WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Craig MacTavish’s news conference Friday in Edmonton, Alberta, was the type of state-of-the-union address — and acknowledgment that things are bad, and everyone is hurting — in which Avalanche brass Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy might consider having in Denver.
Both teams with relatively new front offices are off to poor starts with excellent young talent that is not delivering results with complementary pieces, and although criticism is much more severe in Canada, where hockey is king, Sakic and Roy are in similar positions as their counterparts with the Oilers — Mac- Tavish and Dallas Eakins.
MacTavish and Sakic are in their second seasons as top executives of an NHL team, while Roy and Eakins are early in their second years as NHL head coaches. The similarities go much further, beginning with the fact that each team can blame one thing for its demise: weak drafting outside the first round within the past six years.
MacTavish, a former longtime Oilers player, coach and current general manager who has held that position for about 19 months, says not drafting impact players outside the first round “undermines the performance of everything we do, on and off the ice.” He is talking about the drafts before he became GM, given that it takes time for 17-year-old and 18-year-old, draft-eligible players to develop.
Save for first-round bust Nail Yakupov, the No. 1 overall pick in 2012, fellow first-round Edmonton forwards Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle are among the best young players in the league. But Edmonton, like Colorado, has not produced enough impact players from rounds two through seven.
The Avs, in fact, have just six of their own draft picks on the roster, and only two selected outside the first round: forward Ryan O’Reilly (second round, 2009) and defenseman Tyson Barrie (third, 2009). The other Colorado-drafted players are top-three overall picks Matt Duchene (2009), Gabe Landeskog (2011) and Nathan MacKinnon (2013) — who were tabbed as future stars before their drafts — plus Alex Tanguay (1998), who has played for three other teams before returning to the Avs.
Which explains why Sakic and Roy recently fired head amateur scout Rick Pracey after a summer’s worth of adding depth free agents to stock the big-league roster as well as their minor-league affiliate, the Lake Erie Monsters. The Avs declined to address Pracey’s firing, but his poor draft results outside the no-brainer top-three picks and the O’Reilly and Barrie selections wholeheartedly support the move.
Fact is, the only mid- or late-round Colorado pick to make a dent with the Avs was 2008 fifth-rounder Mark Olver, who is now playing in Russia at age 26. That’s a small dent. And even some of the premier picks haven’t panned out. Former first-rounders Joey Hishon (2010) and Duncan Siemens (2011) appear to be mistakes, and second-rounders Cameron Guance and Peter Delmas ( both 2008), Stefan Elliott (2009) and Mitchell Heard (2012) are shaping up similarly.
The Avs and Oilers are depending too much on free-agent acquisitions (and Edmonton might be the last place the guys with options want to go). The Avs might further depend on free agency because they gave up future second-round picks to Calgary and San Jose in questionable trades for struggling backup goalie Reto Berra and 34-year-old defenseman Brad Stuart, respectively.
The Avs and Oilers also have this in common: Their prized forwards are spending far too much time in the defensive end and not attacking the opponent’s net. Their worth is being minimized.
MacTavish lamented that Edmonton’s 11-game losing streak stems from a lack of “execution at critical times and turnovers.”
Sound familiar?
He added: “There is no quick or easy fix to some of these positional gaps.”
The Avs can look in the same mirror and say the same thing.
Sakic and Roy are not responsible for the poor draft results before they took charge. They are only paying the price.
Mike Chambers: mchambers@denverpost.com or
