DENVER – Joel Quenneville has been hired to coach the Colorado Avalanche, replacing Tony Granato, who will become his assistant.

Quenneville was the coach of the St. Louis Blues from January 1997 until this February, when he was fired during a 4-12 slump.

Granato was an Avalanche assistant when he was promoted to head coach in December 2002, replacing Bob Hartley, who was fired. The move was a surprise because Granato had only three months of coaching experience, all as an assistant, and was two years removed from his playing days.

The team scheduled a news conference for Wednesday afternoon to formally announce the changes.

In five of his six full seasons at St. Louis, Quenneville led the Blues to at least 40 regular-season wins. They won 307 regular-season games but went 34-34 in the postseason.

Quenneville was an Avalanche assistant under coach Marc Crawford in 1995-96 and played a role in the franchise’s first Stanley Cup championship.

Quenneville was to coach Canada at the hockey world championships in Prague in April but stepped down on the eve of the games after he was hospitalized for exhaustion.

Lacroix had vehemently denied a report in March that Quenneville would replace Granato.

Granato was 73-33-17-11 as head coach. Colorado beat Dallas in the first round of the playoffs this year but was eliminated after scoring just seven goals in six games against the San Jose Sharks.

Granato has a year left on his contract.

AP-ES-07-07-04 1733EDT