Jared Bednar’s Failings as a Coach
I know it’s not coach Jared Bednar’s decision to send players down — that falls at least partially under the purview of GM Joe Sakic. And I know it must have been a tough decision for Sakic to send “his” guy down. (Because Jost would certainly never have been Patrick Roy’s first choice for #10 overall in 2016.)
However, I think Bednar’s ineptitude at player development as well as his general failings as a coach are at least partially the reason Sakic decided Jost should head to Loveland.
An NHL coach’s #1 job is to get his team to win hockey games. Bednar does not have a winning record at the NHL level. The team has gone 3-8-2 in their last 13 games. Granted, they’re currently at 21-18-8, but overall his record is 86-104-13. Yes, that includes the 48-point season, but we’re just focusing on the numbers — and he coached them to 22-56-4 that year.
An NHL coach’s job is to coach his team to win hockey games. What that looks like depends on the coach, the team, the player, even the era. It always focuses on roster implementation and strategy. In the modern NHL, you also have to throw statistical analysis into the mix.
However, what that cannot look like is disavowment of any part of your job. That’s why the following quote from Bednar following Colorado’s 5-2 loss in Ottawa sent me into conniptions:
"“You can’t be coaching effort — it’s almost February.”"
Excuse me, Jared? You can and should coach effort — leadership and motivation are integral aspects of any coach’s job. And your job as an NHL coach is to win hockey games — you’ll coach the players on how to lace their skates if that’s what it takes to win hockey games.
But I will say this: It ain’t easy to coach effort or any aspect of motivation.
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To be clear, the above issue is somewhat separate from the Jost demotion. I just bring it up to highlight a truth: Jared Bednar is shirking at least some of his responsibilities as a head coach.
I think he also hasn’t been as careful of Jost’s development. It could very well be that he didn’t feel it was his job as an NHL coach — hey, that’s for those scrubs in the AHL and below. And he, a third-year NHL coach with a losing NHL record, shouldn’t need to be bothered with that.
Rather, I think he’s incapable. Bednar is a plodder. I think that’s what Sakic has discovered about his pet coach. So maybe, just maybe, he sees sending Jost to a coach with a better pedigree will ultimately be good for his pet draftee.
It may very well be a signal that Bednar is securely on the hot seat — where he should be. As I said in a previous post, if a player has done everything you’ve asked of him — and from both Jost and Bednar, he’s done exactly that — and he’s still failing to live up to potential… that’s not on the player.
In other words, the salad spinner approach to line combinations didn’t work. Bouncing Jost game-to-game, period-to-period, shift-to-shift in the lineup is not actually an effective method of letting him develop into the player Sakic means him to be.
And now, as promised, what Joe Sakic may have in mind.