Dater: MacFarland Doing Best He Can, But Landeskog Situation Continues To Hamper Him

Everybody who knows Chris MacFarland well always says the same thing about him: he’s a workaholic, who loves his family first and foremost, but his job is a very, very close second.

He’s been that way ever since hounding every doorstep in the NHL as a young man in the 1990s, a guy who was headed for a career in law but who really dreamed of a different life in the NHL. Just when he was ready to give up on his hockey dreams and go into law, the Columbus Blue Jackets gave him a shot as a manager of hockey operations beginning with their inaugural season in 2000. In 2007, he worked his way up to the assistant GM job with the Blue Jackets, then took the same job with the Avalanche in 2015. Now, he’s the GM of the Avs.

The bags under his eyes attest to the weary, often rumpled look of MacFarland, 54. Friends say he still works 12-16 hour days, a man whose idea of a vacation is to watch video of junior, college and minor-pro prospects with his laptop on the beach.

MacFarland held his annual pre-trade-deadline press conference Monday (the deadline is Friday) and he looked every bit of a man who has worked the phones an awful lot of late, with his latest multi-player trade happening over the weekend with the acquisitions of veterans Ryan Lindgren and Jimmy Vesey from the Rangers.

“I think it’s no secret that we had to get deeper, up front and on the back end,” MacFarland said. “I don’t think we’re totally satisfied. If we can find a way to improve the team, we’ll try. How? I don’t know.”

That means MacFarland will have his phone ever-present to his ear, which is almost always how you see him. While his predecessor, Joe Sakic, had a more laid-back working style, preferring the clubby insider’s world of doing hockey business that being a Hall of Fame icon can afford, MacFarland is more of a grinder than a schmoozer. But, as he’s proven, he is not afraid of making big, splashy moves.