Colorado Avalanche Final Word on Why Patrick Roy Left

Nov 5, 2015; Glendale, AZ, USA; Colorado Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy looks on during the first period against the Arizona Coyotes at Gila River Arena. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 5, 2015; Glendale, AZ, USA; Colorado Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy looks on during the first period against the Arizona Coyotes at Gila River Arena. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports
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DENVER, CO – MARCH 24: Head coach Patrick Roy of the Colorado Avalanche looks on during the game against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Pepsi Center on March 24, 2016 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Michael Martin/NHLI via Getty Images)
DENVER, CO – MARCH 24: Head coach Patrick Roy of the Colorado Avalanche looks on during the game against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Pepsi Center on March 24, 2016 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Michael Martin/NHLI via Getty Images) /

With almost a year’s distance for perspective, let’s look at why Patrick Roy really left the Colorado Avalanche.

I’ve been forecasting for a while that I’d be doing a Colorado Avalanche series on, essentially, why Patrick Roy was right. To be clear, this was inspired by a reader — I simply decided to run with it in my blogger way.

Let’s start by clearing up some timing. Patrick Roy resigned on August 11, 2016. The Colorado Avalanche’s first preseason game was September 27. Training camp began on Thursday, September 22.

That means Roy resigned a full six weeks before the start of training camp. I don’t consider six weeks “just before” training camp. Six weeks is plenty of time to find an NHL coach.

GM Joe Sakic hired Jared Bednar on August 25, two weeks after Roy’s resignation. Bednar had never coached or been an assistant coach for an NHL team — he’d never played in an NHL game either. The timing and the candidate were all on Joe Sakic. He interviewed candidates with NHL experience — including Stanley Cup experience. He presumably could have had them in the Pepsi Center front offices by August 15.

Because here’s where I get into the opinion part of the post. All of the above is fact. Here’s my opinion: Joe Sakic forced out Patrick Roy. Therefore, he should have had head coach candidates in mind before Roy officially resigned.

Patrick Roy’s Role with the Team

DENVER, CO – SEPTEMBER 18: Colorado Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy, left, and Executive Vice President Joe Sakic talk to media about the up coming season, September 18, 2014. Avalanche veterans reported today for physicals and media availability at the Pepsi Center. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
DENVER, CO – SEPTEMBER 18: Colorado Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy, left, and Executive Vice President Joe Sakic talk to media about the up coming season, September 18, 2014. Avalanche veterans reported today for physicals and media availability at the Pepsi Center. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images) /

The team courted Patrick Roy. Almost from the time Roy retired in 2003, the team started offering him head coach or general manager positions. He turned them down in the beginning because he didn’t have any experience. Later, he wanted to keep coaching his sons in the QMJHL as head coach (and owner and GM) of the Quebec Remparts.

Finally, Joe Sakic, who’d been named executive vice president of hockey operations, and team president Josh Kroenke met Patrick Roy at his favorite local golf course, the Bear’s Club, in Florida. They offered him the head coaching position with a promise that he’d serve as the vice president of hockey operations.

Basically, while their titles changed through the years, the understanding was that Joe Sakic would help Patrick Roy build a team according to a shared vision. Roy would be the front-and-center guy as head coach, giving interviews practically every day during the season. Sakic would be the behind-the-scenes guy.

In that time, the shared vision was to build a big, gritty, speedy team with great skill. They’d build according to a combination of old style — mixing veterans with young bucks — and new style — emphasis on speed and changing systems. They were unofficially patterning the team after contenders like the Anaheim Ducks and LA Kings.

Sakic and Roy are both Hall of Fame players. They have brilliant hockey minds. Together they eschewed advanced stats. Many fans and reporters called them old fashioned for that. However, I’ve long maintained that because of their brilliant hockey vision, they see the game on so many different levels that advanced stats can’t predict.

Anyway, Patrick Roy declared in the first season what his intentions were: to bring a Stanley Cup attitude back to Colorado. They were going to build around a talented group of youngsters — Gabriel Landeskog, Matt Duchene, Erik Johnson, Ryan O’Reilly and the newly-drafted Nathan MacKinnon.

The team was not in a rebuild. They were seeking relevancy from the get-go. The understanding was that Sakic and Roy simply had to augment the core with the right cast of supporting players.

Patrick Roy continued forth with that vision. I believe that, until he started thinking about resignation, he believed the team could be relevant with its existing core and the proper supporting cast. It was Joe Sakic who lost faith.

Joe Sakic Changes Course

CHICAGO, IL – JUNE 24: General manager of the Colorado Avalanche Joe Sakic attends the 2017 NHL Draft at United Center on June 24, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)
CHICAGO, IL – JUNE 24: General manager of the Colorado Avalanche Joe Sakic attends the 2017 NHL Draft at United Center on June 24, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images) /

Patrick Roy had general manager (and owner) experience from his eight years with the Quebec Remparts. That’s largely why Kroenke and Sakic expanded his duties beyond that of traditional head coaches. He was supposed to have a big say in player personnel.

Joe Sakic was the GM, though, so technically he had the final say. And for some reason he lost faith in the vision that he and Roy had crafted together. He started marshaling forces around himself, hiring a new assistant GM, Chris MacFarland, who started taking over some of Patrick Roy’s duties.

Sakic also deviated from the vision. He drafted an undersized center, Tyson Jost, when a center more in the Avalanche mold of the time, Logan Brown, was still available at the #10 slot.

What’s more, he started making moves like the team was in a rebuild rather than striving for relevancy. He picked up some cheap role players in free agency rather than go after Roy’s preferred candidate, Alexander Radulov (18 goals, 36 assists with the Montreal Canadiens).

He also traded away one of Patrick Roy’s favorite defensemen, Nick Holden, essentially just to get rid of him. Colorado got a fourth round pick back for him.

Sakic took undersized defenseman Tyson Barrie to arbitration then signed him to a fat contract (four years with an annual cap hit of $5.5 million). While Roy valued Barrie, he wasn’t in the Avalanche mold, and he’s a definite defensive liability.

And then Joe Sakic announced that Patrick Roy wouldn’t be having as much say in team management — he’d be focusing on coaching. This was not the agreement.

Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic were supposed to be working together to build a team to a shared vision. Sakic broke faith with that agreement. So, when Roy decided to resign, he did so by observing the following, from his PR statement:

“I have thought long and hard over the course of the summer about how I might improve this team to give it the depth it needs and bring it to a higher level. To achieve this, the vision of the coach and VP-Hockey Operations needs to be perfectly aligned with that of the organization. He must also have a say in the decisions that impact the team’s performance. These conditions are not currently met.”

I repeat: Sakic and Roy were supposed to be working together to build the Colorado Avalanche to a shared vision. Sakic changed the plan. He broke faith with Patrick Roy.

Now, think about it this way — how do you think Patrick Roy, he of the immense ego, the Stanley Cup rings in his ears, the collapsed partition — how was that man supposed to take the news that he’d been demoted, he’d still have to answer for team decisions, but the Avs were no longer on the relevancy track?

Do you really expect a man like Patrick Roy to accept that? Now imagine Joe Sakic, who’s known Roy for decades. Do you think Sakic really expected Roy to accept what amounts to a patsy role?

No. He knew what he was doing. In the battle of egos, Sakic out-egoed the egotistical Patrick Roy.

LOS ANGELES, CA – JANUARY 27: Former NHL player Patrick Roy waves to the audience during the NHL 100 presented by GEICO show as part of the 2017 NHL All-Star Weekend at the Microsoft Theater on January 27, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chase Agnello-Dean/NHLI via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA – JANUARY 27: Former NHL player Patrick Roy waves to the audience during the NHL 100 presented by GEICO show as part of the 2017 NHL All-Star Weekend at the Microsoft Theater on January 27, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chase Agnello-Dean/NHLI via Getty Images) /

Patrick Roy’s Departure

Patrick Roy resigned on August 11. That was six weeks before the start of training camp. It was also seven weeks after the draft, six weeks after Free Agency Frenzy and two months after the Nick Holden trade. It was two weeks after Tyson Barrie’s contract signing.

Some people cite the timing as Roy trying to get a last jab at the Avalanche. It’s not like that at all. Probably right up until the Tyson Barrie signing Roy still thought he could make things work with the team. Then he saw how much money was tied up in a relatively unproven, defense-poor defenseman. He saw how shallow the talent pool was. He saw how poor the supporting cast was that Sakic (because by them Sakic admitted he was making the decisions without Roy) had devised.

He also knew he’d have to be the one taking the heat literally every day as the team imploded (which it obviously did).

And he also may have felt a twinge that his longtime friend was forcing him out and may have to even fire him.

More from Mile High Sticking

I can sympathize with the position Patrick found himself in. I’m a business manager. For a while I had an immediate supervisor I loved. We had the same vision for our team — reward based on merit and excellence.

Then, my supervisor had to quit for personal reasons. My new supervisor had a different vision — merit based on loyalty with only lip service paid to excellence. We have a hard time keeping staff, so we have to keep our employees happy.

I was full steam ahead on the original vision, and suddenly I was getting documented for documenting poor performance and having to talk to HR. It was an intense time, and I wanted to quit.

Unfortunately, I’m not Patrick Roy. Because Patrick has one helluva safety net — a reported castle in Quebec, a summer home in Florida and who knows how much net worth. (He made a tidy profit when he sold the Remparts.) He also has a Hall of Fame name for himself.

I don’t have any of those things, so I’m having to wade through the mess of my job. Does that make me more noble? Hell, no — it just makes me more desperate.

Sometimes Colorado Avalanche fans act like little children who’ve been abandoned by their father. Patrick Roy quit on the team. He’s a quitter. He abandoned us.

Patrick Roy made a personal and professional decision. One of his closest friends had broken faith with him and seemed prepared to literally throw him to the wolves (well, media). He had his personal reputation as a winner at stake.

Concerning the timing, Roy said the following:

“I took my time [deciding to resign] because I was close to my players and I really enjoyed them.”

Patrick Roy was famous for being a players’ coach. To the end he had his players’ backs. (Don’t cite Matt Duchene at me — read this.)

And he wasn’t a fiery 30 years old anymore, a hot-tempered goalie who could march past an asshole coach (Mario Tremblay) to succinctly announce to the president that he was done with the team.

Rather, he needed to make a more sedate decision about his personal and family life. He knew it would be hard on the players for him to leave. He knew it would be hard on the team. But he’d been put between the proverbial rock and hard place.

And he had the means to exit.

I have a reputation for being a huge Patrick Roy fan. I have a Roy tattoo.

But that doesn’t change the facts. Joe Sakic took away contractual promises made to Patrick Roy. Roy took the time to make a decision that affected him personally and professionally. He left the team with one-and-a-half months to find a suitable head coach.

What happened after — the Colorado Avalanche’s disastrous 48-point season — is not Patrick Roy’s fault. We don’t need to be abandoned children. We can be adults who realize sometimes you have to make difficult decisions. Sometimes that means toeing the line, because I need my job, and sometimes that means leaving a job. That’s all Patrick Roy did.

Next: Roy Had No Big Problem with Duchene

Note to readers: Congratulations on completing the second in a five-part series.

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