The Good, The Bad...And The Ugly
by David Driscoll-Carignan on Jun 3, 2009 8:25 PM MDT
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Well, it finally happened. After months of speculation, public embarrassments, Soviet-bloc silence and even one frightening rumor about Pierre McGuire, Napoleon has finally started to get his army together for the upcoming invasion of Russia. I'm sure it will go swimmingly.
With a few mighty waves of his saber, Pierre Lacroix decreed that the Colorado Avalanche coaching staff was no longer fit to reside in the castle. "BANISH THEM" he cried. They were banished immediately. After that was done, he gathered his aides who had been searching high and low across the land for a few field generals to serve under him. Astonishingly, those perfect men were right under their noses the entire time; in fact, they lived right there within the palace walls! What a fortunate turn of events!
And so, our hockey Napoleon has done it again. Presented with an opportunity to generate excitement about the club, Pierre Lacroix has found a way to, yet again, pull the rug out from underneath us. Less than an hour after the wonderful - albeit tardy - announcement that Lacroix was removing the entire coaching staff came the news that Lacroix's "new management structure" looked a heck of a lot like Lacroix's old management structure. From commentary both here and around the net, it looks like some of the serfs are very much in favor of the changes. Others? Not so much. You can put me in the latter camp - and Joe Sacco hasn't even been announced as the new coach yet (hope I'm not spoilling that for anyone).
Here's why I'm less than thrilled with our emperor:
The Good
Look, we all knew that Tony Granato had to go, preferably taking his coaching staff with him. Of course, we knew that on April 12th, but I'll cover that a little later on (uh, belated spoiler alert). I'm not a fan of canning coaches just for the hell of it, but when your team plays as badly as the Avalanche played last year, sweeping changes are needed behind the bench. Tony Granato, Dave Barr, Jacques Cloutier, Jeff Hackett and PJ Deluca were all fired. I'm sorry to see them go on a human level (and a little surprised to see Hacket included), but it had to be done. A clean slate, and all that jazz...
The Bad
Greg Sherman (aka Dwight Schrute)? Who saw that coming? Let me see if I understand how this works: you fire the former unknown, unheralded Assistant GM and replace him with...and even more unknown, unheralded Assistant GM? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the saying is "if it's broke, don't fix it". Is it?
This move just astonishes me, and it really has little to do with the qualifications of Sherman. I'm sure he is just as qualified as Francois Giguere was...wait, that just doesn't sound right at all. I feel like I'm in crazy town. We knew Lacroix wasn't going to go outside the organization. No Feaster. No Fletcher. No McNab. Not even Monster McGuire. It's preposterous that he wouldn't give any of those guys even a token look, but we had reluctantly come to accept that Craig Billington would be an acceptable alternative. Instead, it's Sherman. An accountant. I hope that I'm wrong about Sherman. If I am, I will happily send him an apologetic email (just as soon as I find an email address for him). If I'm right, of course, I will have absolutely have no problem littering this site with "I told you so" posts.
The Ugly
Coaching sports is a tough job. I've never been fired from a job, but I'm sure the experience is not an enjoyable one, especially considering the public nature of the position. If I get fired for falling asleep in my cubicle, I can probably make up some lie about "budget cuts" when I have to break the news to my wife and kids. These guys can't do that - their failure is a public one. I know that comes with the territory, but it doesn't make it any easier.
Had the six fired staffers (the five above plus Michel Goulet) been let go in mid-April, it would have been acceptable. Yes, it's a tough break, yada yada yada. Now let's say our proper farewell while you clean out your offices. They weren't let go in April, however. They were left hanging in the wind for a month and a half while we speculated on their future, graded them, mocked them and debated over their very public replacement candidates. Everyone knew that at least Granato and likely a significant chunk of the staff was going to be let go. There is nothing that has happened since April 12th that would have changed their job status. This decision wasn't made today. Let me rephrase that. If that decision was made today, this team is run by fucking idiots. Pierre Lacroix is a lot of things, but he's not stupid. I have no idea why it took so long to announce this move, but I do know this: hanging these guys out to dry for 6 weeks is absolutely, unequivocally disgraceful.
Speaking of disgraceful...I don't know how long Michel Goulet has been with the organization as his avalanche.com bio was removed as soon as the announcements were being made and I'm too lazy to do more than a casual google search on it. I know he spent almost 11 seasons with the Nordiques and that he's been a Director of Player Personnel with the Avalanche long enough to have his name on two Stanley Cups. Is he a good executive? I have no clue. I do know that when you let just two people go in your front office (Giguere and Goulet) and one of those people is a long-time icon of the franchise, you better have a damn good reason. For the record, "just so I can give my son a job" isn't a damn good reason. This isn't fucking Tommy Boy. This is blatant nepotism and it's shocking that Tommy's daddy...er, Pierre didn't feel the need to disguise this ugly move more.
I assume that tomorrow - or perhaps the day after - Dwight will announce Napoleon's new coach. I'll be surprised if that coach isn't Joe Sacco - a guy who's team was 3rd from the bottom in scoring in the AHL last year. If it's not Sacco, it'll be someone else recycled from the family. And so, when all is said and done, after all the promises of restoring the team to it's former glory and restructering the management structure, all that we'll have is a new puppet GM and a different mediocre coach. The faces will be different, but the game will still be the same. The Avs are floundering, but our hockey Napoleon is going to keep marching this club right to Moscow.
I am more than a little embarrassed and ashamed to be a fan of this team. I can't wait to see what's in store for us next.
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Well done sir!
Colorado Avalanche Prospects (www.avsprospects.blogspot.com)
by Angélique C. Murray on Jun 3, 2009 8:57 PM MDT reply actions
I vote PL
and that’s only cuz if someone is going to take the blame for this clusterfuck I want it to be him and not a puppet. Nice job on the Napoleon analogy. Can we rise up and exile him?
Get rid of the loser point
08-09 Avs- can we decline the penalty?
Waterloo?
So, our Napoleon has returned from his self-imposed exile to the President’s office to become more engaged in the management of the organization. Will the elevation of Sherman and soon-to-come promotion of Sacco be his Waterloo? If the Avs produce a repeat performance of this year then it will be interesting to see if Stan looks up from watching his pride and joy Nuggets long enough to make a change at the top.
I have hard time looking at this development optimistically at the moment.
Keep Moving Forward.
Personally, I’m a little embarrassed as a fan with how public and seemingly ham handed this whole thing went down. No one I know really lost respect for me as a person but it speaks to the larger goodwill of the organization that you lose pride as a fan. It’s a sure fire killer for any bandwagon fans, that’s for certain.
Now, with all that said I think that sometimes people place way too much credit or blame on the GM. I keep reading that Guigere drafted Stastny. Sure, he was in charge when Stastny was drafted but the reality is that FG like any high level manager relied on Ted Hampson his chief scout to make that determination. All high level management is about letting your mid level management do their jobs. FGs greatest blunder was his dependence on that advice (be it Granato, Goulet or someone still with the team we don’t know). Does anyone really think that FG thought Darcy Tucker was THE guy on his own? Does anyone really believe that FG reviewed a bunch of tape and said, “We’ve got to get that Stastny kid in the second round”?
My job is to always, always make my boss look good. FG never identified the people in the organization that were making him look bad. It could be that Billington and Brad Smith (I’m a big fan) will give Sherman the hockey advice he needs to make good decisions. It could be that FG took Granato in to his biggest confidence hence the belief in Budaj and going all in on Darcy Tucker. So in my opinion at that level of management you’re only as good as the people that manage below you.
I think Sherman is kind of handcuffed until the 2011 season with salary. He’s got some interesting decisions to make with Lappy and Tucker but those guys really aren’t big impact players in the end. I think in the short term, the biggest impacts on this organization are going to be 1. The coaching staff and 2. How Pracey runs his first draft. We won’t know how well Pracey does in the draft until 2012 but the positives are that Hampson is still with the scouting team and he has proved in the not too distant past that his decision making has been relatively solid.
So while I’m not happy with how the recent changes have gone down, I’m optimistic that the Avs can still make some meaningful changes in a positive direction.
*the Avs need to sign him before training camp, but my dark horse out of camp is one Billy Saur. Jori will call me crazy, but I’m calling my shot.
I would disagree about tucker, his salary is needed elsewhere even if he isn’t.
I'm Mr. Positive
by An Unmitigated Disaster on Jun 3, 2009 9:56 PM MDT up reply actions
Well sure, but you can’t get his salary back. It’s the whole chunk this year or 2/3rds of it spread over two years. He can get 1.5 of relief by buying him out but 1.5 isn’t going to put Hossa on the roster, you know?
not if he’s in the minors on waivers.
I'm Mr. Positive
by An Unmitigated Disaster on Jun 3, 2009 11:53 PM MDT up reply actions
No matter what changes are made right now. There isn’t going to be much they can do with some of the contracts/salary for a couple of years. Hopefully the changes will be good enough to at least take care of some of the glaring D and PP problems that were so painful to watch this year.
The guy formerly known as "Where is Bob Hartley?". Because it's never going to happen.
by Pinchy The Lobster on Jun 3, 2009 10:32 PM MDT reply actions
Eh
I won’t have much rage until we find out who the coach is. If it’s Sacco, I’ll probably be angry but The Avs weren’t completely devoid of talent in their organization, they had some good hockey people there.
Maybe it’s because I think most of last year is on the coaching staff, but I didn’t even think FG did as miserable of a job as others think. His draft classes look fairly strong, and Hannan and Smyth was a pretty good offseason. I felt that Hanna has been a disappointment because of Cloutier.
LEt’s see what they do with the coaching search. If they do a proper search and give GM Shrute the proper initiative to hire a good coahc.. then i’ll be okay with the reshuffling.
by Jibblescribbits on Jun 3, 2009 10:42 PM MDT reply actions
also
My thoughts, belated due to my crazy day in Longmont:
- I am unastonished at the Sherman hiring, unlike you DDC. A little surprised, but it’s in house. That was about all we knew for certain.
- I am happy about Biller and Smith getting what appears to be the player selection 2-headed GM position. Reminds me of what the Nuggets are doing (successfully, I might add) atm, and those 2 are clearly the best guys in the front office right now.
- Sherman is a complete unknown to me. I don’t have high hopes, but I’m not quite at your levels of despair either, DDC. His output over the next year will be the only way I’ll feel comfortable the move.
- Sherman’s todo list:
1. hire good coach
2. convince Gustavsson to sign here
3. draft Duchene/Hedman
4. re-sign Lappy
do that, hell, do half of those and i’ll be pretty fuckin thrilled with you dude.
- It’s good to see the coaching staff held accountable for this debacle. That was mickey-mouse BS we watched behind the bench all year, glad other people actually see it too.
- Cloutier is fired. Thank God. I can’t say I have a terrible amount of rancor for anyone else behind the bench, more just a general feeling of incompetence, but with JC…why did it take this long?
- It’s really ugly, as you say, to see the way this was handled. I’d sure like to know the why.
- If the coach is Joe Sacco, that will be pretty…well I don’t know. Sacco hasn’t had much to work with in LE, so I don’t think tossing his record around is exactly fair. Just like with Sherman, we’ll have to see…if it happens.
- If it is Joe Sacco, the D coach might be Lefebvre or however you spell it! that’s positive!
I’m filled with a feeling of…meh, after this move. Relief mixed with resignation, in turn mixed with confusion. If that makes sense. I do think things are much better within the organization than the day the season ended, so that’s something, I suppose. It’s hard to get too excited though.
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