Aarif Deen
If Joe Sakic and the Colorado Avalanche are searching for a new general manager, they’re certainly keeping that information close to the vest. Sakic spoke at the season-ending press conference last week and didn’t reveal any information about a new GM coming in.
It’s still something that could happen later. But right now, it really doesn’t feel like there is much of a search. Sakic is their guy. And he reiterated, multiple times, his excitement for taking on a role he hadn’t held in four years.
“It’s business as usual from our end. We’re going to try, as a staff, to make this team as good as possible so we can try and be a contender again,” Sakic said. We had a lot of reflections, a lot of internal conversations, players, staff, and management. It’s going to be great going forward.”
Sakic knows the team he and former GM Chris MacFarland built together is still a special squad. It’s just a matter of figuring out what went wrong against the Vegas Golden Knights and trying to find a fix for the upcoming season.
“We all feel that we left something on the table, but you wake up the next day, and you look to try and get better. We got a great group,” he said. “Yes, we had a tough last week of hockey, but we still, from September on, we won the President’s Trophy. We had the most points in franchise history. We played really well against L.A., really well against Minnesota. We played against a team that, just for that time, played better than we did.”
He continued: “No excuses, but we’ll be ready for next year. It’s disappointing. It stings, but we got a great hockey team here, and this team was built for a two-to three-year run. We still got most of the guys coming back, and their expectations, our expectations, I know the fans’ expectations, is to try and win a Cup. And we’re hopefully going to accomplish that next year, but it really was, overall, an incredibly fun year.”
MacFarland departed the organization a week after Colorado was swept by Vegas. He joined the Nashville Predators, carrying the title of President of Hockey Operations and General Manager. It’s the same two titles Sakic holds with the Avalanche, for now.