Bob Hartley -vs- Marc Crawford (Avalanche Coaching Tenures)

[Jim MacDonald]

Hi HoH friends! I hope all is well!

Being on the other side of this rivalry, I'm looking forward to hearing answers and learning some things!

Avs fans and those knowledgeable to give a confident answer--with respect to Bob Hartley and Marc Crawford's respective coaching tenures with the Avs, which of the two was:

1. Considered more liked/more respected by the Avalanche players.
2. Considered a more interesting/better interview from Avalanche and NHL beat writers.
3. Liked more by Avalanche fans.
4. Considered the better coach/had the better tenure by Avs fans and others (I figured 4 straight western conference finals may make this a blowout in Hartley's favor...BUT...maybe there's things about Crawford I don't know not being local to that area!).
5. Sakic/Forsberg/Foote/Roy.......not that it is likely...but with the passage of time have any of these guys made their thoughts known about one versus the other?

Excited for the feedback! Thanks!-Jim

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[Hasbro]

Crawford burnt a lot of bridges in Colorado, so Hartley is going to come out on top through that lens.

 

[Crosby2010]

This is Hartley winning this 8 days a week. To this day I get an automatic frown if I see Crawford's picture just simply based on the 1998 Olympics. So maybe I am not the one who can judge this fairly. But to tell you the truth they never had a bad postseason with Hartley. They lost to Dallas in 1999 and 2000, both Game 7s and both times one win away from the Cup final. Then won the Cup in 2001. Then took Detroit to 7 games in what was the "real" Cup final in 2002. Then they fired him early on in the 2002-'03 season because I assume (I can't really remember to be honest) it was the 10-8-13 record to start the season which was not Colorado-like. I don't know, it didn't pan out. Colorado lost in the 1st round to Minnesota, so maybe Hartley should have hung around. Dude never coached them to a bad season.

So yeah this is Hartley in a cakewalk. Like it or not, losing in 1995 and 1998 to teams they easily should have beat was a black mark on Crawford.

I have no idea what the former players say about each coach, but they had more success under Hartley. I would suggest a fan poll from Avs fans has him come out on top too.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

hartley is one of the top five most punchable coaches in recent memory

but he was a much better coach than crawford for sure

 

[MadLuke]

hartley is one of the top five most punchable coaches in recent memory

In Québec he became a bit of a running gag for how disagreeable he sound: