Joe Sacco’s firing, Sunday afternoon, came as no shock to
Avalanche fans. With a 16-25-7 record
this season this year, even he knew he’d be on the chopping block.
His career with the Avalanche started out on a great note,
back in the 2009-2010 season, taking the team to the first round of
playoffs. In the past two years,
however, Sacco and the Colorado Avalanche have not been able to finish better
than eleventh in the Western Conference.
Since his debut as Colorado’s head coach, he has compiled a
130-134-30 record, which is the worst record of any Avalanche coach to date.
Back in the day, Joe Sacco was a notable hockey player in
the NHL, playing for teams like the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, the New York
Islanders, the Washington Capitals, and the Philadelphia Flyers. But his experience as a player did not carry
well over to his coaching ability; many aspects of Joe Sacco’s coaching
showed his lack of experience when it comes to coaching in the NHL.
In 2009, Joe Sacco was brought up from within the Avalanche
organization. Prior to taking the head coaching position for the Colorado
Avalanche, Sacco was the head coach for Colorado’s AHL affiliate team, the Lake Erie Monsters.
This experience as a minor league coach definitely allowed
Sacco to work well with the young, inexperienced players that came to the
Colorado Avalanche during his seasons as head coach.
“Sacco does a great job of developing young talent, as
evidence by Calder Trophy winner, Gabriel Landeskog,” argued Julie Williams,
Avalanche fanatic from Kansas City, Mo.
While he did do a great job at helping the young players
adapt to life as a professional athlete in the NHL, he failed when it came to
motivating the team as a whole.
“He was never vocal about anything, you see him shown on the
bench or on the jumbotron and he’s just staring out, nowhere,” explained Ray
Nutt, hockey player for Colorado State University and NHL expert.
Joe Sacco’s inability to motivate the Colorado Avalanche has
not been the team's only problem in these recent seasons; the problems lie within the infrastructure
of the franchise as well.
Some blame for such a disappointing season, needs to be put on the players as well. With only P.A. Parenteau and
Matt Duchene putting up some serious points for the team this year, there were
some major motivation problems among the players as well.
Jean-Sebastian Giguere pointed out his teammates lack of
motivation, towards the end of this season. He felt that some of the younger members of the team did
not have their heads in the game. By the time the team started playing to win, it
was too late and playoffs were out of reach.
Aside from witnessing a dysfunctional team on the ice, Colorado
Avalanche fans, like Kristin Olsson, who have a vast knowledge of what goes
into building a great team, have recognized many problems associated with the
ownership and many internal players associated with this franchise.
“Kroenke owns a lot of Colorado teams,” Kristin pointed
out, "they don’t give the support to the Colorado Avalanche to allow it to be a
successful team.”
Aside from funding alone, problems can be found in the
franchise’s General Manager, Greg Sherman.
“Sherman has a number of bad trades in the past,” Nutt
explained, “one of the worst being the trade of Kevin Shattenkirk for Erik Johnson.”
Despite being injured for part of this last season, Johnson
only put up four total points for the Avalanche, and ended this season at a minus three. Shattenkirk, however, has managed to
put up whopping 18 assists and five goals for St. Louis this year. With the trade of Shattenkirk, three years
ago, the Avalanche clearly lost one of the most aggressive defensemen in the
NHL.
Even though this franchise has many internal problems that
will need to be address sooner than later, the firing of Joe Sacco was one
major step in the right direction. It
will be interesting to see who this franchise gets to fill his shoes.
