Why the NHL Made the Wrong Move by Hiring Chris Pronger

The NHL has yet to make an official announcement, but the Department of Player Safety appears to have hired Chris Pronger, a Philadelphia Flyers player currently on long-term injured reserve because of a concussion.

From TSN's Bob McKenzie:

Of course, the 39-year-old Pronger (who turns 40 on Friday) is only a Flyer player in name, as he is offering the team salary-cap relief by staying on long-term injured reserve and not retiring. Because of this arrangement, the team is still paying his salary, which is $4 million for this upcoming season.

If that's not a conflict of interest, I don't know what it is.

The reason why this is a conflict of interest is because the NHL clearly thinks this is a conflict of interest, as he will recuse himself from decisions on Flyers, according to Nick Cotsonika of Yahoo Sports.

If the league is aware that it shouldn't have a paid Flyers employee offering ideas on what punishment, if any, should be administered to another Flyers employee, it is aware of the potential for a conflict of interest and is doing something to remedy the situation.

The best way to cut off the idea of impartiality would have been Stephane Quintal, the NHL's senior vice president of player safety, walking to a podium to announce Pronger's hiring and saying, "Look, you plebes, we know he is on the Flyers payroll, and we don't care because we believe in his ability to remain impartial. He'll be involved in all discussions about discipline, even the ones that will inevitably involve Zac Rinaldo."

Jonathan Kozub/Getty Images

But the league clearly believes there's a reason to ask Pronger to leave the room the next time Rinaldo slew foots a guy.

If that would be a conflict in its eyes, why isn't it a conflict when a suspension could involve one of the other seven teams in the Metropolitan Division? Or what if it involves a team the Flyers have coming up on their schedule? What if Nathan MacKinnon has discipline coming his way because he attacked a goaltender with his skate and the Avalanche have the Flyers four games from that date?

It can go even further. Maybe the Flyers are chasing the Blue Jackets for the final wild-card spot in the East and Ryan Johansen annihilates someone from behind. The Flyers don't face Columbus the rest of the way, but a Jackets team sans its best player for the final five games of the season sure would benefit the team that is dropping a direct deposit into Pronger's account every two weeks.

The door opened for questioning the objectivity of Pronger when the league opened the door by excluding him from Flyers decisions, so it only makes sense to consider all the other situations where that conflict could be an issue.

Perhaps you want to point to former head of player safety Brendan Shanahan, who played for five different teams in his career, as someone who had the air of favoritism floating over him. Would he go easy on his former clubs?

That's an issue for any ex-player the league hires, but in Shanahan's case, he was already working for the league for 18 months before moving to player safety and replacing Colin Campbell, who resigned after it was revealed he was complaining about calls against his son, Gregory.

You'd think after that embarrassment the NHL would go out of its way to avoid any semblance of potential impropriety, but you'd think wrong.

What makes the decision to hire Pronger confounding is the NHL's Department of Player Safety cares deeply about optics, about enhancing the perception that it is objective on all matters of discipline, and there's no reason to believe that's not true. At least, there wasn't before this hire.

Having a paid employee, even if he hasn't laced skates in three years, on what is supposed to be an independent body free from influence by teams, is such an out-of-character move.

It's also strange when you consider there are plenty of other former players who could be suited for the job. What is the fetish with having a big-name player from the 1990s on the staff? Shanahan, Brian Leetch, Rob Blake. If being famous in the 1990s is a job requirement, why not hire Lisa Kudrow or Kevin Costner, two people that aren't being paid $4 million this year by the Flyers?

The shame of it all is Pronger is a very bright guy. Any talk about him being wrong for the job because he was a dirty, elbow-throwing, stick-wielding maniac (all his career suspensions are here) who had no respect for any of the players around him is silly. That's true but also silly. There's something to be said for having someone like that, especially one who had his career ended by concussions, on the side of the law.

Look how well that type of thing worked for Tom Hanks and the FBI when they arrested check forger Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can, or when that handsome thief on the USA show White Collar helped catch other thieves or how James Spader and his hat have helped law enforcement catch other criminals with the cunning use of hats.

Admittedly, I haven't watched all of those shows, but the point remains that having Pronger working for player safety is a smart idea.

It's also one that breaks a rule in the NHL's CBA that doesn't have a lot of room for interpretation.

I mean, that's pretty simple. Pronger is being paid by the team. Now he's being paid by the league. Pretty open and shut. For the actual lawyerly wording, here's the official CBA, and the part you want to read is everything under Article 26 up until 26.4.

Can the NHL duck this rule by not paying Pronger? That doesn't exactly help the idea that he wouldn't be objective in Flyers matters, as they are the only people paying him in this situation, but maybe it circumvents the idea of circumventing the CBA.

Why wouldn't Pronger just retire and place an end to this?

Because the Flyers are benefiting by keeping Pronger, who is not officially retired, on long-term injured reserve. Pronger hasn't played a game since Nov. 19, 2011, because of concussion problems. As a player on an over-35 contract, if Pronger retired, the team would be stuck with $5 million in dead cap space through 2016-17.

The whole thing is unseemly and indicative of a league that doesn't take its own rules very seriously and will bend them when it sees fit. See: The league punishing the Devils for circumventing the salary cap with the Ilya Kovalchuk contract, which isn't all that different from Pronger's deal with the Flyers, but not really caring if the Blue Jackets promised Vinny Prospal a front-office job after he retired from the team.

Commissioner Gary Bettman offered a reason—an ethical one, not a legal one—for why it'd be OK for the league to hire an already-employed Pronger.

"

The fact of the matter is if in fact we go in that route I'm not sure that presents any problem at all that we can deal with. He's done playing, and he gets paid no matter what from the Flyers. He doesn't owe them anything.

"

The "Pffft, He Doesn't Owe Them Anything" section of the CBA doesn't seem to exist. What if Pronger feels he owes them something? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but maybe he does since player safety won't let him handle anything involving the Flyers.

To play devil's advocate, what if the league had hired former Toronto Maple Leafs assistant general manager Claude Loiselle, who was fired by the club this summer and still receives checks from the team, to take the job Quintal has now? Would that open the door to question player-safety decisions? Would he call for lenience against Toronto? Would he want harsher punishments?

Heck, would he be allowed in the room for anything Leafs-related, considering Shanahan is now president of the Leafs and asked Loiselle to clean out his desk?

Well, yeah, that wouldn't have been ideal, either.

It's certainly not easy to find the right people to work for player safety, and there's no denying Pronger has the bona fides to be a helpful presence there.

The fact of the matter is Pronger is still on the Flyers' payroll, still on the roster and has been scouting for the team in his free time. He is a member of the Flyers organization, and he will influence the fates of other teams and, indirectly, the fate of the team that signs his checks.

This was an avoidable problem that player safety identified, yet decided to leave its feet to hit as hard as it could, punishment be damned.

All statistics via NHL.com.

Dave Lozo covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @DaveLozo.