Well, colour me surprised. Good thing I had no money on this series.
It sure was entertaining hockey and both teams really showed us how far the Canucks have to go before they can compete at that level.
Sakic helmed an impressive rebuild, which makes me shake my head even more at Bennings wasted decade.
Keep in mind the Avs GM from 2009 to 2014 were Sherman who was doing the rebuild. Duchene at 3 OA in 2009, Landy at 2 OA in 2011, won lottery in 2013 to get 1OA.
Sakic takes over in 2014 and makes the ROR deal and leads them to a dismal 2017 but they get Makar and MacKinnon finally lives up to his hype the following season.
They finished bottom 3 in the nhl 4 times in 8 seasons. Swapping out a GM.
So a GM can’t continue to ice a bad team for that long. Not going to survive it to reap the rewards of all that losing.
Sakic had lots of goodwill in Colorado so he could still guide the club after that disaster of a 2017 season. If that was someone else like a Hextall, Fitzgerald, Guerin, Adams, etc similar aged former player GMs around age 50 now would they have survived the 3 seasons Sakic had? Probably would have changed GMs after that year.
Canucks should have moved off JB earlier.