Blackhawks hire Cubs’ Jeff Greenberg as new associate general manager

In the Blackhawks’ general manager search, former Cubs executive Jeff Greenberg was a surprise finalist but lost out to Kyle Davidson.

Less than two months later, however, Greenberg has joined the Hawks nonetheless, hired Thursday as associate GM.

Greenberg and Norm Maciver, who was hired away from the Kraken last month to also serve as an associate GM, will support Davidson as the three-man leadership team heading the Hawks’ front office.

“[Jeff] reached out to congratulate me after I was named general manager, and we connected instantly over our parallel paths, shared love for hockey and vision for this sport’s future,” Davidson said in a statement. “I’m excited for our fans to see what he, alongside Norm, can bring as key voices at the table — a table that will continue to grow with other leaders we will add to the team.”

Greenberg, 36, spent the last 11 years with the Cubs, rising through the ranks to most recently serve as assistant GM. He primarily operated behind the scenes but reportedly played an instrumental role in developing the talent evaluation and information processing systems that helped propel the Cubs to their 2016 World Series title.

He’ll serve a similar role with the Hawks, bringing methods from baseball that haven’t been widely implemented in hockey up to this point.

The Hawks say he’ll work alongside all aspects of the hockey operations department — including scouting, development, analytics and coaching at both the NHL and minor-league levels —to modernize and optimize their systems.

“What I’ve learned about the Blackhawks is they’re serious about using this rebuilding period to not only set this franchise up to be the best in hockey, but the best in all of sports moving forward,” Greenberg said in a statement. “There couldn’t be a more exciting time to get in on the ground floor of this journey and pursue every possible solution to put this team back on the path to winning hockey.”

This story will be updated.