Daniel Cleary

The Oilers beat the Canadians 3-1 at Skyreach Center.

Dan Cleary, Ryan Smith had the other goals while Tommy Sello made 35 saves for the win.

If you missed any of today's show, make sure to download and subscribe to the Oilers Now podcast.

It's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere you get your streaming interviews and audio.

What a run.

Well, you look at some of the Detroit management, what they have Dan Cleary, they have Sean Horkoff, like they have a few former Oilers who are part of that Detroit organization.

Dan Cleary is one of those Oilers that they let get away.

Yeah.

Wasn't here long enough and they should have kept him.

The only thing, two things I never accomplished where I never played in the Stanley Cup, and I would never hit my penalty minute goal meaning I would exceed that consistently those are the only two things but I was blessed like you said came in with Phoenix and I was dialed and ready to go play they switched management right so again it's time I'm a huge believer in timing on things that happened it just wasn't my time.

So played in the minors, got called up to Phoenix, made a huge splash, you know, played on the third line, played against the best players in the, in the league, always against Forsberg and Sackick, played against Stevie Y, Shanahan, you know, so each of the teams I'd play, myself, Mike Comrie and Danny Cleary would play against those top lines.

So that was probably, and Gretzky was part of the managing group.

So I got to skate with Gretzky.

Jamie's a good friend of mine from Harbor Grace.

Jamie Korab, I met with Danny Cleary.

They're from the same spot about an hour outside of town.

Yeah, Brad, I've known him.

Obviously the trickle-down effect from former GM of the Griffins, Shawn Horcoff, being bumped up into the big chair, however temporary or interim basis that may be, to the frustration of many of us up in the NHL level.

But, um, that means that Dan Cleary is now the general manager of the Griffins.

Obviously it's far too early.

There hasn't been enough really to go off of when it comes to evaluating his role as interim general manager.

Um, but we're talking about having the level of continuity from year over year, Dan Watson being the critical figure in that, uh, coaching room, and has been for some time.

What was the relationship like between Dan Watson and Shawn Horcoff, to your knowledge? And in the couple of opportunities that you've had to speak with Dan Cleary, how do you foresee that unfolding?

So our conversations with Dan with, uh, Shawn Horcoff, is that they were, they were on the same page.

They were, a great working relationship.

Um, Shawn Horcoff moving up to the Detroit Red Wings for interim GM.

Dan Cleary moves to GM of the Grand Rapids Griffins, so it's cool to see a Detroit legend come in and be the GM.

We can see what he can do here, so that's awesome.

Yeah, and it's nice to have Dan Cleary, a guy that's been very much so part of the Griffins system the last couple of years, part of the drafting squad, been hands-on with Chris Draper and all of them throughout this whole prospect-building time.

So good to keep one of those guys around as the Griffins GM.

I'll be excited to see what he can do.

And speaking of that management team, the hockey operations team, we have not yet talked about a couple of the change-ups that have happened up in the front office.

We didn't speak last time about Dan Cleary becoming the Griffins general manager.

Uh, he's been in the role of player development director for the past several seasons.

This is another Ken Holland hire.

I really don't.

They need a new development director now that Dan Clear is going to be the AGM and Grand Rapids GM.

Who is that person going to be? Is Dan Cleary going to be a good AGM for Grand Rapids? I don't know.

I can't tell you.

I mean, it's interesting, though, because obviously that's a report, so nothing's changed on their website.

But Danny Cleary being an assistant GM, his title has not changed on the Wings website, but they do have Horkoff listed as interim GM and Yzerman as senior advisor.

So it's, uh, don't really know what's going on over there.

So yeah, I guess it's good now that maybe they're trying to put a little bit more effort into pro scouting, but it's the opposite of what they currently need, like right now, in the now.