After the Las Vegas expansion team hired away Vaughn Karpan this week, the Montreal Canadiens were left without a director of pro scouting, and today have named his replacement. Eric Crawford, a former member of the Vancouver Canucks front office was hired by Montreal as a pro scout last season, and will be promoted to the vacant position.
The younger brother of long-time NHL head coach and now Ottawa assistant Marc Crawford, Eric joined the Montreal front office after 16 seasons in various positions with the Canucks, including director of player personnel from 2010-2015. He was part of the teams that drafted players like Ryan Kesler, Cory Schneider, Alexander Edler and Bo Horvat, but also missed on quite a few high draft picks throughout the last decade.
Crawford will join Trevor Timmins, the current vice president of player personnel and director of amateur scouting, to try and turn around a Montreal franchise that was exposed without the goaltending of Carey Price a season ago. With young players like Alex Galchenyuk and the newly drafted Mikhail Sergachev in the mix, Crawford and Timmins have the start of a promising future; now they must continue it.