Colorado Avalanche: An Evaluation of Jared Bednar’s Optimistic Projections

Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar expressed optimism in his talk with the media. Let’s hope the world goes the way he thinks it will.

Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar spoke with the media today about the ongoing hockey hiatus. He spoke about what’s on everyone’s mind — the resumption of the season.

First things first in case you hadn’t heard — all three of the Avalanche players who had tested positive for COVID-19 are well and back with their families. No word on if anyone in their circles were infected, but it sound like they weren’t.

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In any case, he expressed the opinion that the season would, indeed, be able to resume in some fashion:

"“I’m certainly hopeful that we can [resume]. That’s just me. I’m an optimist. I’m hopeful as a society we’re able to overcome this. As a coach, I have to be prepared for us to come back. If it turns out that we get the information that we can’t return, then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”"

That approach is probably prudent. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve been operating under the assumption that some sort of normalcy will return to our world at some point.

And I don’t know about you, but I want it to include hockey — Colorado Avalanche hockey.

As I expressed in a previous post, I understand that sports aren’t the most important aspect of life right now. However, the vast majority of us are facing a lot of uncertainly in our lives. We don’t know when we’ll get to see family outside of our homes right now. We don’t know if and when it’ll be safe for us to return to work.

And with that comes economic uncertainty. You, me, everyone — we’re living that life right now whether we want to or not.

So, you know what would be nice? If we had that one thing — that hockey game to watch, an Avs game every other night for as long as they’re in the playoffs. Maybe, for that span of time, we could not focus on our worries and doubts.

Meanwhile, Bednar has faith in his athletes. He expected they’d be ready for games in “two weeks or less.”

Now, that’s a little optimistic in my opinion. There are players such as Gabriel Landeskog and, especially, Nathan MacKinnon who have access to full gyms that they’ve built in their homes. There are other players who have nothing like that at their disposal.

I think if the players were to get back together, say, in six weeks, we’d see a vast disparity in their fitness levels. Especially considering few if any have had access to ice.

Then again, they’d be in the same boat as every other team in the NHL. Oilers forward Conor McDavid expressed worry about returning and going straight to the playoffs:

"“Calgary comes to Edmonton, and guys are just running around killing each other and haven’t played a game in two months. It’ll end up the [AHL] Stockton Heat versus the Bakersfield Condors if that’s the case.”"

Yeah, but that’s AHL vs AHL team. The scenario is equitable because both teams would be in that position. It’s not like it’d be the Colorado Eagles vs the Dallas Stars.

Then again, you do worry about player injuries. According to Bednar, all the players who were injured when the pause went into effect are now healthy. The Colorado Avalanche would have the opportunity to ice a healthy roster for the first time since, oh, October, I think.

It sucks. None of us know what’s going to happen with anything basically. So, in an unprecedented turn of events, I’m going to go the way of Jared Bednar — I’m going to be optimistic because that feels better than the alternative.