Colorado Avalanche: Joe Sakic is Over-Reliant on MacFarland
About Chris MacFarland
As you can see from the image above (he’s the one on the right), Chris MacFarland is a seemingly unassuming man. He’s from the Bronx in New York and graduated with a degree in business. His highest level of hockey accomplishment as a player is he played in college.
MacFarland later graduated with a law degree from Pace University. He is a lawyer by training.
Chris MacFarland is best known in the hockey world as being the assistant GM to the Columbus Blue Jackets. He started as the manager of hockey operations in 1999, as the team was still taking shape. He was promoted to assistant to the general manager in July 2007 and actual assistant general manager in July 2008.
MacFarland served as assistant general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets from 2008 to 2015, when he got hired by the Colorado Avalanche for the exact same position.
While with Columbus, MacFarland worked mainly with Scott Howson as his GM, thoug he spent a year with Jarmo Kekalainen before jumping ship to Colorado. For coaching, he worked briefly with Ken Hitchcock and Claude Noel at the beginning of his assistant GM tenure. He worked two years with Scott Arniel and three with Todd Richards.
During his tenure with the Columbus Blue Jackets, the team only made the playoffs twice, getting ousted in the first round both times. The rest of the time they tended to dwell near the bottom of the conference, and usually near the bottom of the league as well. One season they only got 65 points. No, it was not the lockout season.