Rebuilding Denver

At the 20 game point of the 21/22 season, the question was posed; where does Lycar go from here? I think we now have a clear indication the Avalanche are heading. The direction - a rebuild. “In evaluating where we went wrong last year, you can look at a few factors but mainly I’d say we lacked an identity.” When you look at the Avalanche cup team, they had a clear identity. “We were all over the map this year and a big part of that is on me and the organization I assembled, I take that responsibility.” The comments however have raised questions about the future of Jeff Blashill. It’s been speculated the Avs will move on from him though Lycar remained coy about the topic “he’s currently our head coach” 

When asked about the challenges of a rebuild and how long until he expects them to be competitive again Lycar had this to say “Most organizations don’t want to come out and say specifically hey we’re not going to be competitive for a couple years, for the purpose of keeping seats full, I’m not going to sugar coat it. We are rebuilding, and there will be a dark couple of years. But we will return to glory.” 

“I think we tried to remain competitive a year or two longer than we should have. But we can’t go back, this is where we are and if there were mistakes made, I own them.” 

The 2 time GM of the year made two main moves to kick off the “rebuild” first moving Carter Verhaeghe and Dylan Strome and then yesterday trading captain Dylan Larkin. 

The two trades can be broken down like this 

In: 

Pick #12 2022 draft

Pick #13 2022 draft

Casey Middlestadt 

Brennan Othmann

Cal Foote

2023 Round 2 (NJ)

Pick #108 2022 draft

Out: 

Dylan Larkin

Carter Verhaeghe

Dylan Strome

This is arguably the most important draft in franchise history for the Avalanche. “We’re really excited to have 12 & 13 back to back, there’s a few guys that will be available in that range that we happily would select if we had picks 6 & 7 for example. So we like what we see there and we believe we’re going to add very good NHL players to our organization” 

Lycar who notoriously coined the phrase “prospects are cool, parades are cooler” now has to dig deep and find a way to bring the city of Denver another parade. And right now, it seems as though he finds prospects a bit cooler than parades.

Tommy Barr

“prospects are cool, parades are cooler .... Bedard is the coolest”

Rebuilding Denver
Dark days ahead as Lycar tries to steer his franchise back to glory

• 3 teams Like this  2 years