Give Patrick Roy credit for this much: he has a way of throwing the sort of earth-shaking tantrums that sort of make you forget what happened before them.
Then again, maybe the 2015-16 season feels a little less memorable because of its parallels to the 2014-15 campaign before it.
In both cases, the Avalanche continued their Roy-era run of getting pummeled from a possession standpoint to a downright jarring degree.
Despite the familiarity, this past round was more bruising. Their 82 standings points represents the low point of Roy’s three-season run and the fifth time in six seasons that Colorado failed to make the playoffs.
The once-proud franchise hasn’t won a playoff series since 2007-08. Maybe a painful adjustment might accelerate the Avs’ ascent?
Off-season
The story of this summer is far from finished, as the Avalanche still must go about hastily replacing Roy.
If you can put that distraction aside for a minute in focusing on Colorado, there were signs that the sometimes-explosive franchise is starting to gain its footing.
Rather than make splashy signings - something Roy may have wanted - the Avalanche focused on modest value moves such as signing Joe Colborne and Rocco Grimaldi.
Most importantly, they committed to the still-promising core pieces with new contracts for Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Barrie. Considering how affordable those deals are, big-picture optimism isn’t that tough to come by.
What about 2016-17 in particular, though? PHT will ponder questions surrounding the team, even beyond the elephant in the room that is the head coaching situation.