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Tony Granato Named as Colorado Avalanche Head Coach
Today the Colorado Avalanche named Tony Granato as their new old head coach. On the heels of Joel Quenneville's departure, fans began their quest for candidates far and wide for the newly vacant position. But Francois Giguere didn't venture far for the answer.
The Answer is Within Given the timing of this promotion and the past history with Granato, it seems unlikely that Giguere pursued anybody outside of the organization for the head coach position. Heck, I wonder if it was even Giguere doing the hiring.
That's just conjecture on my part of course but if true, it's a shame. There were a few capable coaches available which could have brought in a new philosophy and mindset to this club. As it stands now, I currently feel a "more of the same" feeling for next season. History Repeating Itself I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone of Granato's last full season stint as head coach of the Avalanche. A dream team involving Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Alex Tanguay, Milan Hejduk, Teemu Selanne, Paul Kariya, Rob Blake, Adam Foote and on and on it goes. With a team like that, fans had high hopes of a birth in the Stanley Cup finals. In fact, expectations were so high that the season was captured on film. The film ended with Granato walking out of the locker room telling the team he would leave them to their thoughts. Not the strongest of concession speeches I've seen.
Will this coming season be more of the same? Well, Granato doesn't have a head case goaltender to deal - oh wait. Well, he doesn't have any players who need to be pushed to reach their full potential - ohwait. But he doesn't have any veterans to gain the respect of - ohwait.
Ok, that was a bit facetious, especially since a couple players are not re-signed yet and nobody is firing up their video gear expecting this team to win the Cup next season. However that's what any season is about. Winning the Cup. Tony Granato had a shot once with a superb squad. He failed.
Powerplay Suckitude We all bemoaned Coach Q for his tactics including sitting on leads, myriad line changes and woeful special teams. And as much as Quenneville is to blame for those, Granato holds an equal share in one of them - the powerplay.
spectacularly failed this season. The Avalanche Granato was in charge of the Avalanche powerplay and it utterly andpowerplay went 14.6% on the season, good enough to tie them for 2nd worst in the NHL with the New York Islanders, just half a percentage point ahead of the St. Louis Blues. That should be completely unacceptable for a team with the likes of Sakic, Smyth, Hejduk, Stastny, Svatos, Wolski and Liles to draw on. Passion of the Tony
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