The NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone. A lot of people were expecting the Colorado Avalanche do do something major, and though they traded Jarome Iginla and Andreas Martinsen, the team did not ship out any members of their core.
“I don’t have to make any major moves,” said Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic. “I think that’s the big thing: I like my players.”
Much of the speculation centered around forwards Matt Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog, but, as Sakic pointed out, that was not coming from him.
“They’re my players and they have been the whole time,’ he said. “I’m sure I’m going to have conversations with both of them, but it’s a business. I’m not the one whose going out there throwing names around. I don’t do that. I keep my discussions internal.”
Sakic was working the phones however. Though he wouldn’t say what players he had conversations about, he mentioned that there were dicussions about other Avs’ unfrestricted free agents.
“I don’t know if there was that much turnover or movement today. I had a lot of conversations with different teams about different players. Teams decided…to stand pat or go a different direction”
Sakic things that conversations with other teams may pick up around the expansion draft; a draft that weighed into teams’ decision making at the deadline.
“There’s going to be potential trades with different teams around that time, then after that it will be getting ready for the [NHL Entry] Draft as well. My focus is on our organization and we’re going to do whatever we think is best for us long-term.”