Two seasons ago, the Avalanche’s Patrick Roy won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year. In Roy’s first year, Colorado jumped from second-worst record the previous season to third-best in the NHL, and was considered to have overachieved with an amazingly consistent 112-point season.
Then Colorado regressed last season, finished last in the Central Division and missed the playoffs. Plus, the Avalanche is off to another bad start in 2015-16. The Avs will take a 3-7-1 record into their Tuesday home game against the Calgary Flames.
Speaking of the Flames…
Last season, Calgary’s Bob Hartley won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year. Even more so than Roy the season before, Hartley was regarded as getting the most out of his roster in a 45-30-7 and 97-point season.
But the Flames are off to a rough start in 2015-16, and they’ll take a 3-8-1 record into the road game in Denver.
So is there a Jack Adams jinx at work here?
The parallels are eerie, even before taking into account that in 2001, Roy was the Avalanche’s soon-to-be Hall of Fame goaltender, and Hartley was Colorado’s coach when they won a Stanley Cup together.
Despite occasional rocky moments in the coach-player relationship, the two French-Canadians are friends, with Hartley pitching in guidance during Roy’s post-retirement seasons as a part-owner, general manager and coach in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League before returning to the Avalanche as coach in 2013.
Although the teams met twice in the exhibition season, Roy after the Avalanche’s 4-3 loss to San Jose Sunday indicated he hasn’t compared noted — or commiserated — with Hartley recently.
Even as friends, they remain competitive. In the NHL, where coaches generally are treated as disposable (and recyclable), that’s a requirement.
“We both want to win,” Roy said. “We could play Monopoly and we both are going to want to win. . . He’s going to come here to win and we’re going to play at home to win the game.”
Hartley’s path to NHL coaching was both similar and different than Roy’s. Raised in Hawkesbury, Ontario, he also was a goaltender who didn’t play beyond the Junior A level. While supporting his mother after his father’s death and then his wife and family, he worked at a paper mill and then a windshield factory and started out as a volunteer goaltending coach in Hawkesbury. That started him on a path that took him to the QMJHL with Laval, the American Hockey League with Cornwall and Hershey, then to the Avalanche…and beyond.
Roy, won the Stanley Cup four times as a player, entered the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, then spent 10 post-retirement years with the Quebec Remparts before returning to Denver.
At least going into the Tuesday game, Roy and Hartley have something else in common beyond that and their recent photos with the Jack Adams Award.
Slow starts in 2015-16
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or @TFrei
CALGARY AT COLORADO 7 p.m. Tuesday, ALT; 950 AM
Spotlight on Johnny Gaudreau:
“Johnny Hockey” has just one goal, but he’s still averaging a point per game, thanks to his team-high 11 assists for the Flames. The diminutive forward — listed at 5-foot-9 and 157 pounds — had 24 goals and 64 points in his 80-game rookie year last season. Gaudreau, who played junior-A hockey for University of Denver coach Jim Montgomery, won the 2014 Hobey Baker Award as college hockey’s best player in his junior season at Boston College.
NOTEBOOK
Flames:
Michael Frolik scored with 8.7 seconds left in regulation to give Calgary a 5-4 win at Edmonton on Saturday. It was just the third win of the season for the Flames, who had a numbers of firsts: They led by two goals for the first time, led after the second period and notched their first win in regulation. … The Flames played their fifth game in seven nights Saturday. … Rookie Sam Bennett is centering Gaudreau and Frolik. Former University of Denver standout Joe Colborne is playing left wing on Calgary’s second line, with center Sean Monahan and Jiri Hudler. … Calgary’s outstanding defensive corps includes Mark Giordano paired with TJ Brodie in the first unit.
Avalanche:
Forward Ben Street was called up from San Antonio of the American Hockey League on Monday. Street, off to a torrid start with the Rampage — 12 points and plus-8 rating in six games — brings Colorado’s roster to a maximum 23. … Center Matt Duchene continues to struggle, with just three points in 11 games and a minus-8 rating. His 4.3 percent shooting is among the lowest on the team. … Colorado will practice Wednesday before departing for Arizona, where it plays the Coyotes on Thursday night. The Avs return home Friday to host the New York Rangers before embarking on a team record-tying seven-game road trip next Tuesday at Philadelphia.
