How will hiring Dave Hakstol change the Avalanche | DNVR Avalanche Podcast

Yeah. Heat. Welcome in to the DMBBR Avalanche podcast. It is Wednesday, July 9th. We got Biggie, we got AJ, we got Rudo coming to you live. Uh yesterday at the end of our show, Dave Hackaw was announced as the ABS new assistant coach. We’ve had a day to look into it, develop our feelings on it, and now we can talk about it. I would say results are mixed. Thoughts are mixed at best on Dave Hack filling this role for various reasons. But let me ask you guys this to start off. What were your thoughts on it immediately when he was signed and where do you sit on it now? I think my first thought on it was it took us two months to get to this. And I I guess I don’t know what I was expecting. I’m not like I I really don’t know like what I was like I don’t know. I I didn’t think I was going to feel many things whenever they announced the uh the assistant because it’s an assistant and like how important is he and you know what what kind of job is like what is his role going to be? these there there’s so much of it that it’s unknown. And then they announced that it was going to be a head coach who hadn’t been a good head coach uh across multiple jobs. And it was like, okay, do and then a bunch of people then a bunch of people reminded me that he coached the Seattle team that beat the ABS and I was stupid. So, it was uh yeah, it was a good reminder yesterday that I’m stupid and uh I should be excited about this. I guess, hey, look, if Hacksaw can bring that amount of good puck luck to the ABS, they might become unbeatable. So, he’s the lucky charm. I’m I’m down for the lucky to be honest. That one time. Um here’s what I’ll say. Don’t know him. uh, you know, college or NHL or ne never never spoken to him. So, I’m sure he’s a nice man. Um, my take on it is I I’m not trying to discard him. I’m saying I think they tried different things and and that hence the two months and and it got you there. I I don’t think he was the first choice. Uh, three people left on the coaching side of things, right? From from the Eagles and and the Avalanche. Um, no, two, no, three. Well, he caught Ray, right? There’s three openings. One was fired. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, I get it. And I got that one. I I think Ray understood that one, too. And I I do, too. But And now you you have this um which is fair. I mean, this is a guy with experience. He’s gotics. I I’ll stick to what I’ve been saying. I I don’t think you I don’t think you hire someone because of your power play. Um that again, if I’m the avalanche, it comes down to personnel. Yeah. In Edmonton, they have great personnel. Toronto, um he was there in Toronto. It’s great personnel. You have a 60 goal score. Matthews in Edmonton, you have Dry Cidle. Uh, the Avalanche have the personnel. Uh, I I don’t think you hire someone because of the power play X’s and O’s. I’ve always said that. I’ll refer to superstars as artists. Joe, Peter, um, now to to Mac and and Kale and guys like that, right? Um, they’ll do what they want to do. And at the end of the day, it comes down to h what are you going to do cohesively as a team? Forget about as an individual. There’s one puck and that’s on that’s on the coaching staff to do that. I I think that I understand the NHL now, the coaching side of things and and and the dividing up the the work and there’s so much work. Those guys get there early in the morning, they leave late at night. It’s a it’s a job. I mean, when I say job, it it it’s hours. It’s a lot of hours. And they’re all passionate about they all love it. But it’s a grind this season. And if you think you’re an ex player and you think, “Oh, I can be an assistant coach.” It’s not how it works. It’s not how it works because they work. As a player, you don’t work. I’ve always said that. Name me a job. You get home by 12:00 and you can take three-hour naps and you’re off for four months in the summer. It’s a great job. You know, let’s not kid ourselves. Coaching is tough. It’s a lot of hours. It’s and and they’re passionate about it, but I feel that it comes down to the head coach for me to get down and and yeah, you can get your assistants to work on the PP and the PK and it’s not like football where all the plays are again, I’m assuming I’m not a football guy, you know, the plays are called from the offensive coordinator and you know what I mean and this is how it works. Hockey is not that. You have tendencies, you have this, you have that. It’s a reaction uh game and and some guys react quickly and that’s why they’re elite and some guys don’t and that’s why guys that react quickly and they bring a skill set they’re on the power play. So therefore for me it’s on the head coach to make sure and this is not a a jab at at Jared. I again I’ll say it again. He should have won the Jack Adams in my book. So I’m not but at the end of the day the power play it it has been bothering me. You guys, I’ve made it very clear this year. It’s bothering me and it bothered me at the end. And I and it was a main cause of why the Avalanche lost in the first round. For me, there’s no ifs and buts. They scored two power play goals. They win that series in four or five. I I’ll stick to my points. So now, it’s up to to you to make sure that everybody’s on board. 29 included. 29 included. And I don’t care if it’s Dave Axel. I don’t care if it’s people were talking about Woodcraft that I’m sure they talked to and then he went to where do you go with Joel right Anaheim and then you know to to any anybody right spotter ended up in Boston. Um at the end of the day it’s on you it’s on the head coach and I think Jerald would be the first one to tell you that. So for me on this hire I’m like okay you know great I don’t know him so I’m not going to judge him. Uh, if it was Danny High, for example, I could tell you, man, I love it because Danny, I know him. I play with him. I know how he is in the locker room. I’ve seen him uh, you know, in situations. I’ve seen him with young guys. I’ve seen him with veterans. I’ve seen him with stars, you know. Oh, I get what he brings. Dave, I I I have to admit, I can’t b I don’t know what he brings. I don’t know him. Uh, so that that would be my my uh two cents on on the hiring. I I do think that uh and like we’re talking about hiring a an assistant coach here. Um however we feel good, bad, whatever, like it’s an assistant coach and we aren’t entirely sure just like how involved he’s going to be. It’s kind of a strange and part of the reason why I was so not thrilled about it off the jump yesterday was you have a defensive head coach, you have a defensive coach in in Nolan Pratt that’s been there for a really long time. Dave Haxall has always been he’s always run more defensive oriented teams. Where does he fit? Like what is his role going to be? What exactly are they looking to get from him? because we’ve been so focused on well they got rid of Ray Bennett that means they’re looking for somebody to run their power play. Okay, I mean Dave Hexall did it for a couple of years in Toronto. One year it was really good and the other year it was fine. It was league average. Um but it’s not like it’s I I guess I guess some of my confusion and and reticence to be excited here is I don’t see exactly how it’s all going to fit. there isn’t like a clear lane forward with this coaching staff that immediately makes sense. And some of that is alleviated when Eric is familiar with a guy, knows him, knows people who knows him. And instead, we’re all sort of in the dark here on this one where we’re just like, uh, okay. Uh, I guess we’ll we’ll see how this goes. Um, I’m not going to feel too strongly, good or bad. My initial instinct is he hasn’t been a very good coach in the NHL. Um, and when he left Seattle, there were an awful lot of comments from that locker room that were not positive. Players did not have a lot of good things to say about him when he left Seattle. And that’s kind of my impression of it. Um, yeah. So, I’m kind of just sitting here like, okay, I don’t think that it’s I’m not over the moon about it. I don’t think it’s the worst coach in the world that they could have hired. I guess I’m just sort of confused and I’m left with the picking up the pieces of okay, we’ll we’ll see how it goes. I mean, I think there’s a lot of angles to this and we’ll get into all of them over the next 50 minutes here, but kind of where I wanted to jump off first is we do expect him to have some sort of role right now. What it exactly ends up being, we’ll see. But Bedar has gone on record multiple times saying he is not a micromanager. He he leans on his assistant coaches to do what they do and he trusts them to do their jobs. So there is a pretty big degree of freedom for assistant coaches in the avalanche organization to whatever their role might be do it the way they want to make that work in the a system and go forward. So this is not again we’re speculating on what Hackall’s role might end up being. Maybe it’s not the power play. Maybe they have him designated to be doing other things as an assistant coach. I don’t know. But we are expecting him to have some level of impact. Whether that’s good or bad, up for debate. But it’s not like he’s just sitting there on the bench and it’s Bednar really doing everything. Now, yes, look, ultimately Bednar is the head coach. Every yes, no decision comes down to him. He makes final say on everything. That’s his job. But ultimately, there has to be some reason the A see that they hired Hack specifically. I can’t tell you exactly what it is. I’m, you know, I I’m not tied into that coaching room. I don’t know them that well, but I’m curious how they ended up here specifically. As both of you have alluded to, we’re assuming this was not their first choice, else it would have been done a long time ago, but it is who they ended up with. So, I I guess I don’t know what to expect next out out of Hackall and Bednar’s organizational step for the Avalanche. Well, yeah. I is this Go ahead. Go ahead. I just again I’m I’m my main thing I’m going to focus on today, I think, is what is the role going to be? Sure. because is he going to help them implement an overall like a system overhaul where they have a little where they play a little tighter defensively and that gives up some of what they do offensively. It given their signing of Brent Burns, uh it would seem like that’s not how the front office views it. Is is this about overhauling strictly a defensive zone system? In which case, why is Nolan Pratt still around? you know, like what is what is the level of input? Where is he going to where do they feel like he is going to help their coaching staff improve their process and their game planning and how he sees the game and where he can help make the avalanche better because if there’s one thing that has been true about Hackall’s teams, they’ve been pretty solid defensively at times and they play really low event. The Avalanche have been okay defensive okay to good defensively the last couple of years but prone to the big mistake where they get they break down and they get they end up in some fire wagon hockey with Pratt and Bner on hand that’s been pretty consistent. Will Hackall have a voice that helps them maybe stem those tides a little bit better or is this purely on the players which have not drastically changed either over the last few years. So, I guess that’s like if I’m trying to find the big positive in an area where I think he could be helpful, that would be it. He’s going to be another voice in the room that could help them with a PK system and uh a defensive zone system that is a little more cohesive and makes makes that part of the ice a little more palatable at times when it gets way too loose. Yeah. I mean, if I can just if I want to just add to what I was saying earlier, I was catching a little flack on the chat there, saying that I’m smoking something, you know what I mean, about Benar as being the uh Jack Adams. First of all, the all the awards are regular season awards. Do I agree with that? No, I do believe that you’re judged on winning the last game of the year. So, regular, you know, awards should should should should bring in the playoffs, right? Uh, with that said, I I still believe in the thing that they had last year, all the injuries and the start and the goalending they had, what they did. Yeah, Jared Benner should be top three in the Jack Adams 100%. So, I’m not smoking anything. That’s just the way it is, right? With that said, somebody in chat said also another first round exit and the coaching staff, yeah, probably that can be true, too. And I and I agree with that. He’s been around 10 years and he’s awesome and he’s done an unbelievable job. But at some point, you got to win, right? You got to get out of those those first rounds. So, he knows that, too. And that’s why I was saying this Hacker, I’m not sure I I’m not sure what he brings. I I don’t know how he is as a liaison, you know, between the coach and the players. That’s very important when you’re an assistant coach, you know. I was just comparing to Danny. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t even know if Danny was in contention. You would think he was if he was in the organization, but to me, that’s what’s important. You know, the power play is okay and Ben Nar can take that, but yeah, you said he delegates. Absolutely. This is a lot of work to do, but at the end of the day, that’s on you. And I’ve seen coaches on the bench, they go, “Yeah, AJ, no more. Don’t want to see him anymore, right? On the back end, you know, for example, it happens all the time because their heads are on the chopping block.” So, that’s my take on them. Eric touching on about five different topics I want to get into over the next couple of segments right there. Before we do that, we do have to pay a few bills. So, let’s make sure we’re paying our bills and delegating our stuff correctly. And of course, one of our many sponsors is Kors Light. You can choose chill right now with the Blue Mountain drink. The mountains literally turn blue on the bottle or the can to let you know it’s ice cold and ready to go. Of course, they’re available in pretty much every liquor store in the country. But if you don’t want to get up, if you want to sit on your couch and get yourself some Coors Light, go to cororslite.com/dnbrr. You can delivered right to your front door thanks to Inskart. Maybe you’re watching your dogs wrestle like mine right there. Sit back, enjoy the show with the Coors Light. It’s just that easy. Uh maybe you’re out grilling in the backyard having a burger or a hot dog. Coors Light, great for it. Absolutely love it. 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Get those last minute tickets. Lowest price guaranteed with game time. Second period of the DNVR avalanche podcast. And where I wanted to No, I was saying just for clarity on on the regular season awards like uh there’s LB’s talking about it, which you know, and I love them. Like I’m not saying that I I love the interaction with the chat, but just so everyone’s aware like um those awards are voted on at the end of the season before playoffs have started every award except the cons, you know. So every award is voted on I don’t remember the Jack Adam. Jack Adams voted by GMs or is it is it I don’t remember like some awards are voted by GM some ofward are voted obviously by your peers. That’s the what is it some word you know media have the Norris I believe I don’t remember coaches I I don’t remember who does it but but I know when I was it’s the broadcasters broadcasters so again it it’s voted on before the playoffs start everything’s turned in at the league just just for everybody to know but I’m not arguing playoffs and and and and that’s why I’m saying the same thing as I’ll be there because you got to have playoff success after a while you know what I mean because at the end of the day that’s where you get judged on. I think this is that’s why you get judged on. It It’s a symptom of where the ABS are right now. Regular season awards were cool when the ABS first started this ramp up of this era and people felt like McKinnon got slighted, Bednar got slighted. Then they won a Stanley Cup and that’s then that’s it. That’s the only one you care about now is the Stanley Cup. The other awards, it’s cool when Kale McCarth but it doesn’t hold the same sway that it did. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and frankly, the Jack Adams is maybe the most meaningless award that’s given out every year other than the Lady Bing. It’s I it’s almost exclusively given to coaches who have coached a team that has a goalender having a career year or a team that is having an insane season relative to preseason expectations, which is why Haxall was a finalist for it in the one good year that Seattle had. Nobody had Seattle being very good that year. Hey, their underlyings also weren’t very good that year. And hey, and I agree and again and and Ellie is they scored their problems. Yeah. And I agree with LB right here. I agree with him because I agree it’s st and I and I know he didn’t call anyone stupid. I know that I agree with his point. It is stupid that postseason does not count. For me, it should count because it’s a culmination of your year. Every every award should count, including postseason. So, I agree with them. And I know you didn’t call anybody stupid. I know that. So, it’s um I know. So, it’s just it’s a fair you you could do a show on this. You could do a full podcast on awards and how they should be and should not be, you know. So, yes, we probably will. Yeah. I’m a lot of Julas left to go. I do want to transition back to Hackall here and and the question I want to ask you guys is did the ABS learn a different lesson than we did from this playoff series cuz we’ve talked at length about how their power play was bad and it it was I’m not trying to not deny that it needs to be better than it was in that series. It probably could have won them the series. But when you look back at these games, game two had a lead with 10 minutes left in the game. Yes, a goal would have secured it, but also not giving up a goal was would have secured it. Uh same story with game three. They had a lead with 11 minutes left in the game. They give up a power play goal for Dallas to tie it and they go on to win it. And then game seven, they had a multi-goal lead in the third period that they blow. Is hiring a hack stall an indication that they are more upset with not being able to hold on to those leads than securing the insurance goals? Sure. Okay. I’m just looking I’m looking for reasons right now. I’m looking for reasons. I I get you, man. It’s just it I don’t I don’t know if they had kept the c the same coaching staff that it would have indicated that they were happy that those things happened. You know what I mean? Like they just it’s not it’s it’s really not like blowing third period leads and losing games was a regular season problem for them because it wasn’t. They blew two leads in the regular season in the third period leads and lost those games. Well, only one in regulation. So, it’s like this wasn’t this wasn’t an ongoing issue. It’s just it happened a couple of times in the series and that sucked. Yep. A and and a lot of times um again I’m not defending coaching here but a lot of time because I was a player so I’ll blame the goalies. There you go. It’s what we do as players. God didn’t make a save. No. Um I’m just kidding. But I think that those things happen and I I don’t think it reflects coaching. I think it reflects uh your group. You know what I your your your strength as a group and your ability to to close out games or your ability to make a big play defensively, offensively. I do believe the onus is on the players. That’s why I said I’m able to say this because I was a player. Um I just feel that for me coaching staff did not uh lose uh the series. I think the players did. Um, with that said, we all know that it falls on the coaches and that’s why I was saying at some point the Stanley Cup is three years away now, right? You know what I mean? You’ve had three postseasons since. So now you don’t have that anymore. Just look at Malone and the Nuggets side of things, right? You know what I mean? So at some point, right or wrong, right or wrong. So, so that’s on the onus is on the players and the players have to come up with strong nerves, strong plays, big plays, superstar plays, and that’s why you’re a superstar. You got to go make those plays and then big saves as well, right? You got to make that big save and then all of a sudden you don’t lose the the lead, right? Because your goalie made two big saves, you know what I mean? And and you don’t talk about it. You don’t talk about it. you just go, “Yeah, yeah, the Avalanche were 52 and one leading after two.” But you know what I mean? But if they lose, then you’re like, “Oh, yeah. Well, there was no save, there was no this, there was dumb play, there was dumb penalties, there was, you know what I mean? So there’s always excuses. So for me, the onus is on the players.” Ultimately, it’s always going to come down to the players on the ice making the plays, right? That is just how the sport is designed, how it’s supposed to be. the players are supposed to go out there and win and lose games for you. But there is a new coach in town and yes, you look at these numbers I’m about to give you some of. You have to understand there is context there of what players are on these teams, how good are they offensively, where are those teams at, but ultimately the underlying factor is Dave Hackl was a coach for all of these numbers. uh first head coaching job in Philly 2015 had the 11th best power play in the league just shy of 19%. Back then the league was a little bit different. Power plays weren’t nearly as good as they are these days where you know last year we saw numerous teams hit 25%. That year the highest power play in the league was 23%. So numbers were a little bit lower. But as far as part of the league, 11th pretty good across his head coaching tenure in Philadelphia. That power play got worse every single year. We saw Haxall’s power play numbers go in the wrong direction in Philly. They had a decent amount of talent through the mid2010s, but it did not work out very well. He goes to Toronto as an assistant coach. Has one very good year there. Toronto is in a in the top 10. I don’t have it right in front of me, but a very good power play. Eighth. There you go. And second year in Toronto, bang- on middle of the pack for the league. Uh I think it was 16th average. Ends up going to head coach to Seattle. Now Seattle clearly a significantly worse offensive ability team than that Philadelphia team and those Toronto teams. Does not perform. Yeah, we also see that team struggle to even make it to the midpoint. They do not develop a quality power play by any stretch and in their worst year they’re at the bottom of the league. One, as I just mentioned, how much of that do you guys place on Hackall as a head coach or assistant coach in those organizations for those struggles? And two, should we care about those numbers coming into Colorado or do you think they’re just not relevant to what Colorado is going to ask him to do with the power play or otherwise here? I mean, I guess I hate to be the buzzkill here, but frankly, we don’t know. uh you know without without knowing without really having a strong idea of what Hackallaw’s role in Colorado is going to be. We don’t know how relevant those are because if he was if he was the guy with his his hand in every single thing um in Seattle and those are a direct result of that and then he’s getting that same kind of control in Colorado. Very relevant. That’s a problem. You’re concerned. you’re concerned, but if you know he wasn’t super involved in the in Seattle then and he was delegating the way that we know Bner likes to delegate and then he’s going to get to Colorado and Bner’s going to delegate that solely to him. We don’t really know, frankly. We just don’t really know without having a better idea of how the responsibilities will be divvied up. We just don’t really know yet. Which is why I think it’s hard to be really really upset about this and really really excited about it. Yeah. And he didn’t coach last year either, right? You know, didn’t coach last year. Coach was assistant at the Spangler Cup, I think, was his only coaching. Yeah. Absolutely. The funniest part of that press release. He was an assistant coach for Team Canada at the Spangler Cup. Yeah, girl. All right. There’s an NCAA team next year, the Spangler Cup, which will be fun. That’s got to be fun. Um, what was I going to say? I was gonna say, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, listen, or or or a I don’t know. Or was this a a BAR hire or was this a Here it is. I found the connection. You know who the starting goalie was for Team Canada at the Spangler Cup? Antoine Bibo. Ah, that’s an old name. An Dwan Bbo. The real connection is Dave Hackal to Brock Nelson from a million years ago. Yeah, I know. But I mean, is this is this a Benar hire? Meaning like, you know, and Prader and and and Brett uh Brett Clay there in the uh in the video room. Um you know what I mean? No, they got to look for a skill coach, right? Um, they gota look for um, uh, what I’m trying to say to get back to act, sorry, so I don’t get lost. Is is this a bed or is this a combination of the front office and the coaching staff, you know, because well, okay, internally we named a rookie head coach, Latestu, right? That’s that’s a rookie head coach. He’s been an assistant coach in the American League. Now, are you protecting yourself with a guy that’s been a head coach in markets like Seattle, Philly, uh, and and obviously assistant coach in a big market like Toronto? So, are you protecting yourself a little bit in case something happens? And again, I’m not starting this I’m on I’m I’m not on this fire bendar thing at all. Like I told you guys, I So, let’s start that. But, as an organization, you have to protect yourself for things to happen. And so, is this that type of hire? Maybe. Uh, I I don’t know. Again, like I said, I don’t know. So, um, this is all we can speculate. Exactly. But to be honest, what it feels like is this is the guy that was left. They missed out on everything else and this guy was still there. I do want to continue this conversation. We do need to pay a few more bills, though. So, let’s hit that first and then you can keep rolling me. Uh, we are brought to you by the folks over at Cake Mortgage. Look, if you’re a regular employee at a company, you get your W2, your income shows on your tax return. super easy for traditional lenders. But a lot of you have a more complicated system. Whether you’re a business owner, a creative professional, maybe you’re a contractor, anyone who eats what they hunt, Cake Mortgage is here to help you. 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Go visit your front range Toyota stores including Auto Nation Toyota Rapo in Centennial Corwin Toyota in Boulder Group Toyota in Littleton Mount Denver, Stevenson Toyota East in Aurora and Stevenson Toyota West in Lakewood. Toyota again the official vehicle of the Colorado Avalanche. Let’s go places. Third period, the DMV Avalanche podcast. It’s, as I say with everything in this organization, it’s the results that will ultimately guide how people feel about this. If the ABS go out and have a wildly successful power play year, people will feel great about it. If the ABS go deep in the playoffs, people will feel better about it. If things go poorly, let me ask you guys this way. What would it take for Jared Bednar to be in the hot seat? Um, I I’ll go first. I’ll go first because I have so much respect for him and you know and I’m I’m going to put Prder in there. Um, again, this is I used to talk about Benar like this, meaning I’d never met him, never watched him, never really paid attention to his obviously his career. Uh, but wasn’t too sure at first with the avalanche, right? It was disastrous. We all know the circumstances he came in um won me over and I I think that um you know he’s won me over. Now I’ll say it again and I said it 10 minutes ago. For me it will never be about the coach. I’m being honest because I’ve been in those. It’s always on the players. You either you either live up to the moment or you don’t. Um as coaches, yeah, at some point you you you can get tuned out. That’s on you because you’re not adapting and you’re becoming redundant and you become annoying and it’s like, woo, you’re managing 25 egos. Forget about the X’s and O’s. Everybody has X’s and O’s. And you know, at the end of the day, it’s all the same. Let’s not kid ourselves. I’m just being honest, okay? Might be a little tweak here, a little tweak there. It’s how you get the players to execute your X’s and O’s. It’s how you get the players to execute the power play ideas or the PK ideas. Like I said, I’ll just use that on a side note. If your goalie can’t stop a beach ball, I don’t care what scheme you got on the PK, you’re going to be dead last. That’s just the way it is. If your goalie can’t stop it, that’s why I say it’s on the players, right? So, I I I don’t think he’s on the hot seat. And the question is, what would it take for me? I I I don’t want to hear this talk all year about Benar in the hot seat. like, you know, at the end of the day when the season ends and and and the Avalanche losing the first round again or whatever it is, that for me that would be like, okay, maybe it’s time, you know what I mean? Like maybe in even though I’m saying it’s on the players, but at some point it’s, you know, name me a coach besides Cooper and Benard that have had those runs right now. That’s a testament to him. It’s a testament to Cmac and Joe, right? because any ownership uh to make sure that they’re sticking with, you know, their guy, but at some point you’re not going to be there for it’s not this is not a college coach. This is not a guy that’s going to last 25 years. We all know that. He knows that. So for me, if you have an early exit again, then it’s time to just switch things. You know what I mean? You have to because it’ll be four years in a row now. You know what I mean? Where you’re kind of and again, forget about the circumstances and everything. At some point, like it’s on the players. I’m not blaming the coaches. I think these guys have been phenomenal and they’ve been ambassadors in the community. They’ve been phenomenal people like representing the organization, you know, and and I’m putting Brett in there too, right? You know, constants, you know, they’re it’s continuity all the time. But at some point, you have to have playoff success. And nowadays or back then, you you again, it’s the stupid line, you can’t trade away 25 guys. No, it’s true. You can’t. So, you just got to make a you can’t stand still. You can’t stay put. And for me, an early exit with me like, okay. But during the year, like those guys freaking deal with injuries. They deal with everything. And those guys are always there. They always find a way. And he’s always calm and he never calls out people. Uh I love the way he does it. I love the way Pder does it. So, yeah, I’m giving him flowers. I am. Uh even though they’re not my great friends and I’m not friends with them. I’m not calling them after this, you know. So, but at the end of the day, you have to get the players, you know, to get the most out of your players. Okay. Well, they didn’t get the most out of their players this past postseason, you know. I mean, that’s why I say it’s on the players. The onus is on the players, you know, but I don’t know. We’ll see. They’re they’re a good team. Yeah, you can make an argument that a significant portion of their lineup played their worst hockey in that playoff series of the year. Like, it was rough. Mhm. I agree. I don’t even know that I would agree. I think I would just look at primarily Kale Mar and say that’s a superstar who had the worst series of his career and if he has even an average series, it’s over in five games, you know? Like I’m not even looking I’m not even I I don’t know why we really have to pretend like the ABS were bad in round one. They should have won it. They threw it away. Every underlying metric but the power play. Yeah, it was it it’s just it it we don’t have to they choked. They threw it away. They they did all of the hard work to put themselves in position and then they got lit on fire. Uh they it was a it was a self- emilating postseason and I don’t think that Benner is in any kind of regular season pressure unless something goes really really badly. Um I would agree. I don’t think that he’s I don’t think that he’s in a in a regular season hot seat. But if they lose in round one again, that will be three of four years in which they’ve lost in the first round. And that’s unacceptable. You’re not paying for a top end roster like what the round what the Avalanche are paying for right now to be losing in round one. It’s unacceptable. I don’t I don’t care about oh the it’s the toughest division in hockey. It is great. That just means your job is a little bit harder. Well, winning a Stanley Cup is really hard no matter what. It just is. Does it help that Edmonton gets LA every single year and that’s a joke? Yeah, it does. It helps them every year, but ultimately Edmonton keeps beating the team that comes out of the Central. So, you know, I I’m just not They’re good guys. They’re great guys. They’re It’s to me it’s whatever. You cannot continue to lose in the first round of the postseason. It’s now two of three years. And if it gets to be three, you make a change. And that’s where I’m at with it. Okay. I’m I’m open to that. I had the opponents been flip-flopped, I think I would have I’d be more concerned about it this off season. Had the ABS lost to Seattle in round one this year, I think more alarm bells would be going off than the ABS losing in seven. You felt like they threw it to what was a conference final team. Yeah. and and everyone everyone felt like the winner of that series is going to the conference finals. So with with context, maybe it feels a little bit less pressing, but I agree with your original statement. Barring like a complete collapse in the regular season, it’s the playoffs of this next year are going to be where you start to feel about Jared Bentar. Um, it is what it is. I mean, we we can go through and and look at some of the postseason losses and and be like, “Wow, you know, some of these they weren’t, you know, like the San Jose loss, they weren’t expected to. One of them they had Michael Hutchinson in net.” You know, like some of them you can look at it, but the last couple of years, the Seattle loss, you look at and you go, “Yeah, a lot of really weird stuff happened in that series.” Do you remember game seven where the ABS dominated game seven and gave up a goal from behind their own goal line that hits Ben Meyers and goes into his own net? Like just just absolutely and and like the game tying goal gets wiped off the board because Artur Leanin is an inch offside like you know like like really weird like weird stuff happened in that series. Also the Val Neushkin stuff and their second line was JT Comfort, Lars Zeller and Evan Rodriguez. Like what in the absolute hell was that? Suspended for the weirdest play of all time. And that’s and and that’s their worst game of the series. Game five was their worst game. Like that was a that was an absolutely bonkers series and they lost it and we were all kind of relieved like okay well they were about to get smoked by Dallas in the next series anyway. So it is what it is right now. Remember it was a long year the entire team. It was a long year. It was miserable. They spent the whole season chasing. They spent the whole season chasing and that was for my money that was the worst Avalanche team of the last like six years like talentwise like they certainly the worst oh easily of the post of the three post cup teams by far the worst of them and overachieved in the regular season fine like it is what it is and two years ago they lose to Dallas they just weren’t good enough for me I’m I’m more than the coaching staff I’m putting that one on on the front office. You didn’t build a good enough team. All right, great. This last year, you built the team. You built a really good team. They didn’t get you there. I don’t look at it as coaching. Your guys, your guys outplayed their guys up until the third period of game seven. And your arguably your best player in Kale Mar had the worst series of his career. It’s It just is what it is. I don’t I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know how to feel too differently about it. Some of them you can put on coaching, some of them I’m I’m not. Some of them I put on management, some of them I’m not. And I think the way the end result is you’ve advanced to one conference final in this in this era with all this continuity and you’ve continued to build a good team. You’ve continued to this is a solid roster. This is a solid group that they have right now. They have gotten worse over over this course of this summer, but so have Winnipeg and Dallas. Dallas. Yep. Your direct competitors for the for the division title have also taken steps back partially because of the salary cap and that’s how this goes. But that’s just how it is. Like you’re you’re in a really good position. All the St. Louis, Utah, all these teams are chasing you down. you’re already in a good position. I I think part of the conversation here is, and it’s something we talk about a good bit on the show, is scenarios like this. Today, if you said the ABS had a twogoal lead in the third period of game seven of round one in this year’s playoffs, you would take it without even thinking about it. You would take that situation. Yes. Boom. Give me that. I don’t care who the opponent is. I don’t care how they got there. Give me that. Give me that. So I not that the AS are free from criticism. There’s plenty of criticism to be levied. We levied a lot of it on this show, but that criticism does not erase the significant amount of good work the ABS put themselves in a position to win that series. And then yeah, they choked, they blew it, whatever. You have to have a little bit of balance for giving them credit to putting themselves in a situation where they could choke. Obviously, the choke doesn’t feel good, but you can say they should have won the series because of the good work that they did. Hell yeah. Blew the leads instead of never had them. You were closer. It feels This is I I I said this after after the series ended, but uh it feels a lot like Andy Murray when he lost to Roger Federer Wimbledon and was crying on on center court and he was like, “Well, I’m getting a little bit closer.” And then he eventually did break through and won a couple of grand slams. He won Wimbledon. Uh Yep. Yeah. You got to take what you can get, I guess. But you need to you need to close. Eventually, you got to do it. Eventually, you got to do it. Yeah. Absolutely. You got to close, man. Uh to to circle back into Hackall a little bit here to just kind of wrap up this conversation. chat’s been talking about a lot. Again, a lot of speculation here. None of us are super familiar with Hackall, so take it for what it is. Do you think there’s any truth to Hackall being stepping into line if Bedar struggles in round one again? Is Hackall the air apparent or is this just a purely assistant coaching hire? I’ll go first. I mean, from Go ahead. Go ahead. I got my thoughts first. For me, it’s a little bit of Yeah, it’s a little bit of both. That’s why I brought it up earlier. I I’ve been in those positions. I’ve been in situations. And here’s what I’ll say. When it goes like disastrous, like it’s disaster. Uh and then you, you know, you have to make a coaching change. Uh you’re always looking and then you’re looking internally first, right? You know, who do I have uh here with this group that understand what’s going wrong right now? Who do I have in the American League? You know, to what do I need? What profile do I need? Do I need a softy? Do I need another harsh guy? What do I need? Right? When I say softy, you know what I’m saying? Uh, you know, a softer voice. Do I need a harsher voice? Do I need um do I need I don’t know. Like, you got to dress a profile. You’re doing this for a reason. There’s something that’s going bad. So I think that having comfort that you have somewhat internal in the front office I’m talking about comfort from the front office I think is important at times you know what I mean uh because you might it’s easier if you decide to go that way where if you don’t have anyone internally you can’t go that route you have to go purely on the outside right so so right away it takes the internal let’s look internally you don’t have on. Uh, so I for me that’s or or maybe Prader is that guy. I don’t know. I I don’t know what Prder’s goals are. Is Prader want to be a head coach one day? Um, I I really like him. I like him a lot. Uh, I have a lot of respect for him. I’ve never asked them, “What are your aspirations?” Right? You know, I’m not friends with them, you know. Um, but I I think that when you’ve have someone that’s been there in multiple places, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but experience-wise it’s a good thing. It’s not raw. It’s not new. It’s not rookieish, you know? So, I think it’s important. So, I think it’s a little bit of both. And and I think that’s where management probably stepped in. But again, that’s my assumption and that’s why I say to answer your question, it’s a little bit of both. I’m not sitting on the fence. I’m saying I think it helps that if something happens, you’re protected. Okay. I again, just my own personal thoughts. This is not anything else but my own opinion. I don’t want Dave Hackel to be the head coach of the Colorado Avalanche. I think he’s has a pretty proven track record of being a bad head coach. Yeah, it we’re sitting here talking about, oh, we don’t know what his role will be as an assistant. We know what it looks like as a head coach and it’s never been good. Yeah. Yep. He’s had three postseason appearances in seven years. Oh, it’s like six and six years and change because one of those years he got fired like 20 games, 30 games in or something. Yeah. So, um, I’m good on that. I can tell you that for sure. Um, that’s a hard pass for me. That’s a hard pass for me. I’d rather hire Pete Deborah at that point. He’s he’s a free agent right now. We’re talking about firing Jared Bedner next spring. Obviously, we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here. U, that guy’s out there. David Carl is out there. Just bring him on down the road. I mean, I there’s there are a lot of avenues to go to before I’m like, “Nah, Dave Hexel, head coach. This is a great idea. Sure, I’m I’m good on that.” The one thing I will say about him as a as a as an assistant coach that might help. That guy’s always pissed off. The fire on the bench, the fire on the bench might be a really welcome addition to a really quiet Avalanche coaching bench. Like that’s not you know that everybody takes their cue from Jared Bner. Cool, calm, collected. Dave Hackall is going to scream at somebody and sometimes need screaming at when Nathan McKinnon is that two and a half minute power play shift. Maybe someone got to yell at him to get off the ice. He’s going to scream at Nathan McKinnon and Nathan McKinnon’s going to scream back and then he’s going to scream back at him. Look, maybe that’s what that’s what they need a little bit. a little bit of this, a little bit less of this, you know, oh, I’m just going to let you guys do what you do. I think the ABS have gotten too clicky over the last few years. If you watch them at practice, you watch them in in warm-ups, morning skates, the same guys hang out with the same guys, and I think that’s a bad thing. You want to be more of a an integrated team. You wanna you you you you want to see the star players integrate with everybody, not just hang out with the other star players. I think that that clickiness is something that needs to get broken up. Um, and I don’t know if that’s necessarily Dave Hackall that’s going to fix that, but I like the I like the idea that he could come in and just start screaming at people because sometimes this team, it needs to be screamed at. All of us in life occasionally need to be screamed at and be put in a place where we’re like, “Oh, you’re right. I just needed somebody to shout this at me. I could have known this internally, but this happens. Um, all right. So, I think together by mutual hatred of Dave Hackall. That’s the plan. Got it. Exactly. Just scream at him, man. That’s it. Just scream at him. It’ll fix everything. Like it. There’s one other topic I wanted to bring into today just to stick with the off seasonason and where the ABS are at. The ABS are currently listed as having about $4 million in cap space. Now, that includes some of the depth forwards being on the roster. If you move them off, it’s closer to five and a half millionish of cap space, plus potentially LOC’s LTI to start the season. So, they have a lot of room to work with. We are expecting maybe some more moves to slowly come through this off season, but realistically what’s a good number of cap space do you guys think to to ride with through the season? Because we know when you’re a team that’s going for it, expectation is you leave yourself some wiggle room to do stuff at the deadline. You have some flexibility in that way. I guess how much cap space would you feel like is too much for the ABS to hang on to this off season? Uh 4.123 million. That’s what they’re at right now. If they make no other moves and they include Ty Felibar, Ivan Ivan, and Nikita Pritchapov on the roster, that’s not acceptable for me. Even if you sign two like bottom of the barrel guys for 850K, just swapping for the guys that are already on there. But that needs that needs to happen. Um 4 million is too much, I would say. Ideally 1.5. Okay. So, not a ton. No. E, you’ve been in those front offices. You’ve you’ve scouted some pros. Were there times where you wish you had a little more cap space in season? You You definitely have to have it. Or or or it handcuffs you or or you get taken advantage of, right? And you know that too doing it. You’re like, are you kidding me? you know, and you don’t want to do it, but you have to do it. Um I I do believe um that they will do stuff. Um I’m one of those guys. I said it the other day, I’ll say it again. They they made 10 moves since November. I’m talking about like substantial moves, right? You know, so I’m they’re not afraid to make moves. I I think that we all knew this was thin uh this summer on the UFA side of things. I I do believe it’s going to come down to the trading side of things. I think it all comes down to uh for me, Marty, uh and I like Marty. I’ve told you guys that. Uh but I’m not working in the front office and and I have to, you know, they they’re going to have to make decisions. Again, it’s not even about, oh, you got to wait with Marty till the end of the year. No, if you wait with Marty the other year, he’s walking. So, it’s very simple, right? So, so we don’t know what he’s asking them. Uh, and if they’re not comfortable, they weren’t comfortable with Mo. They’re certainly not going to be comfortable with Marty Natus. I know it’s a different number, but I’m saying on the on the thought process. So, uh, with reasons. And so, now I think it comes down to that. And, and again, I wish it was easy. And Marty’s like signing an eight-year deal at 8 million bucks. See you later, right? Done deal. But doesn’t seem to be very easy right now. It doesn’t seem to be very fluid. And it wasn’t in Carolina either. This is nothing new. This is nothing new. So I think it comes down to him and and if it comes down to that then we all know they were in on dealers, right? So So there’s a reason you’re in on dealers. So you know you’re doing something. So I think that four million is important to have uh so you’re not handcuffed and and can’t do what you’re trying to do. But I they’re certainly not afraid to make moves. And some people were saying, “Oh, they made too many moves and there’s too much fresh new players and that’s why there was no cohesiveness.” Maybe I sometimes I don’t buy that. That’s a different conversation, but but it’s a certainly a thought. Absolutely. And I think that it’s important to get some right now, some room, and to really see what happens. And and it’s going to get quiet here coming up, guys. Really quiet. And you might have to wait till September. You know what I mean? Like great. But, you know, let’s rank about I was going to say we can rank sandwiches. I got no problem. Best sandwiches in the American Hockey League. You know, all that kind of stuff. I saw I saw a ranking today of the top 50 breakfasts in the world and pancakes wasn’t on there. So, uh I’m going to find out who wrote that list and I’m getting on an airplane and we’re fighting. Is that tradition? Yeah. I I don’t know how Pancakes doesn’t even make the list. That’s crazy. Uh look, right, you’re looking for uh bright spot. Here’s one problem. The ABS don’t have no arbitration cases. Winnipeg Jets have three, by the way. It’s tough out here right now. Yeah, the Valardi and Samber deals are tough. Those are big deals. Certainly the Valardi one, but yeah, it’s it’s off season and the ABS are I I don’t know. I don’t know how to feel about the ABS. It feels like they aren’t done, but you also don’t really know what’s coming next. Yeah, they are incomplete. If this is the version that rolls out on opening night, on opening night, we should be mad. We should be mad. All right, I’m I’m good with that. Um, who knows? E said it it is probably going to slow down here. I mean, it’s already started to slow down across the league if we’re being honest about it, but with some of the coaching roles filled, I guess. It technically was four coaches, right, if we’re counting Bennett because Toby Peterson moved on too. So, yeah. Lot of a lot of coaching turnover, which they really haven’t had any, you know. Yeah, it’s been it’s been a bit. It was really just Cronin for a while there and almost none on the big club. Yeah. Um I don’t know. It is what it is. We’ll see how it all turns out. But I Let me ask you guys uh one more time. I know you’ve asked you this before recently, but to wrap up the show, especially with what we’ve talked about with four right-handed B, we expect the ABS to do more. Is there another trade this off season? Yes. Okay. So, it’s not just free agency cheap hunting necessarily. AJ, so you count free a So, you count free you count offseason up till like October 1st or whatever it is, training camp, right? Is that what you’re talking about? Yeah, I count off seasonason until the the open the first day of training camp, then that’s next season. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Yeah, yes, the answer is might be rookie tournament. Rookie tournament might be the start of next season for me. Okay, that’s like five days earlier. So, yeah, it’s still face off. It is, man. Fine. Whatever. Rookie face the be the beginning of rookie face off is start of next year. So, that’s fine. Whatever. All three teams involved in it this year. Uh, all right. That’s it. We’re done here. We are wrapping up today’s show. We appreciate all of y’all hanging out. You’ve probably seen the die hard thing in the corner. I don’t even know which way I’m pointing. Other way. That way. Uh, go sign up. Become a die hard. Read all of AJ’s awesome pieces. We have more stuff coming this summer. I have a bunch of videos planned once my life gets back to normalish. So, keep out an eye out for those in late July. We appreciate y’all. This has been the DNVR Avalanche podcast and we’ll see you tomorrow. We all silly like the mayor.

The Colorado Avalanche finally filled their opening at assistant coach with Dave Hakstol. What will this move mean for the PP and the Avs.

Intro – 0:00
Initial thoughts – 1:00
How’d we get here? – 11:30
Avs taking away a different lesson than we thought? – 21:17
What would it take for Bednar to be in the hot seat? 34:00
Is Hakstol the next HC? – 47:00
Avs Cap Space – 52:24
Another trade this offseason? – 58:40

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