from Terry Frei of the Denver Post,

Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic hadn’t expected to have to call the hockey staff together for this kind of meeting in the middle of August, but he said Thursday that the search for Patrick Roy’s successor as coach would begin immediately.

“Myself and my staff are going to get together (Saturday) and look at candidates, and go ahead and look for the right guy to take us to the next level,” he said.

“We’re going to put a group of candidates together and then start the interview process,” Sakic added. “As you can probably all understand, this caught us all off guard. There’s no timetable. Obviously, we’d like to have it done before training camp. But we want to interview quite a few people and see who we all feel is the best fit.”

Sakic said none of the Avalanche assistants — Dave Farrish, Tim Army and Nolan Pratt — would be considered.

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