In 1994, when player agent Pierre Lacroix agreed to switch sides of the bargaining table and become general manager of the Quebec Nordiques, the team’s one-time controller was scared.
Scared of losing his job at the time, which then was in the Nordiques’ hockey operations department.
Francois Giguere had butted heads with the player agent at times, and now he was going to work under Lacroix?
Sure, Lacroix said, assuaging Giguere’s fears.
A dozen years later, Lacroix was instrumental in bringing Giguere back from the Dallas Stars, where he had been assistant GM under Doug Armstrong, and making Giguere the Avalanche’s new general manager last May.
Lacroix had stepped back to become “only” the team’s president before health problems began. Lacroix’s scare last summer – a mass in his spine ultimately was determined to be noncancerous – kept him out of the office for weeks.
Giguere reacquainted himself with the staff he largely inherited, including hockey men Michel Goulet, Brad Smith and Craig Billington, and “numbers” man Greg Sherman, and oversaw the operation.
With Lacroix recovered and again working under scaled-back hours, the issue is how independent Giguere will be. Any discussion of that has to start with what Lacroix always talked about himself: That decisions were never made in a one-man vacuum, and that if Giguere gets input from both above and below, that pattern will continue rather than be a major revolution.
Now, the major difference is the GM has Kroenke Sports owner Stan Kroenke and Lacroix to run things past. In previous years, Lacroix was the unquestioned CEO, having major decision-making power on his own after sifting through recommendations and getting Kroenke’s approval.
With Kroenke more comfortable with speaking his mind about basketball issues than hockey decisions, the Avalanche probably will remain a largely self-governing fiefdom within the empire.
With Giguere as the major spokesman.
The Giguere file
Age: 42
Position: General manager
Experience: Front-office experience with Quebec and Colorado; assistant general manager, Dallas Stars.
Season projection: Stakes out position of authority as the GM who succeeded Pierre Lacroix.
The future: He becomes more important as Lacroix steps farther away from day-to-day duties.
