jimmysheva
Registered User
- Mar 16, 2014
- 812
- 700
Bednar is the best. Crawford and Hartley had the benefit of having a pre-cap superteam that many head coach could easily coach to a cup
people keep saying this, but it's definitely challenging to come into a locker room full of established stars/personalities and keep them focused and not fueding. That whole room of Avs guys at the time were probably Type-A personalities. If it was so easy, then Tony Granato should have been the best Avs coach in history; he had the best roster.Bednar is the best. Crawford and Hartley had the benefit of having a pre-cap superteam that many head coach could easily coach to a cup
Bednar is the best. Crawford and Hartley had the benefit of having a pre-cap superteam that many head coach could easily coach to a cup
Bowman said Crawford and Hartley were two of the top 5 bench bosses he ever coached against. Never had bad line changes and knew how to set a line up. Never had much "what the hell is he doing out there?" moments like seeing Arnason, Wyatt Smith or Megna.people keep saying this, but it's definitely challenging to come into a locker room full of established stars/personalities and keep them focused and not fueding. That whole room of Avs guys at the time were probably Type-A personalities. If it was so easy, then Tony Granato should have been the best Avs coach in history; he had the best roster.
people keep saying this, but it's definitely challenging to come into a locker room full of established stars/personalities and keep them focused and not fueding. That whole room of Avs guys at the time were probably Type-A personalities. If it was so easy, then Tony Granato should have been the best Avs coach in history; he had the best roster.
Well Roy, but what Goalie isn't?I don't think the egos were that hard to wrangle. There was no one in that locker room who was a headcase.
I can't believe I keep finding myself defending Granato (to an extent mind you) but one reason that team may not have gelled well is because it simply didn't have much time to gel. Remember this was the year Lacroix gutted, like, half the roster. First he dealt away Battaglia (good riddance) and prospect JoJo for Konowalchuk, then traded for Boughner, Sauer, Hendrickson, Barnaby, Gratton, Vaananen, and Salo. I mean, that's an INSANE amount of turnover for one season, and that's not even counting all the new faces that were there one Day One (Kariya, Selanne, Worrell, Cummins, Nikolishin) and a lot of departures (Messier, Reinprecht, The Sheriff).
That '03-04 team was good on paper, on the ice was a different matter. Was it horrible? No. But Selanne had knee surgery that offseason that took him a full year to recover from, and he looked frickin' slow out there in an Avs jersey. I saw him live when he was still with SJ in an Avs playoff game (Avs lost that one) and I've never seen a player move that fast. Kariya was limited to 51 games and was also mostly a non-factor.
And of course, there was the whole Steve Moore/Todd Bertuzzi incident.
Yes, I think Granato was the worst. But I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as people are saying, and certainly not for the same reasons that others keep citing. Sacco comes damn close far as I'm concerned.
If there was one ego that couldn't be contained, IMHO it was Aebischer. I've mentioned it before, I know for a fact he was a total pissant about the Salo acquisition. Not a huge surprise that he spent the lockout overseas, game back and was mostly unspectacular, and Lacroix sent him packing to Montreal for Theodore (which was a great trade whether people on here want to admit it or not).
Well, arguably the GOAT between the pipes (INarguably the GOAT playoff goalie ever), there's no need to contain that ego. Just let it run free, even when it leads to shit like this.Well Roy, but what Goalie isn't?
People HAVE to realize that Granato wasted a legendary roster and Sacco was just incompetent. We shall hash this out until one side yields their argument!You know, the thought has occurred to me that we might not all be there.
We've wasted three pages of space on some server farm debating the nuts and bolts of Granato vs Sacco. I'm somewhat impressed by the level of schadenfreude we possess. However, dwelling on those days is just probably not healthy for us. Living through them the first time was probably more than enough.