Anyone surprised that Avalanche general manager
Joe Sakic plans to stay on the job, and that he said coach
Jared Bednar will return next season?
You shouldn't be, but I suspect both will be on a short leash if the team gets off to a poor start in 2017-18 in the wake of this dreadful season, which comes to a merciful end Sunday in St. Louis.
Here are the
GAME NOTES.
I couldn't see Sakic stepping down after a season like this; it's not the way he would want to go out or to be remembered.
As for Bednar, who has two years left on his contract, he had little time to familiarize himself with the players he'd be coaching or the organization in general after his Aug. 25 hiring, two weeks after
Patrick Roy abruptly walked away and less than a month before training camp. He was a championship-winning coach in the minors, which doesn't always translate into success at the NHL level, but he deserves a second chance after inheriting this mess.
“He’s coming back ... we’re hoping to have a younger team with more depth," Sakic told the
Denver Post in Dallas on Saturday. ”He was put in a position, late in the game, trying to get prepared for training camp and having that in place with this group, and kind of quickly learning on the job with a new team that he didn’t know much about.
“We’re dead-last in the league, so we all have to get better at what we do. But I know he’s excited and we’re excited to have the whole summer in place to get ready for next training camp, the way he wants to run his training camp with this group. All the players are going to be prepared. We’re looking forward to next year.”
Sakic repeated his objective to have younger and faster players on the roster, one that began late this year with the arrival of
Sven Andrighetto, 23;
J.T. Compher, 21;
Tyson Jost, 19;
Anton Lindholm, 22, and
Duncan Siemens, 23, a former first-round pick who has been buried in the minors.
Rookie
Mikko Rantanen, 20, has been a rare bright spot, having scored a team-leading 19 goals.
Nikita Zadorov, 21, was inconsistent but made strides on defense before breaking his ankle Feb. 20.
Chris Bigras, 22, and
A.J. Greer, 20, are among the prospects in the organization.
Sakic said he wants to sign defenseman
Will Butcher, 22, the Avalanche's fifth-round pick (No. 123) in 2013. Butcher, a senior and University of Denver captain, helped the Pioneers win the NCAA championship on Saturday with a 3-2 win against Minnesota-Duluth after he won the Hobey Baker Award on Thursday as the national player of the year. Butcher would be eligible for unrestricted free agency if he isn't signed by Aug. 15.
“Yes, we had a terrible year, up and down it was not a good year, with the exception of maybe Mikko, who in the second half has taken off,” Sakic told the paper. “But our top guys did not have good years, production-wise. And our goaltending situation, with (
Semyon Varlamov) being out -- and we might as well say the whole year with his (injury) issues -- that snowballed.
"We have to take a week, 10 days off and then get back and look at our roster. We know which way we want to go, but we’ll do our individual assessments on each player then. But there will be a number of different faces on our team next year.”
Sakic labled Jost, Rantanen and
Nathan MacKinnon as the team's lone untouchables and said he'd continue to explore trades. "But it's got to make sense," he said.
As for the season finale, Calvin Pickard will start in goal.
Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • 
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