Departing Avalanche assistant coach Tim Army, who has been with the team for six seasons under three head coaches, said Wednesday night he wasn’t surprised when general manager Joe Sakic told him Tuesday that the team wasn’t exercising the club option for the second year of the two-year contract he signed in 2016.

“I honestly expected something would happen, based on the year that we had,” Army said from his off-season home near Portland, Maine. “You have to make some changes. I get it. But even though you expect it, it still stings and it still hurts and it’s disappointing. But when you win 22 games, something has to happen and I understand that part of the sport. … I’ll be angry at some point, but right now it’s too new.”

Coming off a 22-56-4 season, the worst in the NHL since the expansion Atlanta Thrashers in 1999-2000, the Avalanche announced Tuesday that three assistants — Army, Dave Farrish and goaltending guru Francois Allaire — wouldn’t return to head coach Jared Bednar‘s staff next season. Farrish is believed to have one year remaining on a three-year deal.

All three were holdovers from Patrick Roy‘s staff, under contract and remaining with the Avalanche after Roy’s sudden departure last August. The Avalanche said Sakic wouldn’t comment on the changes until replacements were hired, and Bednar wasn’t made available to discuss them, either.

Army, previously an assistant at Anaheim and Washington and a head coach in the AHL and at Providence College, said he believed he got along well with Bednar, including in their discussions this week, even after Sakic told Army he wouldn’t be back.

“As much as it hurts and I would like to come back, I get it,” Army said. “I think it’s more Joe and upper management. I think Jared had to be comfortable with it. But I think we worked really well together and the staff worked well together. It obviously didn’t show in the wins, but it always takes time to get used to somebody new. I’m talking about a head coach, it takes some time to get used to his rhythm and simple things like where to place pucks in the practices.

“From my standpoint, I think we worked well together and fit well together and it even was positive since the end of the season. But I think, ultimately, upper management felt like they needed to make a change.”

What went wrong this season?

“I don’t think there was any one thing,” said Army, who then mentioned the decent 9-9 start and the 0-4-1 homestand that started the downward spiral.

“It started there for us,” he added. “We never seemed to be able to get any traction after that, we never seemed able to build on anything.”

He also cited the injuries to defenseman Erik Johnson (broken leg), goaltender Semyon Varlamov (groin muscle issues and season-ending hip surgery) and even a Matt Duchene concussion that, in retrospect, seemed to derail his season.

“We were better over the last 20 games, though it didn’t show in a lot of wins, but I think the young guys gave us a spark,” Army said. “I think that youth movement added more speed to our lineup late. We were not a quick lineup and it’s tough now, you watch the games now, you even watch the first round of the playoffs, the teams are so fast. We weren’t fast enough and it’s a speed game now. We weren’t quick enough. … I think there were a lot of balls in the air, with the injuries and then we didn’t have the depth to compensate for it. We didn’t tighten up and we always found a way to let the games get away from us.”

Under Army’s watch, the Avalanche’s power play was the worst in the league, and Colorado got a baffling lack of production from “core” forwards Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon and Gabe Landeskog. Related Articles September 18, 2020 Avalanche re-signs former DU star Logan O’Connor on two-year contract

September 12, 2020 Chambers: Nathan MacKinnon is not your typical Lady Byng winner

September 11, 2020 Nathan MacKinnon wins Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship

September 10, 2020 Joe Sakic says Avalanche will stick with Philipp Grubauer, Pavel Francouz in goal, reveals latter was injured vs. Stars

September 10, 2020 Avalanche has money, means to fine-tune strong group of forwards, defensemen

“We weren’t necessarily a possession team and I think the speed issue hurt us and we had a little lack of depth on the back end with E.J. out,” he said. “That affected our transition game, our breakouts, our play in the neutral zone. I think a lack of foot speed hurt us from a possession standpoint. Yeah, we have some talented guys who didn’t produce the way you have expected. But I think one of the things was the lack of play around the net, getting guys committed at the net. That’s a big step, having guys willing to apply traffic, play around the net front. That’s where a lot of the goals are scored. We didn’t engage in those areas.”

On the power play, Army said, “We didn’t generate a lot of dangerous pressure or shots from up top. That was (Jarome Iginla‘s) spot the year before, and he had 13 power play goals that year. He didn’t have the same sort of firepower he’d had the year before. … The net front presence was critical for us. We didn’t have that. That hurt us on the power play and on five-on-five and it was something we stressed. It may not look like it, but it was a theme we pushed all year, especially after Christmas. It can be tough because you realize the importance of the power play, and there are some talented guys there who should be able to produce in those situations.”

Army often functioned as the “good cop” confidant with young forwards, perhaps most visibly and notably with Duchene.

“I think he needs a break right now,” Army said. “Even at the World Championships, I think he had one goal in 10 games. I just think he can (break out) because he’s still only 26 years old and he’s very talented. He has produced 30 goals in the league, he for sure should be a 25-goal guy every year. He has that ability and that’s a lot of goals in today’s game. I think he needs a summer to get away and forget about hockey for a little while.

“I think sometimes he thinks himself into trouble. He overthinks things and he needs sometimes to let go and just go play. When he gets a little tight, it doesn’t go his way, he starts to overthink and grips the stick too tightly. It limits his ability to attack and make plays and attack openings. When he gets on a roll, he’s scary. . . He just feels it, he relaxes a little bit and just goes out and plays. The other thing that he needs to do, he’s at his best when he’s down around the net. He needs to find his way down there more because that’s where you’re going to score goals.

“When it gets away from him, he lets it drain him mentally. He’s just got to kind of push it away and go out and relax and skate and play and work hard defensively, work hard away from the puck.”

Army said he wasn’t embittered.

“I’ve spent six years there and not many people stay that long in one spot,” he said. “I was with Joe Sacco and Patty and now Jared, and they’ve been great to me. I wish it were different circumstances that I was moving on, but I do appreciate all they did for me and my family and for the opportunity.”

The backdrop to all of this was Roy’s surprising decision to resign a month before the start of training camp, leading the quick search that brought Bednar aboard two weeks later — ultimately, with an inherited staff. Nolan Pratt had been hired in the offseason before Roy’s departure, but he had worked with Bednar in the AHL.

Army said he had been aware of some building tension between Roy and Sakic. “The timing of it surprised me,” Army said. “But not the decision. If it had happened in June, I wouldn’t have been surprised by it. But when we got into August, it did surprise me, yeah. I thought that after a couple of months of regrouping, refreshing, recharging, it would be different. I can remember clear as a bell when (Roy) called me. I really thought he was calling about, ‘OK, we’re a couple of weeks out from camp, let’s start to get going.’ Then he told me what was going on.

“I think there was a different vision for the organization. I think Pat and Joe got along really well, but I just think that as they got into the fourth year, they had different thought processes about what direction we were headed. And Pat’s situation, where you’re going into that fourth year, there’s a lot at stake. He had certain expectations, I think Joe had certain expectations, and I don’t think they didn’t connect in that sense. I think (Roy) was concerned about the team that he was going to come back with.”