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The timing of Patrick Roy’s exodus is putrid. It leaves the Colorado Avalanche in a precarious situation. It’s tough enough to find a new head coach when you have the entire offseason to interview possible candidates. It’s the middle of August, though, and most NHL teams are gearing up for training camps to kick off in less than a month.

That doesn’t give the Avalanche much time to find a suitable replacement. Or at least that’s the way that it appears on paper. The tough reality is that no matter who general manager Joe Sakic finds to replace Roy, they will be able to operate this team at a higher level than we’ve seen in the last two seasons.

Maybe the Chicago Blackhawks are willing to let Kevin Dineen go to a division rival a month out from training camp. Perhaps Sakic can convince Dale Hunter to leave his post with the London Knights. He could even go off the radar a bit and snag someone like Ralph Krueger.

Regardless of who ends up running the Avalanche this season, the team’s more talented players are about to see a real, tangible spike in production with Roy gone.

The former bench boss stifled creativity — even by the NHL’s typical take no risks standards — and seemed to shoot himself in the foot repeatedly while handling his forwards. Colorado doesn’t have the deepest contingent of wings and centers in the league, but they should be way more productive than they have been over the last two seasons.

In 2015-16, they ranked 20th in total goals scored with 212. That tied them with the haphazard Columbus Blue Jackets, to give that number some perspective. They were also 20th in average goals scored per game with 2.59. This was actually a small improvement over the offensive production the Avalanche produced in 2014-15.

Colorado was ranked 23rd in total goals scored two seasons ago, only managing three more than the rebuilding Toronto Maple Leafs.

There’s absolutely no reason that a roster with this much speed and talent should be scoring that infrequently. Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon should be two of the most productive forwards in the game, but they’ve been held back by a coach who relies more on luck than skill.

Under Roy, the Avalanche weren’t allowed to hang onto the puck. They rarely hit the offensive zone with speed, instead opting to dump and chase more often than not. This is ludicrous when you roster players like Duchene, MacKinnon, Jarome Iginla, Carl Soderberg, and Gabriel Landeskog.

He was a coach who was stuck in a bygone era, wanting Sakic to land lumbering defensemen via free agency and at the draft. His fingerprints are all over the additions of players such as Francois Beauchemin.

Physicality still has a place in pro hockey, but the game moves more towards skill and speed every single season. Colorado struggled to keep up on a philosophical level, thanks in large part to Roy and his preference towards 1980’s hockey.

Now he will have all the time in the world to watch those highlight packages on YouTube or the NHL Network. Meanwhile, the Avalanche can start the hard climb back to respectability again. It starts by letting the forwards off the leash a bit. Even if Colorado hired someone from the old guard like Mike Keenan, this is still a team poised to take a step forward offensively.

Addition by subtraction at its finest.

The Avalanche aren’t in a position to catapult to the top of the Central Division, but they won’t be lagging behind quite as badly either. You don’t have to worship at the altar of Corsi to understand that having the puck is better than not having the puck. Especially for players like Duchene and MacKinnon who are capable of making fireworks appear out of nowhere.

This is a great example of what a talented forward like MacKinnon can do on the rush. Roy didn’t like plays like this, though, and probably would have preferred to see his players get the puck in deep while looking for that perfect shot. That was Colorado’s modus operandi under the former regime, however.

Chip the puck in deep and work for that perfect snipe. This rarely resulted in goals and ended up putting way too much pressure on the team’s goaltenders to win games by themselves.

When the team in front of you is only possessing the puck around 45 percent of the time, games are going to be lost more frequently than they are won.

That’s why so many say Roy counted on fortune instead of, you know, the metrics and schemes winning Stanley Cups for other organizations. The Avalanche have the fire power needed to be a potential wild card team.

They’d need some help to get there, but they are closer now than they were a few days ago — if for no other reason that the team’s high-end skilled players will likely now be allowed to play their respective games.

Look for Duchene to have his best season as a pro. Without Roy acting as an anchor, look for MacKinnon to finally cash in on all of his potential. Tyson Barrie is another player who could erupt under a new head coach. He has somehow managed to evolve into one of the NHL’s top offensive defenseman in the last two years, and his number could skyrocket if his new coach lets him fly a bit more.

We could even see untapped talents like Mikhail Grigorenko and the recently signed Joe Colborne take the next step in their collective games. Colorado hasn’t been one of the league’s elite teams over the last few seasons, but they aren’t as bad as their record shows either. A fresh set of ideas and eyes will do this organization a lot of good, none more so than the young, speedy forwards that dot this lineup.

Column: Avalanche offense set to take off sans Roy