NHL fantasy leaguers, rejoice! Your fantasy has never been so close to reality.
You’re still a virtual GM, but never before have you been so close to being the real thing.
For this week and this week alone, you virtually can walk in Pierre Lacroix’s shoes, sit at his desk and answer those interminable calls from agents.
You get to start almost from scratch. You get to move, you get to shake. You get to remake the roster, buy out contracts, sign free agents, maybe even talk to Stan Kroenke. You’re the man with the plan, the keeper of the keys to the Avs’ fortunes.
Granted, you don’t get Lacroix’s seven-figure salary. Then again, if you make a mistake, you won’t get second-guessed by all your friends in the media.
That’s the thing about the predicament in which Lacroix finds himself. In the end, sooner or later, he’s going to get second-guessed. He’s going to be darned if he does, darned if he doesn’t. He has too many decisions to make and too little time to make them to make everyone happy.
In Lacroix’s perfect world, he can talk Peter Forsberg and Adam Foote into taking less money than they could get in free agency to make one last run at a Stanley Cup with the Avs’ other core players – Joe Sakic, Rob Blake, Milan Hejduk and Alex Tanguay.
But then, the new world created by the NHL’s salary cap is far from perfect.
For all we know, Forsberg or Foote has played his last game in an Avs sweater. Maybe both.
Then again, maybe both will return. Heck, for all we know, Markus Naslund just booked a ticket to Denver, where he plans to play for nickels on the dollar with Forsberg, his Swedish countryman.
If there’s any GM out there who could pull off that trick, it’s Lacroix. He did, after all, land Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne for bargain-bin prices back in the day, when the NHL actually played games. Having said that, let the record show I don’t know anyone inside or outside the NHL who believes it’s going to happen.
No, given the greasy financial situation the Avs are in, Forsberg is more likely to go than stay. If so, the Avs officially will have charted new territory. Lacroix has let some big-name players go through the years. The list includes, among others, Adam Deadmarsh, Mike Ricci and Chris Drury, each of whom is highly qualified to carry Forsberg’s luggage.
Losing Forsberg, if it comes to that, would make for the darkest day in franchise history since the team left Quebec City. As much as Lacroix would like to keep him, he has to know, if Forsberg bolts, he would never hear the end of it. Winning back fans in the aftermath of the NHL’s ugly labor mess is going to be difficult enough. The last thing the Avs need is the P.R. nightmare that would accompany Forsberg’s departure.
So is he coming back? Don’t know. We won’t know until next week, when the free-agency period begins. Until then, we’re left to speculate, which, let’s face it, is sometimes more fun than having all the facts.
What we do know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is this: If Forsberg wants to stay but Lacroix lets him get away, Lacroix will have made the most controversial decision of his career.
The common thinking is that Lacroix ultimately will have to choose between Forsberg and Foote.
It’s an either/or proposition. One or the other, but not both. But that’s not necessarily the case.
In the end, if Forsberg bolts, it could be Lacroix’s decision not to buy out Joe Sakic that triggered his departure. Foote or Forsberg? For all we know, the real issue all along has been: Sakic or Forsberg? An aging superstar, or a younger superstar with a long history of injuries?
If that seems preposterous, letting Sakic go to keep Forsberg – or letting Sakic go, period – I have to admit it took awhile to grow on me, too. Then again, Sakic is 36 and his most recent numbers, while still eye-catching, aren’t what they once were.
Forsberg, meanwhile, is 32 and could be on the cusp of his greatest NHL season.
Sure, Forsberg is injury-prone. Only he could have broken his wrist and suffered a concussion playing in Sweden’s top professional league, where wide-open hockey is in and goons need not apply. But there are those who contend that, under the right circumstances, he’s still the best player on the planet, to say nothing of four years younger than Sakic.
The right circumstances. The likes of which the powers that be have created in the aftermath of the NHL’s labor mess. For years, all we heard from Forsberg was that the league’s trademark clutching and grabbing wasn’t real hockey. And now that a flurry of rules changes figures to create the wide-open style that Forsberg craves, Lacroix is going to let him get away?
If I had to bet, I’d say Lacroix manages to keep him. But if he had to choose between the two and picked Sakic at the cost of losing Forsberg, he’ll have run a huge risk, one certain to alienate a big chunk of the team’s fan base.
We’ll have our answer soon enough.
But if Forsberg leaves, his departure would be just the beginning of the story. What if he wins another Hart Trophy? What if, a year from now, the discussion about the world’s best player begins and ends with him?
And while we’re gazing into our trusty crystal ball, let’s haul out another delicious scenario: What if Forsberg lands in Vancouver with Naslund and that noted menace to society, Todd Bertuzzi, not to mention former Avs coach Marc Crawford?
In that case, the Red Wings would become yesterday’s news.
Catch Jim Armstrong from 6-9 a.m. during “The Press Box” on ESPN 560 AM and tonight on Fox Sports Net’s “Insider Edition.” He can be reached at 303-820-5452 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com.
