From the drawers of the Top Secret Fyles:
The Colorado Avalanche reached the NHL’s Stanley Cup summit Sunday when it edged the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1, in Game 6 to win the best-of-seven Final series.
The Avalanche’s third crown culminated a terrific, five-year building plan by the organization, which had endured its share of playoff disappointments, especially in each of the past three seasons.
Jared Bednar came off an AHL Calder Cup-winning season with the Columbus Blue Jackets-affiliated Lake Erie Monsters in 2016 and was hired later that summer by the Avalanche to replace Patrick Roy as head coach. Bednar and his team went through the franchise’s worst season in 2016-17 but then the building took place.
All-world defenseman Cale Makar was drafted that summer out of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he was coached by former St. Lawrence University bench boss Greg Carvel. Other pieces were added later as the years went by to go with the five players — Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Erik Johnson and J.T. Compher — who were on that dreadful ’16-17 squad when Colorado suffered six losing skids of at least five games.
Here’s how the Avalanche progressed since Bednar took over:
■ 2016-17 — 22-56-4 record, 48 points, minus-112 goal differential (missing the playoffs for the eighth time in 11 seasons);
■ 2017-18 — 43-30-9, 95, +20;
■ 2018-19 — 38-30-14, 90, +14;
■ 2019-20 (COVID interruption) — 42-20-8, 92, +46;
■ 2020-21 (56-game season) — 39-13-4, 82, +64;
■ 2021-22 — 56-19-7, 119, +78.
The Avalanche brass, including executive vice president/general manager Joe Sakic — who also won a pair of titles as team captain — deserves a mammoth of credit for being committed to a structured building plan and sticking with it.
Patience definitely yields dividends over the long run.
The Avalanche (1996, 2001 and ’22) and the NFL’s Broncos (’98, ’99 and ’16) have three titles apiece. Since the 1995-96 season, Denver’s six “Big Four” championships — NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB — are sixth-most, behind Boston and Los Angeles (12 each), Chicago (eight) and New York and the Bay Area (seven each).
■ Names That Work in the Summer: The Boonville Baseball Club of the PGCBL has two players on its roster named AJ Pabst (Davidson), a utility player, and Derrick Yuengling (Bucknell), an infielder.
Times sports copy editor Richard Fyle can be reached at rfyle@wdt.net
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