Over the past couple of years, the Colorado Avalanche have added several former players to their front office. Joe Sakic is the most notable one and he used to be the team’s general manager before switching up his role/title to President of Hockey Operations. Then you have Andrew Cogliano, who was hired as the special assistant to the general manager following his retirement.
Upon some breaking news this morning, another former Avalanche player could be in play to rejoin the team in a front office role of some sort.
After the Avalanche’s very disappointing series loss to the Dallas Stars, some people have been calling for Chris MacFarland’s job. Why? He essentially traded away some potentially key young players along with some draft capital for pieces that likely won’t be around very long. I’m pretty sure that his vision was to win the Stanley Cup this year and that’s why he made those decisions.
It was a good idea, if it had worked out. But it didn’t.
The Los Angeles Kings are moving on from Rob Blake. He had been with the club since 2013 after he retired. He played for Los Angeles from 1990-2001 and then moved to the Avalanche from 2001-06, making another trip back to L.A. from 2006-08, and then finishing off his career with the Sharks.
Blake brought in Vladislav Gavrikov and Joonas Korpisalo to help build the Kings, while perhaps his biggest recent move was bringing in former Avs’ goaltender Darcy Kuemper to make them quite competitive.
My gut does say that the Avalanche will not move on from Chris MacFarland as general manager. However, the Avalanche could still consider bringing Blake in for some separate role. Maybe another assistant to the general manager? Obviously, there is a connection here if Blake joins the Avs: Sakic is a former teammate of his.
If anything, for fans, it could be fun to see his return happen. As a business aspect, it might be worth exploring. If it doesn’t work out, at least there’s no salary cap among coaches or front office personnel. It would be a low-risk potetential high-reward situation if this were to happen.
The Avalanche have several decisions to make among their free agents and whatnot. If hiring Blake is going to happen, it should be as soon as possible to get a move on with the upcoming team transactions.