Patrick Roy: "I Know I Made Some Bad Choices"

Avs legend wants to coach again in NHL

Patrick Roy hasn’t given many interviews in recent years, but he talked some with NHL.com writer Dave Stubbs for a story that ran today.

Roy, in case you hadn’t heard, just won a Memorial Cup with his Quebec Remparts. It’s multiple years into his second stint as coach of the Remparts, after resigning from the Avalanche late summer of 2016, leaving the Avs to rush around and find a coach, Jared Bednar, who would have a horrific first season but today has a Cup ring to his resume and a new five-year contract worth what I’ve reliably heard is $4.75 million per year.

Roy was clashing in the summer of 2016 with Joe Sakic, mostly over roster choices/decisions for the coming season. One guy Roy really wanted was free agent Alexander Radulov, but Sakic didn’t like the idea and from there a bit of a professional rift opened.Roy was a coach. He wanted wins now. Sakic was the GM. He wanted a bigger picture view, a longer lens.

Roy quit his job as head coach and vice president of hockey operations. It left Sakic and the Avs really in the lurch. They signed Bednar from their farm club, but his first season resulted in 48 points - one of the lowest point totals in the modern era of hockey.

I can promise you one thing: the remaining Avalanche management staff was not happy with Roy’s decision, and certainly not in the manner he did it. Roy returned to his former Remparts team, and has capped off a great year with the championship trophy of major junior hockey.

He wants back in the NHL, but to Stubbs he admitted his messy end as a coach in Colorado has probably played a part in Roy not getting another coach opportunity in the NHL the following several years.