The definition of insanity is… well known. With that in mind, do the Colorado Avalanche really want to just keep on doing what they’ve been doing and somehow expect a different or better result?
This is an Avalanche front office that’s hasn’t been afraid to shuffle the roster. They reload like hockey teams make line changes – on the fly. No position goes unaddressed…with the obvious exception of the head coach.
Jared Bednar is the second-longest tenured head coach in the NHL and the longest-tenured Avs head man in team history. He’s not just well established, he’s renowned as one of the league’s best. His resume is, in hockey terms, top shelf. Even so, unless he gets a new contract – which he very well might – he would enter next season in the uncomfortable position of being in the last year of his coaching contract.
This is the time to ask: Is Bednar still the right guy to lead this Avs team? The President’s Cup winners did the turtle in the Western Conference Finals against Las Vegas, and Avs fans are rightfully frustrated and upset. They won’t ever enter the postseason in a better position to win the Stanley Cup, but can they still win it with Bednar as the man behind the bench? Are the players still listening after 10 years?
It’s not unusual for even top-shelf hockey coaches to be let go in the NHL; in fact, it’s almost commonplace. Making a change, just to make a change, has worked for numerous contending teams… like it just did for the Golden Knights this year, when they replaced Bruce Cassidy with John Tortorella with only eight games left in the regular season. Could a similar change, for the sake of change, work for the Avalanche? Perhaps. And Bednar, if he hits the market, would be snapped up by a team like Edmonton very quickly. That doesn’t necessarily mean Colorado would be making a mistake.
But then, there’s this dilemma: Who can you get to replace the most successful head coach in Avalanche history?
Then there’s the matter of the general manager. The expectation after the season was that Avs GM Chris McFarland will pack up and moves to Nashville, where he’s a candidate for a promotion. That complicates things even more.
Or maybe it makes things easier. How’s this for a fix?
If McFarland leaves, the Kroenkes could promote the well-established Bednar to general manager. Then they could go out and hire a fresh new head coach with a championship resume… one who happens to already be close by. Don’t forget – there was a hockey champion in Denver this season, and there really should have been a parade for those University of Denver Pioneers and head coach David Carle.
The 36-year-old Carle is considered a red-hot head-coaching candidate. He was at the top of the list for the Toronto Maple Leafs job. Just a few days ago, he turned them down.
Would he turn down the chance to stay in Denver and take over what could and should be a juggernaut of an NHL team?
Imagine a situation where Bednar is working alongside team president Joe Sakic while he’s mentoring Carle, who would still have the enormous talents of players like Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar to work with. If you watched Denver’s national championship run last March, you saw a head coach whose teams were overmatched, talent-wise, but were disciplined to the point of playing “rope-a-dope” hockey and beating Big Ten bullies Michigan (in double-overtime) and Wisconsin, while being outshot by enormous margins. Getting more out of less is the best trait a coach can have.
A coaching change like this would bring about a radical change in playing style for the Avs, shifting to what would likely be more of a physical, defensive-minded brand of hockey – one built for the postseason.
It could be exactly what this Avs team, which quite honestly has grown stale, really needs.
