Well, this wasn’t a PR move. That’s for sure.

As soon as the news broke Wednesday that Chris Pronger could join the department of player safety, critics howled. Pronger was suspended eight times in his NHL career. He was still being paid by the Philadelphia Flyers. A dirty player with a conflict of interest seemed like a poor addition to the group charged with cleaning up the game.

But this shouldn’t be about PR. And Pronger has never been about PR. And that’s one of the reasons he’s perfect for this job.

“To be honest with you, the way I played, I didn’t care if people liked me,” Pronger told Yahoo Sports late Friday after he officially joined the DPS. “As long as the guys in the room respect you and they’re willing to follow you, I don’t care what anybody else thinks, because you’re trying to win.

“At the end of the day, being in the player safety department is like being a referee. It’s a thankless job. Everybody hates you because you’re never going to do enough. I’m already hated.”

He laughed.

“I’ve got enough friends. I don’t need any more. Like me. Don’t like me. I’m not doing this because I’m trying to appease people.”

Why is he doing this?

“I think it’s interesting,” Pronger said. “Not to give back to the game, but to stay involved in the game and work on some of the major issues that are affecting the game and the health of the players.”

Pronger is just what the NHL needs. His history is an asset, not a liability. His connection to the Flyers is a philosophical problem, not a practical one. But to understand that, you need to understand the DPS, what Pronger will do, how he will do it and how this all came about.

Stephane Quintal leads the DPS. He makes the decisions on supplemental discipline. But the DPS is a group of people, and Quintal consults with the rest of the group. The DPS also does more than fine and suspend. It educates. Its ultimate goal is to change behavior.

Former players are an important part of that, especially those who played relatively recently, know what the NHL is like today and broke the rules themselves. Quintal fit that profile. So did his predecessor, Brendan Shanahan. They know what to look for. They can relate to the players.

Whom do players respect the most? Other players. Listen to Anaheim Ducks center Ryan Kesler. Pronger received his last and longest suspension in March 2008 when he stomped on Kesler’s leg and got eight games.

“You want someone in that position who’s played the game and understands what goes on,” Kesler said Friday. “He’s going to do a good job.”

Pronger spent the last two nights in the DPS video room at NHL headquarters in New York. But he will work out of his home in St. Louis – he hasn’t lived in Philadelphia since June 2012 – watching games, looking for trends, studying incidents. He will give his input to Quintal.

“People can look at my record as a player,” Pronger said. “But now, mind you, it’s as a player, correct? It’s not as anything else. I was playing a game, an emotional game. Now I’m sitting watching a game with no emotion. I’m just looking at a video clip or a TV screen and looking at it going, ‘OK, what happened? What precipitated it? What are the prior offenses, if any?’ All the things that everybody goes through. It’s pretty cut-and-dried.”

Quintal wants varied perspectives. From Damian Echevarrieta, he gets the perspective of the man who runs the video room and watches maybe more hockey than anyone else alive. From Patrick Burke, he gets the perspective of a former NHL scout – and the son of Brian Burke, a team president, former general manager and former NHL disciplinarian. From Pronger, he gets the perspective of someone who was suspended eight times and racked up 1,916 penalty minutes – and won a Norris Trophy, a Hart Trophy and Stanley Cup, too.

“He’s trying to get the mindset of the player,” Pronger said. “‘If you’re in this situation, how would you have handled it? What were you thinking when you did such and such?’ Those are all things that can be discussed and allow him to make up his mind what he wants to do.”

Pronger will participate in hearings – in phone and in person. He will call players to warn them if they came close to the line but didn’t cross it.

“I would hope they would understand they’re not going to be able to lie to me, because I know exactly what they were thinking,” Pronger said with a laugh. “Because I was in their shoes.”

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