When Ron Hextall was named general manager of the Penguins earlier this month, speculation quickly turned to how long it would take before Chris Pryor was added to Pittsburgh’s front office. It turns out the answer was two and a half weeks as the team announced today that they’ve hired Pryor as their Director of Player Personnel. The release states that his role will be to help oversee the scouting efforts in North America and Europe and assist with all player personnel decisions.
Pryor, 60, held various roles with the Flyers from 1999-2019 including Amateur Scout, Director of Scouting, and Director of Player Personnel. It was there that he worked with Hextall who held Philadelphia’s GM title for three years. Both were let go at the same time in late November of 2018 with Hextall becoming a senior advisor with the Kings and Pryor going to Nashville as a scout.
Pryor becomes the third addition of note to Pittsburgh’s front office since Jim Rutherford’s sudden resignation last month joining Hextall and new President of Hockey Operations Brian Burke.
As for Derek Clancey who was in the Director of Player Personnel role before today’s move, he has been let go by the Penguins, Hextall confirmed to Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Twitter link). He was in his second season in that role with Pittsburgh and had been with the team since 2007 when he started as a pro scout, later moving up to Director of Professional Scouting.
Mario and Co. have put together a pretty impressive front office on the fly here.