Bender
Registered User
- Sep 25, 2002
- 17,368
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More from the article...
How do you explain Joe Sacco?!?
This is the ONLY explanation I can come up with that makes any sense to me:
Coming out of the lockout, the Avs had a mediocre team. Stars like Foote and Forsberg were replaced with guys like Brisebois and Turgeon. We had a veteran team with a depleted prospects pool from 'going for it' year after year. A few up and coming players gave us some hope (Svatos, Wolski) only to fade in their effectiveness. Still, with some pretty average rosters, coach Q gave us three straight 95 point seasons but then left the organization in a 'mutual agreement' or whatever.
http://www.thehockeynews.com/articl...turn-as-head-coach-of-Colorado-Avalanche.html
So we ended up with Granato AGAIN without interviewing anyone else and the results were disastrous.
I've always wondered, where would this team be, if we had kept Coach Q as head coach all along? So, let's generously assume that he would have been able to keep up at 95 points, here is what the draft could have looked like instead:
08-09
95 pts - 6th in conference - 12th in league
3rd - Matt Duchene -> 18th - Chris Kreider
33rd - Ryan O'Reilly -> 47th - Ethan Werek
49th - Steffan Elliott -> 49th - Steffan Elliott (*Leopold trade)
64th - Tyson Barrie -> 80th - Ryan Bourque
09-10
95 pts - 8th in conference - 12th in league (that's our actual finish so no change)
17th - Joey Hishon
49th - Calvin Pickard
71st - Michael Bournival
10-11
95 pts - 9th in conference - 16th in league
2nd - Gabriel Landeskog -> 14th - Jamie Oleksiak
11th - Duncan Siemens -> 11th Duncan Siemens
93rd - Joachim Nermark -> 105th Emil Molin
11-12
95 pts - 9th in conference - 16th in league
41st - Mitchell Heard -> 55th - Brock McGinn
72nd - Troy Bourke -> 77th Chandler Stephenson
So obviously, the Avs not selecting those guys in those positions would change things but this is just a fun exercise for the sake of argument. This is also assuming all of the same trades would have still happened. Here would the be lineup instead:
McGinn-Stastny-Jones
Kreider-Sgarbossa-Parenteau
Downie-Mitchell-Hejduk
McLeod-Olver-Palushaj
Bordy
Wilson-EJ
Hejda-Elliott
Hunwick-Zanon
SoB-O'Byrne
Varly
Giggy
That's pretty scary stuff right there and a lot of teams are actually going through this year-in, year-out because they have poor scouting so the team has no choice but to try and address holes through free agency.
So, to answer your question, I have no choice but to believe that management knows exactly what they've got with Sacco, (the kind of guy who would take his timeout in OT only to follow that by NOT putting on his best faceoff man and best defensive pairing to cite only ONE example in a pool of many) and they choose to keep him as their head coach because of the 'dividends' it will likely pay off at the end, as illustrated above.
I think that a good coach, even only someone with a bit more sense would have gotten more out of this team over the past 3-4 years and they probably would have cost the team more $$$ and we wouldn't of had Duchene, RoR, Barrie and Landeskog.
I do think that it's coming to an end though and that Sacco will be 'sacked' after this season, a better or more proven coach will be brought in and it will pay immediate dividends much like Hitchcock did in St-Louis. That, combined with the return on RoR as well as the assets we pick up at this year's draft should allow us to 'start fresh' again so-to-speak.
I personally believe that the impact that Sacco has on the team is more pronounced than anyone really believes. Having played hockey myself, it's really not a great feeling when you see the guy behind the bench make questionable calls on a nightly basis. It's quite demoralizing. A new coach that has a good grasp on the game as well as ACTUAL REAL SYSTEMS will do wonders for this club. (a guy like Roy or Ruff)