Craig Button vividly remembers the day Pierre Lacroix first called him to ask about Derek Morris.
Lacroix was already a two-time Stanley Cup champion as general manager of the Colorado Avalanche, but he also had a well-earned reputation for swinging huge trades. This was in 2002, as the Avs were nearing the end of the Patrick Roy era, and he was looking for a way to get his championship core to make one more run at a championship.
“Pierre would phone and said, ‘Hey, would you ever consider trading this player?’” Button, who was the Calgary Flames’ GM from 2000 to ’03 said. “He said, ‘Look, we’re looking for that type of defenseman.’ I said, ‘Pierre, I’ll be straightforward with you. I’m not looking to trade Derek Morris. If I’m going to trade a defenseman like that, I’m going to need a really good player back.’ We were looking to bolster our center position, so I said Chris Drury’s name.
“Pierre goes, ‘Oh, Craig, oh no. … I can’t trade Chris Drury.’ I said, ‘OK, I understand.’ Then the dance went on for six months. And I loved it. I loved just being in Pierre’s company.”
Lacroix did eventually trade Drury to Button and the Flames for Morris in a five-player trade in October 2002. That deal is not one of the reasons Lacroix will be posthumously enshrined into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night in Toronto.
It does include some of the hallmarks of Lacroix’s time as Avalanche GM and before that, a very successful player agent. Lacroix was not afraid to make big deals. He made some of the most famous trades in NHL history to help build a two-time title-winning club around superstars Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg, including one for Roy and deals for Hall of Fame defensemen Ray Bourque and Rob Blake.
Lacroix was also aggressive and persistent. Some of the other NHL GMs didn’t love his style at times, but his players did.
“He was unbelievable. I mean, right when he came in, you just knew he had that passion. He came to win, and everything he did, it was about winning,” Sakic, who will be in Toronto for the induction ceremony, said. “But he also cared about his players. He wanted that family atmosphere where everybody was close but he was able to separate, too, when it came down to doing what he felt was best to try and win.
“Always tried to give you a chance. It was a little different back then, obviously. But if there was a splash to be made, if it worked out, he was going to pull the trigger. … You don’t always know how the dynamic of the dressing room is going to be after the trade so it’s risky, but he went for it all the time to try and win.”
One of Lacroix’s clients from his agent days was former Avs player Pierre Turgeon, who is also being enshrined with the Class of 2023.
One of the biggest splashes Lacroix made as an agent was the rookie contract for the No. 1 pick in the 1993 draft, Alexandre Daigle. It was reportedly for $12.5 million over five years, a record at the time for rookies. That deal, plus the one for Eric Lindros the year before, were significant factors leading to an eventual rookie salary cap in the NHL.
“Pierre was a great agent,” Button said. “He was fierce. He protected his players and was trying to get the best for them all of the time. I thought he was terrific. If you think about it as a builder, I think Pierre defines building. He was a builder on both sides of it. … I think this is long overdue.”
Lacroix crossed over to the management side with the Quebec Nordiques in 1994, and trading for Roy during the 1995-96 season helped the newly minted Avalanche win the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history. His run as Avalanche GM is one of the most successful periods for any manager in league history.
Colorado won eight division titles and made the Stanley Cup Playoffs in all 10 of his seasons in charge. The Avs reached the conference finals six time in a seven-year span and waged incredible playoff series with the Detroit Red Wings and Dallas Stars, forging rivalries that helped define that era of the sport.
Now, he’ll earn the sport’s top honor, a place in hockey immortality at the Hall of Fame.
“Itap going to be awesome,” Sakic said. “I mean it’s too bad he is not here for this. He would love it. I mean, he deserves so much to be inducted for what he did. He didn’t do it for 20 years, but he did it for that period and was successful every single year. He was in a game of hockey for a long time and was very successful and he made hockey a better game. It is probably going to be emotional, but I’m just excited for his family. They deserve this moment just as much as he did.”
Lacroix’s pursuit of Morris lasted for months. It included a long conversation at a Benihana in Toronto at the 2002 NHL draft. Eventually, Lacroix called Button one last time during training camp.
“He phoned me, I think on a Thursday or Friday,” Button said. “He said, ‘OK, you’ve been pretty consistent on this. I think we need a player like Derek Morris. You feel you need a player like Chris Drury. Letap talk.’ And we had a deal done in about 12 hours. There was a lot of legwork before that, but thatap Pierre — he was always serious about trying to make his team better.
“When I think about the things he did for the Colorado Avalanche franchise, I mean he literally put them on the map. He was a mountain of a sports figure in the Rockies. He was tremendous.”
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