Last November, when the Colorado Avalanche finally found a deal worthy of moving their long-time star Matt Duchene, it marked the start of a new chapter for the franchise.
The trade had been a long time coming, and many assumed that Joe Sakic has lost any leverage he had by waiting as long as he did to move a player that everyone knew wanted out of Denver.
That wasn’t the case.
The trade that Joe Sakic was able to pull off was one of the biggest we’ve seen in a long time.