Dave Hakstol’s move from the Colorado Avalanche to the Arizona State Sun Devils is more than a simple staff change. For Colorado, it is another reminder that one of its biggest on-ice problems never really went away: the power play still needs answers, and now one of the coaches who helped manage that phase is on his way out.
The timing matters because the Avalanche had already spent much of last season trying to stabilize a unit that slipped after a strong start. At one point, the power play dropped to 22.2 percent, a number that helps explain why the club kept searching for different looks and combinations. Colorado even tried reshuffling personnel, including adding T.J. Hughes to a top group that already featured Nazem Kadri, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Martin Necas.
A coach with real NHL mileage
Hakstol is not walking into Arizona State as a fresh face. From 1996 through 2015, he worked in a wide range of roles, including head coach of the Sioux City Muskateers, assistant and associate at North Dakota, head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, assistant for the Toronto Maple Leafs and head coach of the Seattle Kraken. He then served as the Kraken’s head coach from 2021-24 before joining the Avalanche last season as an assistant coach.
That background gives Arizona State a coach with a long view of the game and plenty of experience at different levels. It also means Colorado is losing someone who has handled both bench responsibilities and the larger job of running a team. The Avalanche do not need a full rebuild, but they do need better efficiency in a phase that has not consistently matched their talent.
What Colorado loses now
The immediate question is who helps handle the power play next. The facts here do not name a replacement, but the challenge is obvious: Colorado was already working through a stretch in which its power play ranked near the bottom of the league last season, and Hakstol’s departure removes another voice from the search for answers.
That is why this move lands as more than a headline about a coach changing jobs. It is part coaching transition, part roster-management problem, and part reminder that elite teams can still have one stubborn weakness hanging over them. The Avalanche have the star power to contend, but the power play remains the detail that can shape how far that talent actually takes them.
For Arizona State, Hakstol brings a coach with NHL head-coaching experience and a resume that stretches across multiple levels of the sport. For Colorado, the task is simpler to state and harder to solve: replace the influence, then fix the unit that still needs fixing.
