Comments on: Avs to make O’Brien a healthy scratch — again

By: jernster21

jernster21 — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:45:33 +0000

I get your point. I’m a firm believer that Sacco actually does have a “dog house”, fair or not – it’s easy to judge on the outside when we don’t know what happens behind closed doors. Should be interesting to see if this turns out to be more than a short term “disciplinary lashing”, if that’s what this is, in which case, one would have to think upper management (GM GS) will point out that he didn’t give O’Brien a 3 year deal to ride the pine. The fact that Hunwick bothered resigning in Colorado after last year is what baffled me.

By: Mike Halford

Mike Halford — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:28:32 +0000

I think we’ve only written two.

To be fair, it might be a bit over the top but I just don’t get why a cost-conscious team like Colorado would go three years/$6 million on a player the coach views as his eighth-best defenseman. It’s actually really baffling, IMO, unless O’Brien is secretly hurt or terribly (also, secretly) out of shape.

By: hockeyflow33

hockeyflow33 — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:18:20 +0000

It’s fairly noteworthy when you consider they signed him to a somewhat substantial contract this past offseason.

By: jernster21

jernster21 — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:54:04 +0000

Are you guys going to write an article every time Shane O’Brien is scratched? He’s a 2 million dollar defensemen, not Shea Weber. The Avalanche aren’t the only team in the league that healthy scratch players – last I checked Vancouver had a boat load of defensemen – they’re probably scratching people each night too. Hunwick was scratched a lot last year and came in and played well when given the opportunity – at the end of the day, the players who give the team the best chance to win should play each night – unfortunately for Joe Sacco, I don’t agree with his assessment that Tyson “turnover” Barrie gives the Avs a better chance to win than Shane O’Brien or Hunwick and apparently Sacco is now in agreement with the decision to play Hunwick over who I would expect to be Barrie.

By: govtminion

govtminion — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 16:12:28 +0000

Very strange. Sacco must really not like something he’s seeing in practice, but why you’d go sign a guy as a FA and then not use him at all in your first three games is beyond me. I guess with injuries starting to rear their ugly head though, the decision on whether to use him or not might be out of Sacco’s hands at this point.