Listening to Checketts reasoning made a lot of sense. At the time, Gretzky was coming off a year where he was 3rd in the NHL in scoring, Leetch won a Norris, Richter was coming off a playoff in which he was maybe better than he even was in 1994 and we made this run, don’t forget, with Kovalev missing the entire run with a major knee injury. So we also had the prospect of him coming back, plus also Graves coming off a 30+ goal season. If Sakic ended up in the fold, they would have lost 5 1sts but it may have been worth it. The pivot was LaFontaine, who played well but was gone after less than half a season. If Sakic were there, the stench of Messier wouldn’t have been there really. And they likely end up with Pavel Bure a year later as a real all-in move, as by then I don’t think Smith would have been prospect hugging the way he did with Vancouver when he was available.
Just a wild change of events. It was entertaining to see Checketts involvement with the Colorado backstory and how he and Charlie Lyons were able to put it all behind them after all those years.