Family: Lessons in Winning With Dean Lombardi, Part 1 (+)

PHILADELPHIA — Dean Lombardi has been where Mike Grier is now, trying to go from rebuild to Stanley Cup champion.

So who better to talk to than Lombardi, about next steps for the current San Jose Sharks GM?

In Apr. 2006, the Los Angeles Kings hired Lombardi to guide the franchise out of a lifetime of mediocrity. The Kings had just missed the playoffs, and in their 39 years of existence, had only reached the Conference Finals once, a 1993 Stanley Cup Final loss.

Lombardi blew it up, then put the pieces and culture around the previous regime’s best draft picks — Dave Taylor had selected Anze Kopitar, Jonathan Quick, and Dustin Brown — to win the 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cups.

Over the summer, San Jose Hockey Now caught up with the now-Philadelphia Flyers senior advisor to talk about a wide variety of topics related to the building of a championship organization.

Some of these steps, of course, have already been undertaken by Grier, who has helmed the San Jose Sharks since the summer of 2022. But San Jose hasn’t made the playoffs since 2019, so obviously, Grier’s work isn’t done either.

This is part one of a multi-part conversation with Lombardi.

Here, we talk about the importance of making an organization a family, Lombardi remembers how San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo then Flyers owner Ed Snider and GM Bobby Clarke influenced him, and more.

Also, Sharks alternate captain Tyler Toffoli, who was drafted by Lombardi and won a Stanley Cup for him in 2014, talks about his former boss.

“It starts at the top,” Lombardi told SJHN. “Every franchise talks family — fuck off — there are very few that do family.”

Here are three who did, according to Lombardi.

San Francisco 49ers

Eddie DeBartolo owned the San Francisco 49ers from 1977 to 2000, winning five Super Bowls.

At about the same time, Lombardi was GM of the San Jose Sharks from 1996 to 2003 and had been with the Sharks organization since their expansion year.

“Those guys up the road, I’d go up there and they’d let me sit in on the draft and I just learned a shitload,” Lombardi recalled. “I just loved those 49ers teams.”

“Every franchise talks family — fuck off — there are very few that do family,” Lombardi said. “It was very clear that that franchise was.”

DeBartolo was famous for transforming the NFL into a players’ league.

“In most of the league, the players were chattel,” Hall of Fame 49ers quarterback Steve Young said in 2016. “What I see in the league today are owners who have made their players partners. That changes the nature of the NFL.”

“I tried to run the 49ers like a family rather than a business,” DeBartolo said. “I viewed the players and myself really, basically, as a partnership. Our goal was to win the Super Bowl every year, and we had to do that together.”

Lombardi, naturally, also learned about winning from the five-time Super Bowl champion.

“Eddie DeBartolo’s famous line that used to drive Gary Bettman crazy — I remember asking, ‘You guys are always in trouble with the league for the cap?’ And he says, ‘Dean, if you’re not pissing off the league once in a while, you’re not trying to win. Because the league has a different agenda than you, so don’t worry about it. As long as it’s not illegal, then I’m pushing the envelope,’” Lombardi said, cackling. “I was the honorary GM down in Florida [GM meetings last] year, and Gary Bettman got up, he was making allusions to that, [how it] used to drive him crazy. Sorry Gary, you want everybody to be the same, we’re trying to be great here.”

Philadelphia Flyers

Lombardi was fired by the San Jose Sharks in 2003 and joined the Flyers organization as a scout.

“I was very fortunate that the three years I did in Philly after San Jose were — I always say this, it might have been the best years of my career,” Lombardi said. “How can that be? We won two Cups [in LA]. I say, ‘Wait a minute, it’s that Philadelphia created a family.’”

“They called me their ‘token white guy’ because I was American and they were all Canadians, but I had also never played for the Flyers, and if you look at that staff, every one of them played [for Philadelphia],” Lombardi laughed. “I learned that it starts there.”

Lombardi means at the top, with owner Ed Snider and GM Bobby Clarke.

“You have a leader like Clarke, and it’s like it’s no wonder when you put on that Flyers jersey, you stood for something. It wasn’t just the fighting,” Lombardi said of Clarke, Hall of Fame player and two-time Stanley Cup champion with the “Broad Street Bullies”. “He called me to work for him. Not only did I learn a lot, but people forget that the Flyers had the third-highest winning percentage in all sports, it was higher than the Yankees. They just always came up short after their Cup years, but I became convinced over the years — it was the premise of the book I was writing — that it starts at the top.”

Speaking of, Snider founded the Flyers when the NHL expanded beyond the “Original Six” in 1967.

“Mr. Snider, he was totally invested in his team. He started that team with a shovel in the ground, took a big risk, and he totally embraced his players in the right way. He was emotional at times, but it started there,” Lombardi said.

This family extended beyond the four walls of the Flyers locker room.

“I’ll give you a perfect example too about Mr. Snider,” Lombardi said. “When they were winning and stuff and the ticket guy came up and said, ‘Well, we’re knocking it out of the park, so we can raise ticket prices.’

[Snider responded:] ‘We’re not raising ticket prices.’

‘We can do this, that, and the other thing.’

‘No, I’m not doing it to these fans, these fans [who] have stuck by us.’

Who the hell is going to say that today? I think that type of attitude, that he also wanted to extend his family to his fanbase was off the charts.”

Los Angeles Kings

Lombardi tried his best to turn the Kings into the family, starting with himself.

“When I was at the top of my game, my instincts were pretty good, and I think that comes from experience, but I was also always around my players. I didn’t buy that shit that the manager just knew their list, I made sure I had a personal relationship with all my players on and off the ice,” Lombardi said. “They’d sit in my office for two hours and not even talk about hockey. I love them. Even to this day, they still contact me, and that’s probably my proudest thing.”

Lombardi wasn’t just close with his stars. Toffoli grew up with the Kings, winning the 2014 Stanley Cup with them in his rookie year.

“He definitely [used] some tough love, but he was always extremely honest. He was always extremely honest with me, personally. Early on in my career, when I was getting called up and sent down, [he gave] me the reasons every single time, good and bad, and definitely every time I see him, it’s always nice to see him,” Toffoli said. “I definitely had some moments with him. Definitely some long [talks], some emotional times as well. Like I said, he was very honest, and [showed] some tough love, but he helped me grow up a lot quicker than I probably would have, and [I’m] very grateful.”

Lombardi and wife Wanda don’t have any children. Actually, well, they do.

“My wife said, ‘You don’t have any kids, you didn’t need them, you treated all 20 of them like your own.’ I did, because I was going to create a family,” Lombardi said. “Today’s kids, you can’t do it the old school way even if you wanted to, because you can’t just tell them what to do, you have to explain why. The only way they’re going to listen to you, that’s the only way they’re going to trust you. You have to spend time with them, get to know them, show them care, find out about their family, where they came from. That takes a lot of time, but I enjoy it.”

It wasn’t just Lombardi’s wife who realized this.

“My secretary used to say, “You’re in a shitty mood, call up one of your players,’” Lombardi laughed.

“He treated all of his players like we were his sons. Him and his wife, they cared deeply about us,” Toffoli said. “If there was ever an issue on the ice or off the ice, they were always happy [to help] regardless of the situation [or] how we were playing. So that’s one thing, [that] definitely meant a lot to myself, just knowing that he was gonna be hard on me, but at the same time, he was also gonna be there for me if I needed help.”

“These are the things that can go on behind the scenes that are related to the groundwork for ultimate success. Not taking a shot at the media or the fans or anything, but the fact is, they don’t understand what goes on inside there. These are all little things critical to building that’ll pay off in the end that don’t always manifest themselves,” Lombardi said. “In the outside world, it’s all about, ‘Look, they took this kid in the second round’ and then you start seeing these articles about the kid [succeeding on the ice] in the minors, doing this and that. That’s fine, but that’s not ultimately what’s going to determine whether or not you’re going to be a champion.”