I say Pierre McGuire is the favorite to get the job, followed by Vincent Damphousse, Claude Loiselle & Patrick Roy. Other candidates may include Julien Brisebois, Sylvain Lefebvre & Guy Carbonneau, among others.
I'm also extremely surprised that they didn't wait until the season was over to make the announcement (via Twitter?). The only thing i can think of is that Gauthier asked Molson to give him a vote of confidence or fire him now instead of keeping him in limbo. Or, maybe he's got someone already & he couldn't wait any longer & risk losing him.
One thing i'm learning about Geoff Molson is that he appears to be extremely impulsive, which may not be such a good thing. I still think it was a huge mistake to get rid of Pierre Boivin in order to name himself team president. Maybe Geoff Molson is way too involved in the team's daily activities & should just do like other owners by remaining in the background and let hockey people run the hockey business.
By the way, why aren't there any female GMs in pro sports?