After another postseason appearance by the Colorado Avalanche that ended short of a Stanley Cup Final appearance, whispers are going around in regards to the status of head coach Jared Bednar.
As a consistent Stanley Cup contender, the Avs have actually failed to make the Stanley Cup Final since winning it all after the 2021-22 season. They’ve made it to the second round twice since then, while the other two times, the team has fallen in the first round. This time, it was at the hands of one of the league’s newer teams in the Golden Knights, who became a team through expansion in 2017.
Despite the fact that the Avalanche won the Presidents’ trophy for having the most wins in the league, and the dominance they showed in the first two rounds of the postseason against the Los Angeles Kings and Minnesota Wild, people are getting restless. They want change. It’s something that will have Bednar believers puzzled.
The change that I’ve unfortunately seen a lot on social media as of late is the firing of Bednar. How could the Avs show so much dominance early on and then completely fall flat against Vegas?
It was due to many things, such as the injuries they suffered (Cale Makar missing multiple games and Nathan MacKinnon having a shot hit his foot, as well as Valeri Nichushkin missing the third period in Game 3 and the entirity of Game 4). But, even with their star players in the lineup, the Avalanche just fell flat. It was against a very solid Golden Knights team, though every Avs fan will say that Colorado was the better team—They are, but not when it mattered most.
Following the game on Tuesday night, both teams’ head coaches—Bednar for Colorado, John Tortorella for Vegas—took the podium for their postgame pressers. As Tortorella left the podium after addressing the media, you could hear him say something off camera.
”Get off Bedsy’s ***,” he shouted. Yep, that’s some true respect right there. Coaching is not easy.
Winning is hard in sports. Bednar has led the Avalanche to the postseason consistently during his tenure and that should not be forgotten. The offense by the Avalanche’s star players was just terrible in this series. MacKinnon has two shots in Game 4.
Through the whole series, the Avalanche had the better Fenwick total of 181-152 (shots that reached the net area). The Avs won the Corsi battle (total shots, ones that hit the net and ones that didn’t) 261-208. So, the attempts were there for the taking, the Avalanche just couldn’t capitalize.
In reality, that isn’t on Bednar. He’s not the one out on the ice.
According to Natural Stat Trick, an advance hockey stats site, the Avalanche gave the puck away 51 times and only took it away from Vegas 14 times. That difference is mind boggling. But it really showed in this series. The Avs were just out of sync a lot of the time, and it cost them.
While the head coach is meant to get his team prepared, the issues the Avalanche had this series aren’t all on Bednar and he should not be getting the heckling that he has. While Bednar has a lot of enemies right now, Tortorella is not one of them. He’s a supporter of Bednar, and other people should follow suit.
Bednar is not going anywhere. I think he has earned the respect that he deserves to stay with the Avalanche as long as he wants, though that could change if Colorado ends up going on a multi-year playoff absence. But we’ll cross that bridge if it ever comes to it.
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