harmfuljays wrote:
Whoever this guy is.........
http://www.tsn.ca/avalanche-hire-bednar ... h-1.555141Apparently he won the Calder cup with Eerie last year.
Yeah, right after they won it they rechristened the team the Cleveland Monsters, which doesn't sound nearly as cool as "Lake Erie Monsters." Did people seriously not know where the fuckin' team played? Obviously they did not play in or on top of Lake Erie. And they also had some fairly snazzy thirds that had CLEVELAND emblazoned on the front. I guess some people just need more guidance.
The last time the Avs hired a guy fresh of a Calder Cup win, he guided the Avs to the Stanley Cup about two years later. Hopefully history repeats itself.
The Avs have suffered from an extraordinarily insular culture under Pierre Lacroix. It was easy to ignore his blatant cronyism
This is a bit of a surprise. From what I read from both Ohio- and Denver-based reports it was coming down to Boughner or Dineen, both of whom have ties to Colorado, and Bednar wanted to stay in Cleveland (there's a joke in there somewhere but I won't go there). Looks like they managed to win him over, either with a strong pitch, $$$, or both.
So this will now be the Avs' third hire from Columbus. It started with AGM Chris McFarland and former Lake Erie, er, Cleveland assistant Nolan Pratt, and now they snagged Pratt's boss. Sakic is definitely not going with the same old-boys-club mentality that Lacroix had, though I'm not entirely sure getting a bunch of guys from the Columbus Blue Jackets organization is a surefire recipe for success.