Leadership Carosel: Penguins Promote Rierden; Lose Assistant GM Fletcher

While off-the-ice news has taken secondary stage this week, what with the Penguins being in the middle of the Eastern Conference Finals and all, there were 2 important developments on the coaching front in the Pittsburgh organization this week.

First, the Penguins made Todd Rierden their permanent head coach of the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. Rierden, a first-year assistant under then Baby Penguins' head coach Dan Bylsma most of the year, was made interim head coach when Bylsma hopped to the big club in February.

After leading the team to a 14-9-4 record in the regular season and the second round of the playoffs, where the Baby Pens' fell in 7 games to the Hershey Bears, Rierden was rewarded with a multi-year contract to be the permanent head coach of the club.

Meanwhile, the news was made formal yesterday that the Minnesota Wild have signed Pens' Assistant GM Chuck Fletcher to a 5-year contract as their General Manager, replacing former Wild GM Doug Riesbrough.

Fletcher went through multiple interviews with the Wild and was long said to be one of the favorites for the Minnesota GM position.

Fletcher, who managed the Baby Penguins' farm team, negotiated contracts, and otherwise assisted GM Ray Shero, has 16 years of experience in those various capacities, not only with Pittsburgh, of course, but also with Anaheim and Florida. He was highly regarded around the league as an up-and-coming GM and was a key part of the success the Penguins' organization has had the last several years under Shero's watch. He will be missed, but it is a testament to Shero's ability to bring good talent on board.

It's a bit early to get a good read on who Shero may hire to replace Fletcher, but he may look within the organization at Jason Botterill, who has helped Shero with cap issues and some player development.

Certainly, finding a good replacement for Fletcher won't be easy. But it's almost certain to be an important priority for Shero this off-season.