We are all pulling for you to recover.
I am quite fond of Tomas Fleischmann as a person and as a player. He is a terrific young man.
This news was quite upsetting to us all and we are all hopeful that his health will rebound quickly. We are thinking of you and send you our best wishes for a speedy recovery.
The Avalanche is a young and exciting team. They have great ownership and a great history. They are filled with former Washington Capitals that I am very fond of; Joe Sacco as coach; Kono as assistant coach; and Craig Billington as goaltender coach. Amazing. When I first bought the team and George McPhee signed Joe Sacco as a fourth line role player, I received a funny email. It said, “You are so stupid as a new owner. I bet you thought George was signing Joe Sakic but instead you got Joe Sacco.” Joe Sacco was a great teammate and a very tough, grind it out defensively sound player. He is doing a great job now as coach for the Avalanche. I responded, by the way, to the person who emailed me with that funny comment that I found it ironic that the Caps traded their first pick in the draft one year to get Dale Hunter and guess who that first pick turned into? Yep, Joe Sakic. A trade that served both parties quite well indeed.
The Avalanche is positioned to be a terrific team. Young and exciting. They are only four points behind us now in the overall NHL standings.
We played pretty good team hockey last night. We won the game 6-1. Everyone contributed which is important on the road. This is a tough trip: Toronto, Colorado, Vancouver and Edmonton. That is a lot of travel to a lot of hostile arenas and a lot of miles of wear and tear.