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The Calgary Flames' road to the playoffs just got a little bit tougher.
The reason for this, of course, is because Patrick Roy is no longer head coach of the Colorado Avalanche.
Roy reportedly left the team due to a lack of say in personnel decisions.
Roy, much like Bob Hartley's Flames and Randy Carlyle's Maple Leafs, coached a system that saw his team routinely out shot and out chanced by significant margins.
Obviously Roy won't be replaced by a high-end coach - there aren't any available at this point in the off-season - but the replacement will surely be a more forward thinking coach than Roy.
The reason I am confident saying that is because Roy hasn't had his hands on much of the Avs' off-season work - it's been all Joe Sakic - and their summer has quietly been very good as a result.
The Avs brought in a solid point producer in Joe Colborne without paying him based off his unsustainably good 2015-16 campaign. They added a couple good, cheap depth options to their blue line in Fedor Tyutin and Patrick Wiercioch and they also locked up Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Barrie to team-friendly, long-term deals. Almost every move carries little risk and a reward much higher.
Assuming Sakic goes with a new-school coach who doesn't prioritize grit, dump and chase or conservative hockey the Avs will surely be much better off.
As things stood prior to Roy being taken out of the picture the Avalanche were one of the few teams I was confident saying wouldn't make, or seriously contend for, the playoffs. That's no longer the case.
The Avs have a very good core in MacKinnon, Barrie, Gabriel Landeskog, Matt Duchene and Erik Johnson, among others. The Avs have surrounded those guys with better depth and now, surely, a better coach.
I don't know that they'll make the playoffs but I would now put them in the conversation. That's not good news for the Flames considering Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Nashville, Dallas, St. Louis and Chicago (although I'm not as high on them as most) are all but locks for playoff spots barring key injuries.
If that were true only one spot would be available for the rest of the pack to fight over. Colorado entering the picture as a serious Wild Card threat just gives the Flames one more team to worry about.
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