Avalanche Report: Fire everybody, make Sacco watch

By: on Mar 16 2011 - 10:46am



Pierre Lacroix has failed to build a consistent winner in Colorado in the Salary Cap Era. It's time to find somebody that can run a team in the modern NHL

ENGLEWOOD, CO - JULY 09: Colorado Avalanche P...

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Fire Greg Sherman!  Fire Pierre Lacroix!  Keep Joe Sacco… make him watch.

The Avalanche are mired in their worst-ever slump.  Not just worst this season, but literally the worst they have ever played since coming to Colorado.

In fact, if it weren’t for two 4-3 victories over St Louis in the last two months, the Avalanche would be winless since January 18th.  That would be an epic 22 game losing streak… as if losing 17 of their last 18 isn’t bad enough.

Instead, because they outskated and barely outscored the Blues twice, the Avalanche have gone 2-18-2 over those 22 games.  That’s good for 6 points or, in layman’s terms, squadoosh.  Colorado’s decline from playoff contender to Western Conference afterthought has been so quick as to be less painful, but no less embarrassing.

Over four games in eight days last week the Avs gave up an average of 5 goals while scoring an average below 2 (1, 2, 2, 2).  That’s beyond pathetic.  That’s abysmal.  Heads must roll.

So instead of doing my weekly preview article for the Avalanche this week, I will briefly lay out why the entire Colorado front office must go.  (Here’s your preview: Wednesday, March 16th @ Vancouver = LOSS ; Thursday, March 17th @ Calgary = LOSS ; Saturday, March 19th @ Edmonton = SUPER-EMBARRASSING LOSS)

Avalanche General Manager Greg Sherman took over in 2009 and has so far failed to build a sustainable defense in Colorado.  Not only that, but he has continued to inexplicably draft offensive players when goaltending and defense are the club’s greatest needs.

NOT ONLY THAT, but Sherman traded away Kevin Shattenkirk, Colorado’s one successful defensive draft pick.  Sherman pulled the trigger on this trade just a couple weeks removed from Shattenkirk’s participation in the All Star Game as a rookie invitee.  The behemoth defenseman Sherman got in return from the St Louis Blues for Shattenkirk most likely helps Colorado’s defense in the future, but Greg tossed in star power forward Chris Stewart to sweeten the deal.

To review: St Louis got a future star two-way defenseman and an emerging star PF.  Colorado got an underachieving defender (Erik Johnson) with no offensive capabilities who may someday be one of the better one-way defenseman in the league.  Bad trade.

Just before orchestrating this monstrosity, Sherman dumped fan-favorite goalie Craig Anderson in a straight-up trade to Ottawa for lesser goaltending prospect Brian Elliott.  This move stunk of panic then, but now it looks like a lame move designed to make a failed front office appear to be on the job.

Anderson is struggling behind a terrible Senators defense, Elliott is struggling behind a terrible Avalanche defense.  Nothing has changed except that Andy made a brief run in Ottawa over his first five games to remind Colorado fans what he is capable of when motivated by the potential to actually win some games.

Sherman sat idly by while the Avalanche crumbled on defense.  By the time a series of offensive injuries began this slump, Colorado had absolutely no defense to fall back on.  And so the losing continues.  The Avalanche have held opponents to less than three goals just once (a 2-1 SO loss to Anaheim) since this magnificently terrible slump started.

But don’t pin all the blame on Sherman.

Colorado Avalanche President Pierre Lacroix still pulls the strings behind the scenes.  He has been riding easy since winning two Stanley Cups for Colorado in the pre-salary cap days.  Back when Pierre could spend his way to victory it was easy.  He is a talented team-builder.  However, he has no talent for drafting on defense, has not orchestrated a positive trade in ten years, and is the rotten heart of complacency that is dragging this organization down.

Fire Pierre Lacroix first.  Make it a very public dismissal.  Let Sherman think his job is safe and then give him a one-way ticket to Toronto as soon as a suitable replacement is found.  Make Joe Sacco watch the whole thing.  See if he can turn this team around despite its crippled roster.  If not, if next season is as abysmal as this one, send Joe back to Lake Erie and start from scratch.

As bad as the Avalanche are right now in this moment in club history, only wiping the slate clean makes any kind of sense.  Time to clean house Colorado.

This entry was posted by on Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 at 10:46 am and is filed under Avalanche. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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  • John

    First, I am surprised Sacco is still there. Not disappointed or happy, really, just surprised.

    I don’t disagree that Lacroix must go. But, although you mentioned it, I don’t think you’re giving enough blame on injuries. What is it now, something 300 man-games lost?

    The Anderson trade, I agree, was pointless. I was disappointed in his performance this year, after almost single-handedly getting the Avs into the playoffs last year when expectations were low. I think he should have been given more of a chance, even if this season was already a write-off when he was traded.

    You also only mentioned Stewart as an afterthought. He was doing exceptionally well until he too was injured when be broke his hand on someone’s jaw. Well, it was probably a helmet, but I can dream. He was lackluster after returning, but I think he would have come around. I actually screamed “NOOOO!” when I heard he was traded, and my wife came running out to see if I was hurt.

    In the end, I don’t disagree with most of what you say, though. It’s time to clean house. Not at the end of the year. Today.

    Maybe third times a charm for Granato? (That’s a joke.)

    • http://spacesbetween.spaces.live.com Ian Cerveny

      Woof, Granato. At least we know it could be worse.

      Actually the only reason I don’t think we should fire Sacco is that he has had to deal with crippling injuries on offense and incompetence above him relative to defense. He still has his team out there fighting hard most nights, and that’s impressive considering how hopeless the situation seems. The Avs lay a lot more hits on their opponents since this slump got bad, and that’s Sacco telling them to go out there with attitude.

      It all starts with D, though, and dumping the front office (you’re absolutely right, not later – today) might give Sacco a chance to play with a real defense next season. Can’t score when the puck is always in your zone.

  • Brian

    You sure make sweeping judgements on two defensemen, who by NHL standards, are still babies. Shattenkirk apparently is a future all-star and EJ is a bust. Hmmm. Fact is, that it is too early to make such judgements on either player. Defensemen take longer to develop than forwards. They both have the potential to be great or they could both wallow in mediocrity. We’ll see what happens, but IF Sherman calculated correctly and EJ is another Rob Blake-type defenseman, which he very well could be, hockey fans in Denver will calling Sherman a genius. And it’s not like Shattenkirk doesn’t have his drawbacks. He’s small, slow, and was a liability in his own end. Yeah he’s 22, but the small and slow aren’t likely to change. The Avs had to shore up the blueline and acquiring EJ is the FIRST step in doing that. Personally, I would have rather traded Stastny than Stewie, but it’s not as if Stewie doesn’t also have his drawbacks, like his tendency to sulk and go into 10 game slumps.

    Back to the blueline, Stefan Eliott, a defenseman drafted by the Avs in the same class as Dutchy and Snook O’Reilly will make people say Kevin who? Wait, watch and see.

  • http://spacesbetween.spaces.live.com Ian Cerveny

    Sweeping judgments? My contention was that Johnson was underachieving NOW and that, while he may be an excellent shut-down defender later in his career, he will never be a two-way defenseman that is capable of helping consistently on offense. And Shattenkirk is one of the fastest skating defenders this club has ever seen, so I have no idea where you’re getting this “small, slow” nonsense. Shattenkirk is definitely a liability on defense, but he plays a great transition game and is capable of scoring like a power forward.

    Now, a straight-up trade of those two players would have been fine. But throwing in our best scorer, a player whose development scoring off the wing has been meteoric by NHL standards, is just ridiculous. Give them TJ Galliardi, fine. Give them Daniel Winnik if they want a plug-in power forward. (Involving Stastny, our future captain, in this trade would have been an even bigger disaster.) But giving them Stewie and Shatty is too much for too little, bottom line.

  • Brian

    You are over estimating Stewie and underestimating EJ. St. Louis would never have done the deal, substituting Galiardi and or Winnik.

    You sound like the people who whined about Pronger during his first couple of years in the league. Once he matured, he won the Hart Trophy. Many scouts and GM’s have compared EJ to Pronger. If he turns out to be another Pronger, the Avs will smell like a rose. But the bottom line is it’s going to take a few years to judge this trade. Even skeptics of the deal realize that. Just because Stewie has had a relatively strong start in St. Louis doesn’t make the trade a disaster. EJ has played well, by in large since coming to the Avs. Stewart is a promising young power forward, a rare commodity indeed. But so are stud blueliners. We’ll see how it plays out. I just think you are being a little melodramatic about the whole deal. Yeah the Avs are a mess, but it doesn’t take much to be in contention or fall out of it. The Avs of the past 3 years are testament to that.

    Also, Staz won’t be the the next captain or probably ever. JML, should and will get it next season and in a few years either Dutchy of Ryan O’Reilly will be wearing the C. That’s my hunch anyway. Making an overpaid, underachiever captain would be a bad idea.

    • http://spacesbetween.spaces.live.com Ian Cerveny

      My problem wasn’t with trading Stewie for Johnson. It was with trading Stewie AND Shattenkirk for Johnson. I would have been fine with a straight-up trade of the two or throwing in Matt Hunwick’s useless ass if they wanted a defender. In my opinion, we gave them two future stars for one future star. We gave up too much.

      And how is Staz an underachiever? He’s a 20 goal guy who dishes out assists like he’s chuckin a frisbee. Nobody’s scoring right now so his helper numbers are down, but next season he’ll still be at 20+ goals and up to around 50 assists. He’s a leader on and off the ice and he’s practically an elder statesman on this very young Avs squad. O’Reilly? Really? That’s just crazy talk. And Matty’s not enough of a team player to wear the C.

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