Players returning to their former teams or hometowns as front-office staff has been a trend for years, and with recent examples like Daniel Alfredsson, Patrick Marleau and the Sedin brothers, the trend will seemingly live on forever.

There’s something about the idea of lifelong loyalty that resonates deeply in the minds and hearts of hockey fans and teams. Time and again, we witness NHL players “coming home”, with “home” either being their birthplace, or the organization in which players spent their best seasons. It always warms the hearts of the hockey world to see a familiar face representing their favorite team. And it’s something that happens every season.

Most recently, we’ve seen the return of longtime Ottawa star forward Daniel Alfredsson to the Senators organization. The Sens didn’t specify exactly what Alfredsson will be doing in his new role, but he’s been slotted into a player development position and is already working on-ice with Ottawa’s best players.

In addition, over the past few years the Vancouver Canucks have brought back beloved brother-duo Daniel and Henrik Sedin as senior advisers to the GM. Sharks fixture Patrick Marleau had his Jersey retired by the Sharks in February, and quickly moved into a position as San Jose’s player development coach and hockey operations adviser. Former goaltender Curtis McElhinney, who had a short stint with the Maple Leafs, was hired by Toronto team president Brendan Shanahan as the Buds’ new director of goaltending development.

In all these cases, the familiarity of the former players played a notable role in their hiring. There’s a comfort on both sides, where the former player has previously acclimated to the market, allowing them to operate with a confidence that might not be there for a newbie team member. And while the hook of bringing in a beloved player for a new position is grounded in the basic philosophy of “the devil you know” vs. “the devil you don’t know”, there’s a patience there that affords the returning player a long stretch of runway to stick the landing.

Another such case is found with Philadelphia GM Daniel Briere. For many decades, the Flyers were the epitome of promotion from within, almost always giving their GM position to a former Philly player, including Bobby Clarke, Paul Holmgren and Ron Hextall. The Flyers did diverge from that philosophy with the hiring of Chuck Fletcher as their GM a few years back, but the franchise was an abject disaster under Fletcher’s reign, and team ownership decided to go back to the well of former Flyers players with the hiring of onetime star winger Briere. Fans were familiar with Briere as a person and a competitor, so there was no need for a hard sell when they made the decision to bring him in.

Now, this is not to say teams need to go back through their alumni anytime they’re in need of a new vision for the future. In Anaheim, the Ducks chose former NHL mainstay Pat Verbeek as their new GM. In Pittsburgh, the Penguins replaced Hextall with former Leafs GM Kyle Dubas. And in Toronto, the Leafs not only went with Brad Treliving – who had no previous working connection with Shanahan – but they augmented the Leafs’ management team with the hiring of former Arizona cornerstone forward Shane Doan.

You can argue that Doan’s acclimation into the hyper-covered Toronto market has the potential to overwhelm him, given that, even in retirement, Doan never had to worry much about being smothered by the Arizona media. But Shanahan and the Leafs take great pains to protect their management members from the press; rarely, if ever, do Toronto brass make assistant GMs or management other than the GM available to the press, so they can go about their business the same way they would in any other NHL market.

The cachet former players bring to the table as management components is one of the key reasons why they’re hired in a management role. Current players respect them, because both the players and management members can commiserate about the ups and downs of playing in a particular market. Players likely would respect anyone a team brings into a management role, but the fact is that it’s easier to command respect and understanding with a management member who has been there in recent seasons.

That’s why you can expect to continue seeing former players join up with a team they played for and become a management force. They know the lay of the land as well as anyone, and they have fans and players who remember their on-ice contributions. Coming home is often an inevitability, as that’s certainly true for Alfredsson, the Sedins and Marleau. And it will remain that way for the foreseeable future.