On the Sheet: Dennis King

Jeff Marek (0:02)

We are about to bring on a hockey Twitter legend. We are about to bring on a Stanley Cup Champion Scout, formerly of the Carolina Hurricanes. He's kind of like, there's a number of people, players, and I was just jotting down and trying to figure out which ones would come to mind. Jaroslav Puzar played 186 games in the NHL, four seasons, and he won three Stanley Cups. Uri Hirdina played five seasons and won three Stanley Cups, one with Calgary and two with Pittsburgh. So as far as making your entry into the pool, winning the ultimate prize, and then getting out, that is the story so far for hockey, Twitter, Legend, and Stanley Cup Champion Scout, Dennis King, who makes his first appearance here on The Sheet. Dennis, first of all, thanks so much for being aboard. And second, congratulations on winning the Stanley Cup. What does it mean to be a Stanley Cup Champion the first time you were in? Do you have Jaroslav Puzar or Yuri Hordina type vibes about yourself right now?

This hockey stuff is easy.

Dennis King (1:08)

Well, I mean, I guess if you have, if you end up in the right organization, right off the bat, it's kind of easy. But, you know, I mean, there's not much I can, you know, I was in the spot with a team where they kind of, they were close and it's not like I was the extra element or anything.

Jeff Marek (1:33)

You were the final piece of the puzzle, Dennis, clearly.

Dennis King (1:36)

Yeah, for sure.

Jeff Marek (1:40)

Hang on, get your camera, there we go. There we go, we got you. The enemy of technology, Dennis King, there we go.

All right, we're locked in. First of all, Carolina Hurricanes specifically, and I'll think of someone, it's funny, I was mentioning Ellen Etchingham the other day here on the show. Carolina under Eric Tulski does things a little bit differently. I don't think that Ellen herself ever thought that she would end up scouting for an NHL team, but now she's almost Stanley Cup champion scout as well. How did you get the gig originally? Like how did this all come to be?

Dennis King (2:13)

I guess I was friends with Tulski for a very long time. He blogged when I was kind of blogging too. So him and I had stayed in touch and occasionally whenever he would, as he got promoted and if Carolina would make a move, he might reach out to me and say, what do you think of this player? What are we getting in this player? Especially in situations when they made a move with the Oilers, because obviously I've been an Oilers fan forever, and so I know that team pretty well. So then Eric and I just would talk about random things with just with players, the league and about a year before I was hired, he kind of reached out and said, I'm thinking about hiring another scout, would you be interested if so? And I said, yeah, absolutely. He's getting in touch with me and we'll see how it goes. And I'm a pretty easy come, easy go guy.

If I didn't hear from Eric afterwards, I would have been like, oh, okay. And what I did, and then I did a couple of months interview process and hard last July, jumped into it. They were great. I mean, they did a great job of nurturing me, just giving me a lot of resources and kind of letting me go.

And, you know, I would have some ideas and like, okay, this has some merit. This doesn't have some merit. And we just kind of went from there. And I mean, as I said, I'm just in the right place at the right time. And this camera stuff is awful. Jeff, hold on.

Jeff Marek (3:48)

That's all right. No problem.

We can send someone over there to hold the camera for you if you need for the next appearance. In the meantime, it's the solo act.

Dennis King (3:59)

Yeah, I know. But anyway, so I just kind of went from there. And very supportive, as I said, very nurturing. You know, those guys don't miss when it comes to player acquisition. Then once you get inside and see what they have to use, fantastic.

Jeff Marek (4:13)

Well, that's the thing, too. I mean, Tulski was on after the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. And one of the things he said, and he said, like, look, I'm not always going to bat a thousand, but we turned over 12 players and I went 12 for 12 I'm not always going to go 12 for 12 This organization is not going to go 12 for 12, but we just went 12 for 12