Joe Sakic wins GM of the Year Award

In the middle of the NHL Draft, the Colorado Avalanche only cared about one piece of news for themselves. This news was Joe Sakic winning the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year award in Montreal.

Celebrating his 53rd birthday today, he brings the Colorado Avalanche more hardware into the trophy cabinet this season. It is the first time he’s won the award, and deservingly so. Sakic had been in the running with the New York Rangers GM Chris Drury and the Tampa Bay Lightning GM Julien BriseBois.

Sakic has obviously been instrumental in building the Avalanche to where they are today. He is credited with the great Matt Duchene trade involving the Ottawa Senators and Nashville Predators that brought in players like Sam Girard and the eventual draft pick that was Bowen Byram.

He was also involved in trades such as getting Devon Toews from the New York Islanders for a couple of second-round draft picks. While there were no picks for him tonight, he was still active by acquiring Alexandar Georgiev from the New York Rangers for more draft picks. He really earned this award, and certainly could have and arguably should have won it more than once at this point.

In an interview with Emily Kaplan of ESPN after winning the award, he was thankful and called it a team award, with everyone having the same mindset from day one being altogether. He also had this to say about the trade made today.