- The Sharks hired Jeff Kealty as assistant general manager Friday, ending his 25-year run in Nashville
- Kealty was GM of the Team USA squad that won World Championship gold in 2025, the country’s first in 92 years
- Read below for how the Predators reshaped their front office around him
Jeff Kealty interviewed to run the Predators in May. Two months later, he’s out of Nashville altogether.
San Jose announced Friday that it hired Kealty as an assistant general manager, closing out a 25-year run with the only NHL organization he ever worked for.
Kealty, 50, takes over the Sharks’ pro scouting staff and works alongside Mike Grier on everything hockey operations. He becomes the third assistant GM in San Jose behind Grier, joining Joe Will and Tom Holy.
Nashville had already rebuilt the room above him. Kealty interviewed for the GM vacancy in May. The Predators hired Chris MacFarland on June 2, then added Vukie Mpofu as an assistant GM on July 7.
Both men sat at the same table for Nashville’s pre-draft media availability last month:
Grier and Kealty overlapped at Boston University in the mid-90s, and the Sharks GM went out of his way to bring that up in the team’s release.
“Jeff brings a wealth of professional experience to our club, and he will be a valuable addition to our hockey operations staff. His knowledge and expertise of the game is represented in his achievement with Team USA, helping the program win a Gold Medal in 2025, along with elevating the Nashville Predators with various high-end player additions over the previous two decades, both in the NHL and in their prospect system. I’ve known Jeff since our days together at Boston University, and it’s exciting to be able to work with him again.”
That Team USA line carries real weight. Kealty was general manager of the American team that beat Switzerland in overtime in Stockholm last May, giving the U.S. its first men’s world title since 1933.
He climbed the Nashville ladder one rung at a time. Kealty signed on as an amateur scout in 2001, spent six years in that chair, ran amateur scouting for the next 11, and served the last eight seasons as director of scouting and assistant GM.
The Newton, Massachusetts native never got a shift in the NHL himself. Quebec took him in the first round in 1994, but the defenseman finished his playing days with 71 games for the IHL’s Milwaukee Admirals after four years at BU and a national title in 1995.
This has been an aggressive summer in San Jose, with Darnell Nurse and Mason Marchment already in the fold and Macklin Celebrini’s extension still on the to-do list. Kealty gives Grier a pro scouting boss who has already built a gold medal roster.
