The Avalanche coaching search still was in its early stages Monday.
Complicating matters is the need for the Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic to secure permission from teams to speak to coaches under contract for the 2016-17 season.
Former Avalanche coach Bob Hartley, fired after last season by Calgary, has a year remaining on his contract with the Flames. But if the Avs sought it, permission is considered a sure thing there because it could lead to the Flames getting off the hook financially.
The Avs also would need to secure permission to speak to assistant coaches, including Chicago’s Kevin Dineen and Pittsburgh’s Jacques Martin; and to American Hockey League coaches working for NHL organizations, including Travis Green, head coach of the Utica Comets, Vancouver’s affiliate.
Dineen, who played at the University of Denver before his 19-season NHL career, has been head coach of the Florida Panthers; Martin, a former Avalanche assistant, has had head coaching stints at St. Louis, Ottawa, Florida and Montreal.
Green, 45, played 15 seasons with six NHL teams and got into coaching as an assistant with major junior’s Portland Winterhawks. After head coach Mike Johnston was suspended for player-recruiting violations, Green was the interim coach when the Winterhawks advanced to the Memorial Cup finals and lost to Nathan MacKinnon and the Halifax Mooseheads. Then he joined Utica, and the Comets have been 120-78-30.
Green has one year remaining on his contract, with an out clause for landing an NHL head-coaching job, so in his case, asking for permission to contact him is as much of a courtesy as an obligation. He interviewed for the vacant Anaheim job in the off-season before the Ducks hired veteran Randy Carlyle.
“I think it came right down to the wire,” Green recently told Ben Kuzma of the Vancouver Province. “They had to make a tough decision and they went with a guy who has had success in the NHL and won a Stanley Cup. He’s a very good coach and I have a lot of respect for a lot of coaches, and you hope one day that you find a fit.
“Timing is everything. It’s not a sprint for me. There’s a reason I went to junior (Portland) for five years and a reason I went to the AHL and have stayed on as a head coach. I talk about the process a lot and I preach it.”
Another possible candidate, former Edmonton Oilers coach Ralph Krueger, is set to coach Team Europe in the upcoming World Cup of Hockey. He drew good reviews for his work with the young players during his one year in Edmonton, when the Oilers went 19-22-7 in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. A Canadian-born son of immigrants from Germany, he now is chairman of Southampton FC in the English Premier soccer league. He’s not considered to have hockey out of his system, but is handsomely paid in his current job.
Avs senior vice president for communications Jean Martineau said Monday that Sakic will not be available for comment during the process.
On a conference call with reporters last week after Patrick Roy’s unexpected resignation, Sakic said he still believed in the Avalanche’s core, and the pre-eminent task for any new coach will be to get the most out of that group — MacKinnon, Matt Duchene, Gabe Landeskog, Erik Johnson, Tyson Barrie and Semyon Varlamov, all of whom will make $5 million or more next season. All are under long-term contracts. Duchene’s and Varlamov’s deals are the shortest, and even those have three seasons remaining.