Avs Coach Sacco Won’t Sit For Mediocre
Posted by TheHockeyGuy on February 11th, 2010
Earn your keep, or your behind will be like corn in a Nebraska field: planted.
That is the message that has been imparted — consistently from Day One — by Avalanche coach Joe Sacco to his players. And look what has happened.
The Avs enter tonight’s game against Atlanta with 72 points, three more than they had all of last season under Tony Granato. Sacco is a top candidate for the Jack Adams Award for NHL coach of the year, which isn’t bad for a guy who was the Avs’ fallback choice over the summer after a dalliance with Patrick Roy.
What has been the rookie coach’s secret of success? It takes a village to build a good team, of course, and others deserve credit for Colorado’s resurgence — starting with general manager Greg Sherman’s midnight phone call to Craig Anderson when the free-agent season began. Can you imagine what the state of things would be around here if Sherman had, say, instead signed aging goalie Nikolai Khabibulin to the same bloated contract Edmonton did?
But I think the biggest reason Sacco has succeeded has been his flushing of a pass-the-buck atmosphere in the locker room. It’s hard to assiduously label a pro team, with so many variables that can happen. Sometimes, no matter how good the coach is, it just doesn’t work.
Click here to read the full article – By Denver Post
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