The Colorado Avalanche are in the midst of yet another postseason appearance as they look to add onto their last victory against the Dallas Stars, evening the series at 2-2. It’s an amazing feat, given their struggles early on into the season and a couple of cold streaks among several players. Head coach Jared Bednar is such a huge part of the team’s success since taking over for Patrick Roy in 2016.
I remember in the Roy head coaching days, the Avalanche felt like a team that wasn’t going to go on the attack the amount they needed to. That resulted in an all-time record of 130-92-24 as head coach of the Avs. Roy stepped down in September of 2016.
The reason for Roy’s departure was because he wanted to have much more control of the team’s decisions than he was offered. Looking back, it makes sense, but I’m glad about the direction the team went following his departure.
The Avalanche had the first overall pick in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, which was Bednar’s first as a head coach in the league. They opted to select Nathan MacKinnon with that pick, despite many people thinking that they would select Seth Jones out of—you guessed it—Denver, Colorado.
Taking a look at the drafts that Roy was a part of, his Avalanche made two of the better selections in team history: MacKinnoin in 2013 and Mikko Rantanen in 2015, though the latter is now with the division rival Stars.
So, with all of that being said, we’ll now talk about the team’s current coach, Bednar.
Where does Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar rank in terms of NHL head coaching tenures?
As discussed already, Roy was the Avalanche’s head coach immediately before Bednar. Bednar took over in 2016 and has had a lot of success since the transition.
Bednar played hockey from 1993 to 2002, being a part of several different organizations ranging from the Saskatoon Blades, Spokane Chiefs, Medicine Hat Tigers, Prince Albert Raiders, among others. He was hired by the Columbus Blue Jackets to assist with their AHL affiliate team, the Springfield Falcons and then eventually became that team’s head coach via a promotion.
He has coached the Avalanche in 700 total regular season games, with a 390-246-64 record and has only missed the playoffs one time—his first year on the job. Needless to say, his impact and rise as the team’s longest-tenured head coach has been nothing short of remarkable.
That brings us to the final question: In all of the NHL, where does Bednar rank in terms of overall tenure as a head coach with their current club? I’m happy to say that he is in second place, roughly three years short of Lightning coach Jon Cooper. I think that it would be cool to see Bednar surpass Cooper’s tenure length at some point, but Tampa Bay has been superb since Cooper took over, missing the postseason just a single time.
It feels as if the Avalanche and Lightning have become the standard of NHL postseasons. Since the two teams faced off in the 2021-22 Stanley Cup playoffs, they’re still talked about to this day. It would be so cool to have a version 2.0 of that matchup sooner than later. I would love to see that series go into seven games and with the Avalanche winning it all at home, along with Gabriel Landeskog hoisting the Stanley Cup for a second time in his career. I’ll just say that it would not surprise me at all if that happened in the next couple of years.
All I know is that the Avalanche are in great hands with Bednar at head coach and I look forward to the rest of his tenure.