I honestly have no recollection of that. I was out of the Navy by then, so I didn't miss it because of deployments...I wonder if it was because ESPN was the only one covering hockey and well....so I only got to see those games that were broadcast on ESPN/ESPN2. Which back then... they actually covered the Avs quite a bit becaues of how good they were.
I read there was some incident in practice that nearly led to a brawl between Drury and Foote but take that with a grain of salt—I don’t have anything to confirm that. But also, I do remember how much he absolutely HATED playing wing, but naturally on a team with Sakic/Forsberg/Yelle you’re not going to play too much center unless one of them gets hurt…which of course happened plenty.
Yeah, maybe it’s just me but I was just not his biggest fan, though to be absolutely clear he was an absolute force in the postseason and an elite level player when he was engaged.
Just thinking about a potential playoff forward roster of
Drouin - MacKinnon - Rantanen
Lehkonen - Mittelstadt - Nichushkin
Colton - Gourde - Tanev
Wood - Kelly - O'Connor
gets me goin'. Then again, we'd probably see 4 of those guys hurt and Givani Smith playing minutes in the 1st round.
Gourde might be a little past his prime but he’d be a supreme upgrade over Kelly/Ivan. And with MacKinnon and Mittelstadt the Avs really could use a guy who knows how to win a faceoff.
