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Dallas parts ways with assistant GM Provenzano

Jimm Nill, Tom Gaglardi, Jim Lites

Dallas Stars owner and Governor Tom Gaglardi, left, and president and CEO Jim Lites, right, present Jim Nill, center, with a team jersey after a news conference where Nill was introduced as the team’s new general manager Monday, April 29, 2013, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

AP

Jim Nill continues to make changes in Dallas.

On Friday, the new Stars GM announced the club would be parting ways with longtime assistant GM Frank Provenzano, who’d been with the club for the last seven years.

In addition, Nill announced that Scott White -- the GM of AHL Texas -- would be serving as Dallas’ director of hockey operations (while retaining his AHL gig) and that assistant GM Les Jackson and director of hockey administration Mark Janko would remain in their roles.

So, just to recap all that’s gone on in Dallas over the last month:

-- Joe Nieuwendyk was relieved of GM duties

-- Nill was hired as new GM

-- Nill fired head coach Glen Gulutzan and assistant Paul Jerrard

-- Nill let Provenzano walk, promoted White

The latest move makes sense, as Dallas’ front office has been crowded over the last few seasons.

Nieuwendyk, Provenzano and Jackson were working as a three-man general managing unit, this after Jackson was replaced by Nieuwendyk in 2009 but retained by the organization.

As for Provenzano -- he’s known as a “capologist,” a guy responsible for crunching numbers, specializing in salary cap management.

Here’s a profile from James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail:

Provenzano, who played university hockey at Queen’s and whose father was a Member of Parliament for Sault Ste. Marie, scored his first NHL job as he finished his MBA in Vancouver and cold-called the Canucks in the mid-1990s.

He moved to the Washington Capitals, and in 2006 caught on in Dallas. Like his friend [Canucks asst. GM Laurence] Gilman, Provenzano, 45, doesn’t care for the term capologist – “it sounds like a mushroom farmer,” he says – but the capologists are a bit nerdy.

The two were among the few NHL executives at the recent MIT Sloan sport analytics conference, and both the Canucks and Stars use advanced stats to measure players.

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