Avalanche president
Josh Kroenke remains committed to general manager
Joe Sakic despite the fact the team is coming off a disastrous 48-point season and has missed the playoffs three years in a row.
“Joe’s leash hasn’t changed at all," Kroenke said in an interview with the
Denver Post. "Nobody wants to get the Avalanche back to where they were, where we all expect them to be, more than Joe Sakic. We’re going to continue to give him every resource at his disposal and I’m going to help him in any ways he sees that I can.
"At the end of the day, Joe wants what’s best for the Colorado Avalanche. Whether that’s him in his current role or something else, it doesn’t matter. Joe Sakic is committed to making the Avalanche better.”
Kroenke's comments come in the wake of several GM and coaching changes in the NHL since the regular season ended a month ago.
Los Angeles fired GM
Dean Lombardi and coach
Darryl Sutter; Buffalo fired GM
Tim Murray and coach
Dan Bylsma; Florida fired
Tom Rowe, who was acting GM and interim coach; Vancouver fired coach
Willie Desjardins; and Dallas chose not to renew coach
Lindy Ruff's contract.
Sakic already had said that coach
Jared Bednar, who has two years left on his contract, will return in 2017-18. Bednar, a highly-successful minor-league coach, was hired Aug. 25, two weeks after
Patrick Roy abruptly resigned, saying in a press release that he didn't have enough influence in player personnel decisions.
"There were so many moving parts coming into this season that Joe Sakic, based on what he has done for this organization as a player, as an executive and, honestly, as a person in the Denver community, deserves the benefit of the doubt to try to figure out what the best thing is for this organization going forward," Kroenke said.
Kroenke also mentioned injuries to goalie
Semyon Varlamov and defenseman
Erik Johnson as being contributing factors to the miserable season.
“I want to be sure that this staff, based on being in the tough position that they were, has a chance to get it right,” he said.
The Avalanche finished 22-56-4, easily their worst showing in 21 seasons in Denver. They were 9-9-0 on Nov. 21 and went 13-47-4 in the final 64 games. The longest winning streak was two games.
"I think from top to bottom, from our players, to management, to ownership, we’re embarrassed by what happened this season," Kroenke said. "To look at the season as a whole, though, I thought in the second half we made some adjustments, toward the last month of the season in particular."
"We identified what we wanted to do going forward, set ourselves a path to try to go about doing that, and then I would say for the last three weeks of the season, when we had a lot of our young players called up, we played some of our most exciting hockey of the year and we started to play a more competitive brand of hockey against playoff teams.
"I think that provided a glimmer of what we were hoping for going forward. To be honest, Joe Sakic, based on the position he was put in before the season, deserves a little bit of leeway, all things considered. The one thing I always will say about Joe Sakic is that no matter what’s going on, Joe Sakic can look at it through the prism of wanting what’s best for the Colorado Avalanche.
"Joe and I have had different conversations of where I fit, where he fits, the future of the organization, and even if we can look back at what we’ve done historically what made us successful. It was a tough year on so many levels, but I have a funny feeling that we might bounce back a little sooner than people think.
"We really want to try to win, even if it comes with losing a lot of money, which we have done for quite a while here on the hockey side. We just want to get the product back to where our fans expect it to be. There’s a great hockey fan base here in Denver, and we need to show them who the Avalanche are and where we’re headed.”
*****
The Colorado Eagles, who are the Avalanche's ECHL affiliate, grabbed a 3-0 series lead in their best-of-seven second-round playoff series against the Allen Americans with a 4-2 win Wednesday.
The Eagles, who have won seven games in a row, can clinch the series Thursday at their home rink, the Budweiser Events Center.
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