just going to face of cleaning things up -- firing Sutter, hiring Conroy -- and then be put back out to pasture. But he's still hanging around. It's been clear for a while he does not have the chops for this role, and now they have an out. They should fire him before Christmas.

They probably won't do it, but as browna mentioned Murray has surely contemplated if not outright explored Shanahan's interest in the job that he almost took in 2013. I'm not sure it's going to appeal to him but maybe he's keen to get back in the game. If those conversations have been fruitful then it would make sense to wait on Conroy's contract. You let the new POHO make the call on the GM role.

The other scenario is that you "transition" Maloney into an advisory role and Conroy takes over as POHO with Pascall (or, God help us, Nonis) promoted to GM.

In either case, a change at POHO would signal to fans that Murray has signed off on granting full autonomy to Hockey Ops to tear this thing down as deep as they need to. They could message it however they want, but the actions would make it clear.

If, on the other hand, it's February and Maloney is still hanging around, Conroy remains unsigned, then we really are in nightmare scenario so many of us fear.