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Sakic: Struggling Avalanche won't 'do anything drastic right now'

Rick Wilking / REUTERS

With his Colorado Avalanche in danger of dropping from first to worst, general manager Joe Sakic isn't prepared to make radical changes.

"I think the biggest thing for us is that we know we’re still growing as a team," Sakic told Pierre LeBrun of ESPN. "We’re not going to do anything drastic right now. We're missing a lot of our guys due to injury, so it's tough to get a grasp on the type of team we could be. There’s no panic mode or anything."

Mired in a four-game losing streak, the Avalanche – hit hard, in particular, by a series of groin injuries to goaltender Semyon Varlamov – have dropped to last place in the Central Division, 10 points out of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

While Sakic anticipated some form of regression after a surprising first-place finish last season, he didn't expect them to drop this far, this fast.

Still, he sees a silver lining in the struggles.

" ... The guys are learning, they’re going through adversity right now. Everything went really well last year. We’ve faced a lot of injuries, some guys haven’t played so well. But we’re still young and learning, that’s the thing, the core is young and they have to learn to deal and go through this stuff."

The Avalanche will try to climb back up the hill beginning Thursday against Winnipeg, while Sakic plans to stand pat for the time being.

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