Yeah, it definitely seems unlikely that in a field with as low job security as an NHL front office, people would willingly give jobs to buddies instead of hiring the most qualified person. It's much more likely, I'll grant you, that familiarity with someone biases your decision on who is most qualified; but that isn't the same thing.
In this case, I don't see how you can objectively feel like this is a bad hire. Maloney has recently been a successful NHL GM. He's managed to put together highly competitive teams on a tight internal budget, and he engineered a very swift and effective rebuild to set up his successor to reap the rewards.
Honestly, I think the familiarity factor here was probably more on the side of Maloney agreeing to join the Flames organization than it was the Flames agreeing to take him on. I doubt there's a team in the NHL that wouldn't value his input in a scouting role.