Sharks GM Publicly Calls Out High-Profile Scout After Firing Him
San Jose Sharks General Manager has nothing good to say about an amateur scout that he fired recently.
NHL team staff members come and go regularly, and rarely do you hear the reasons behind why they're gone. This is an entirely different case, though. The General Manager of the San Jose Sharks took a former amateur scout to task in a recent interview, talking about his lack of work ethic.
Igor Eronko is a fairly well-known name in the hockey world. The Russian started as a journalist following the NHL and KHL in his home country, and became well-known in several countries. From 2020 to 2023 he worked as an Assistant GM with the KHL's Avangard Omsk, and was then hired as an amateur scout by the San Jose Sharks with his responsibility being games and potential players in Russia. Now comes word he was fired, and Sharks GM Mike Grier had no issue telling Sheng Peng of SJHockeyNow why.
"We gave him several warnings about getting his reports in. Cleaning up his lists. And seeing games. You can't scout or get a good feel of the players if you're not at the rinks. For whatever reason, he was given plenty of notice that he needed to improve in this area, and he didn't."
Eronko's X profile still lists him as an amateur scout for the Sharks at the time of this writing, but that is likely to change. It will be interesting to see if Eronko, who was very outspoken as a journalist and commentator, will respond to Grier's statements. As for replacing Eronko, Grier said that hasn't happened yet. However, the team has had Slovak and Czechia scout Martin Uhnak travel to Russia to cover some games. Uhnak does not speak Russian.
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