New Avalanche Regime? Sounds A Lot Like The Old Avalanche Regime.

by David Driscoll-Carignan on Jun 30, 2009 8:58 AM MDT in News Comment 17 comments

I think most of you that tomorrow is the big day - the day when teams can start their feeding frenzy for unrestricted free agency. But yesterday was kind of a big deal too. Teams had until 5pm eastern to tender a qualifying offer to their restricted free agents in order to retain their rights. Players that weren't tendered an offer become UFAs and are free to sign with any club starting Wednesday.

The Colorado Avalanche have a slew of restricted free agents and fans like us have been wondering who will be retained and who will be let go. Sadly, the Avalanche organization either feels that we should not have this information or perhaps they just couldn't be bothered to let anyone know. While there's never been an abundance of coverage on RFA QOs, a lot of teams have figured out that savvy fans want this information. San Jose, Minnesota, Montreal, Florida and Buffalo are among the handful of teams who recognize the importance of sharing this vital information with their fans. Colorado? Crickets.

Thanks to Adrian Dater and his sources, we know that David Jones has been tendered a qualifying offer (which he can't sign until July 1st) and that Cody McCormick has not been tendered. We also know that Peter Budaj has signed a 1-year extension with the Avalanche...all information that has yet to appear on the Avs' official site. We still do not know the fate of Jason Bacashihua, Philippe Dupuis, Michael Vernace, Kyle Cumiskey or Aaron MacKenzie.

Memo to the Avalanche: This may seem like minor clerical paperwork to you, but it's important to a lot of the people who follow your team...people who may still be on the fence about those season tickets you are desperately trying to move. Not all of your fan base is a bunch of blubbering morons complaining about Joe Sakic's career +/- numbers. I speak from experience when I say that you have a lot of intelligent, knowledgeable fans out there and they want to know about stuff like this. There is no competetive advantage to be gained to keeping this information under wraps. Look, I don't expect you to start Twittering at your management meetings, but would it kill you guys to open up just a little?

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Buried at the bottom of AD's story today

The Avs also will not offer contracts to potential unrestricted free agents Ian Laperriere, Tyler Arnason, Andrew Raycroft and Ben Guite.

I completely understand Arny and Raycroft. Nobody in their right mind would re-sign those two. But the whole Lappy thing just blows me away. If you have to buy out Tucker to get it done, for the love of all that is good, just do it! And Guite is another example of a reasonable asset, who should be relatively cheap, who you could at least use to strengthen your overall bargaining position in trades or other moves. Frankly, other than having Duchene fall into their laps at #3, this off-season has been quite underwhelming/disappointing so far.

MHH: Shagging Dater one contributor at a time.

by Bob in Boulder on Jun 30, 2009 9:30 AM MDT reply actions 1 recs

I can even understand the reasoning behind Lappy, even if I don’t agree with it. McCormick too. But Guite? Why would you let him go?

I’m reserving judgement to see who the Avs sign, but I recall doing that last year when they let Bruno go…

Hyphens cause writers more trouble than any other form of punctuation, except perhaps commas.

by David Driscoll-Carignan on Jun 30, 2009 9:33 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

If they don’t sign Yelle as 4th line center to replace Guite, I’m just gonna go apoplectic! By pissing away this team’s greatest leader in Lappy (and I say that in full knowledge and respect of the fact that SuperJoe may or may not be back), they are really, really trying to get me to never buy another ticket/sweater/tshirt anything!

by Hopfenkopf on Jun 30, 2009 9:39 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

replaceable

I’m fairly torn on Lappy. One of the most standup guys out there, a complete team player and has the kind of character the Avs desperately need. On the other hand, we’ve got a decent amount of young guys who have the potential to fill that void (McLeod in particular). I think Lappy won’t be missed on the ice nearly as much as he will in the hearts of the fanbase. It’s tough to see him go, but if we are serious about rebuilding, he won’t fit in the plans long term I wouldn’t think.

As far as Guite goes, a hard worker, willing to sacrifice bigtime for the team, but in my mind, he’s easily replaced by any number of young guys looking to earn a spot, and at a cheaper price too. I would much rather see the Avs replace Guite with Yelle, or Dan Hinote, but I’m betting their relative cost isn’t worth it either….

by jd21 on Jun 30, 2009 10:39 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

the communication is the key issue to me — it’s possible guite wants 1m+ in salary, and that would be dumb for us to do. but we have no idea. why won’t they tell us?

by thedoctor on Jun 30, 2009 9:42 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

The organ I zational arrogance of this team never ceases to surprise me. You’d think we as fans would, could be better positioned emotionally to handle their institutionalized BS. And then I find myself totally pissed…again. I guess I was in LaLa land over Lappy. No way they would actually do this. And then they did.

by Digit on Jun 30, 2009 9:52 AM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Someone has to go – to make room for Stoa and Galiardi. Maybe Yip and Mercier as well and perhaps Duchene. This is will a younger team; time will tell if it is a better team. As of today the centers look like they may be: Stastny/Stoa/Wolski/Galiardi – you may add Sakic and/or Duchene.

It makes no sense to keep a team together that finished last, even if popular players have to go. The AVs need to find out if their young players are as good as they hope they are. A lot of contracts expire after the upcoming season – it makes sense to find out what they have so they can make better decisions at the end of the upcoming season.

That is also why a one year contract for Budaj makes sense – his contract ends with many others.

Next season looks like management will focus on finding out where the younger talent fits, then fill in the missing parts in July 2010.

by jburke73 on Jun 30, 2009 11:48 AM MDT reply actions 0 recs

I don’t think its fair to let eveyone go just because we had a bad year. There were a few reasons why we wern’t competitive on a daily basis, I would easily give the team another shot since we were without our top 2 centers for half the year and more.

by Avalanche318 on Jun 30, 2009 12:21 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

and hopefully with an NHL caliber head coach.

MHH: Shagging Dater one contributor at a time.

by Bob in Boulder on Jun 30, 2009 12:31 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Again?

Blah blah blah coaching blah blah Granato sucks blah blah blah Sacco blah blah.

Besides Scotty Bowman, you have no idea who’s a good head coach and who isn’t, Bob. Hardly anyone does. You like Bob Hartley – why is he still out of the NHL? You like Todd McClellan, and he crapped the bed in San Jose. You might have remembered Dan Bylsma when he was a journeyman, but you had no idea he was a coach in Pittsburgh’s minor league system, and you sure as hell didn’t know he’d lead Pittsburgh to the Cup. You don’t know. Neither do I. Neither does anyone else here. Most owners, GMs, scouts, players, and fans don’t know. They just don’t.

Coaching is incredibly overrated in almost any sport the higher you get up on the food chain. This isn’t “Hoosiers” or “Remember the Titans.” Most players at this level don’t respond to coaching, especially head coaches.

The great organizations, like Detroit, put the talent on the ice to win year after year. Success in the NHL has a lot more to do with talent and a lot less to do with coaching.

Since Scotty Bowman won the Jack Adams award for the 95-96 season, here are the past winners. How many of these guys are great head coaches? A few are available, and some you wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole.

1996–97 Ted Nolan
1997–98 Pat Burns
1998–99 Jacques Martin
1999–2000 Joel Quenneville
2000–01 Bill Barber
2001–02 Bob Francis
2002–03 Jacques Lemaire
2003–04 John Tortorella
2005–06 Lindy Ruff
2006–07 Alain Vigneault
2007–08 Bruce Boudreau
2008–09 Claude Julien

by Dan Winkler on Jun 30, 2009 8:13 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Of the coaches on that list

I would take every single one of them over Granato. So your point is, Danno?

MHH: Shagging Dater one contributor at a time.

by Bob in Boulder on Jun 30, 2009 9:23 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Most of those guys are good coaches.

Nolan is a good coach whose abrasive personality keeps getting him in trouble.

I don’t know much about Barber and Francis, but the rest of those guys are good to excellent coaches.

The 2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Slumpbusters

by Jibblescribbits on Jun 30, 2009 9:26 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm all for putting the young players in.

That being said, I’m counting on Stoa to fill the gaping hole that we have on LW, 2nd line. If Joe and/or Duchene come in, I figure them for 2nd center, with the Baron on the 3rd line. If not, we look like SoS/Baron/Galiardi/??? down the middle. Given what we’ve seen from Galiardi last year and the fact that he played well on the top line, it makes me think that it would be folly to drop him to the 4th line. Don’t know, but maybe he has experience at wing? I guess I’d figure out from whom I was losing more, Galiardi or the Baron, by moving him to LW on the 3rd line.

You’ll note that I don’t take Darcy *ucker (censored – this is a family show) into account here. That’s because I waive him – unconditionally – prior to training camp or trade him for a conditional 436th round draft pick in draft of 874,584.

by Hopfenkopf on Jun 30, 2009 4:32 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Whatever happened to Tyler Weiman?

2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Dry Humping Mediocrity

by Mike @ MHH on Jun 30, 2009 7:06 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

I believe Weiman is a UFA (I think I recall seeing that). I’ve seen MacKenzie listed as an RFA and a UFA. I think it’s the latter, but I don’t think it matter either way.

Still waiting to hear firm word on Bacashihua, Vernace and Dupuis, but it sounds like Cumiskey and Jones are the only ones

Hyphens cause writers more trouble than any other form of punctuation, except perhaps commas.

by David Driscoll-Carignan on Jun 30, 2009 7:19 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs