3 Races, 2 Weeks, Many BC Clues

August has brought a storm to the Colorado Avalanche. That storm harbors the kind of conditions that make the franchise's success as tenuous as ever. In turn, NHL betting on the Avalanche could be a wait-and-see proposition.

Earlier this month Colorado coach and vice president, Patrick Roy, resigned. The Hall of Famer vaguely cited disagreement with management, which in itself, might reveal flaws within the franchise. Nevertheless, Roy's announcement caught the Avs front office by surprise, and a late-summer coach's resignation is never a good thing.

A Hire from Outside

So the Avalanche bosses quickly summed up their options. Then they hired Jared Bednar, whose experience in the NHL is nil. Bednar has been a lower-level coach for years, and he was named American Hockey League Coach of the Year last season for leading his Lake Erie Monsters to the league title. The Avs may have reasoned that a figure less powerful than a revered NHLer like Roy would be more suitable for their purposes. After all, they passed on Washington Capitals assistant Lane Lambert, Chicago Blackhawks assistant and former Florida Panthers head coach Kevin Dineen and others.

Bednar may be just the man the Avs need. He could do little worse than the team did under Roy's leadership in the last two years; Colorado was last place in the Central Division two years ago and went into a six-game tailspin in April of last year to miss the playoffs. Not that Roy wasn't a good coach; the Avalanche won the Central Division in Roy's rookie coaching year, sending him on his way to a landslide win in the Jack Adams Award voting as coach of the year.

The System Flaw

But the scramble may reveal the big flaw in that Avalanche system. They lack the coach-general manager setup that many teams have in order to allow decisions about players to be in the hands of one person. For the Avs and NHL betting, it is advisable to approach with caution. They have a decent enough team to perform better than the mediocrity of the last two years. But at least until Bednar gets his feet wet, betting the Avs on the winning side is treading on thin ice.