NHL colorado Avalanche

The Los Angeles Kings entered the offseason with a fair amount of cap space and plethora of young assets that could have been used to bring in a big-name player to help boost a young team from Western Conference bottom-feeder to legitimate playoff contender. Personally, I was pushing for disgruntled Senators forward Dany Heatley, who seemed like he would have been a nice fit. The Kings, however, may have found an even better fit, when you consider Heatley is, apparently, out of his mind and doesn't quite know what he wants or where he wants to go.

Late Friday night, the Kings acquired veteran forward Ryan Smyth from the Colorado Avalanche for defensemen Kyle Quincey and Tom Preissing, and a fifth-round draft pick. For the Kings? They get a gritty, veteran leader still capable of scoring 25-30 goals. For the Avs? It's a salary dump, and a head start in the season-long quest for Taylor Hall.

For many months, the first three picks of the NHL Entry Draft were expected to go this way. The only question was the order.

Center John Tavares and defenseman Victor Hedman were the top two players in this draft, no matter how you try to rate players. OHL star Matt Duchene joined them as the consensus third pick in the months before the draft. Right off the start Friday night, things played out as expected, as the New York Islanders, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Colorado Avalanche stayed put and made the first three selections.

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We continue our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Northwest Division.

It appears we are setting up for an offseason of significant change in the Northwest Division. Only the Vancouver Canucks will have the same coach as last year, and there could be some real upheaval in terms of personnel. Not only that, but two teams (Minnesota and Colorado) have changed general managers.

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Over the next week, FanHouse will preview the top players and teams in next Friday's NHL Draft. This is the third post in a six part series.

It is widely regarded that in this year's draft, there are three prospects that are head and shoulders above all the others. With the third pick in next Friday's draft, it is likely that the Colorado Avalanche will have a chance to select from the trio of John Tavares, Victor Hedman and Matt Duchene. This will be the first major decision for new GM Greg Sherman, who was promoted on June 3 after seven years as assistant GM.

Over 13 years in Denver, the Colorado Avalanche have developed quite the reputation. They were quick winners, winning a Stanley Cup in their first season there after moving from Quebec.

They've also continued a trend of promoting from within this week. After firing coach Tony Granato and naming assistant general manager Craig Sherman to the GM post Wednesday, the Avalanche reached into their farm system to replace Granato.

The housecleaning is complete in Denver.

After a horrific season that saw the Colorado Avalanche miss the playoffs for just the second time in 13 seasons since moving from Quebec, head coach Tony Granato has paid for this misdeed with his job. Granato, in his second tour of duty as the team's head coach, was fired Wednesday, along with five other members of the organization. TSN also reports that former assistant general manager Craig Sherman will take over as the club's new general manager.

For the past week there has been a lot of speculation as to whether or not Patrick Roy would return to the Colorado Avalanche under the coach/GM role they offered the team's former goalie.

On Wednesday came a conclusion to the story. Roy explains that he has turned down the Avalanche offer for family reasons.

Last week it was reported that Hall of Fame goaltender and former Avalanche netminder Patrick Roy was offered the team's head coaching position currently occupied by Tony Granato. Today, a report from Ruefronteac.com cites sources close to Roy that the Avs have stepped up their offer to include their GM position.

The report goes on to mention that the Avalanche have stepped up the offer to try and draw Roy away from other suitors, particularly the Montreal Canadiens, whose head coaching job is currently vacant. The Habs fired Guy Carbonneau earlier this year and GM Bob Gainey filled in for the remainder of the season.

According to the Denver Post, the Colorado Avalanche have offered their head coaching position to Hall of Fame netminder Patrick Roy. Roy helped lead the team to two Stanley Cup titles in 1996 and 2001 and retired in 2003 as the winningest goaltender in NHL history, a record recently surpassed by New Jersey's Martin Brodeur.

Roy may be the ideal candidate in the mind of Pierre Lacroix but there's one problem. They already have a coach. As in current coach Tony Granato who is still in charge of the team at the moment.

The NHL Lottery is a serious exercise in television programming. It takes an event that could be completed in less than five minutes and stretches it out into a 30 minute program that makes the jitters that much worse for the fanbases and teams involved.

That doesn't mean the Draft Lottery live on TSN Tuesday night was a bad thing, though. TSN did a nice job filling the other 25 minutes with interviews, prospect analysis and John Tavares vs. Victor Hedman hype tonight. But, at the end of the day, all we came to find out is the answer to the question "who will pick No. 1?"