Strike 2: Would it be unfair to say that Jared Bednar enters the 2025-26 NHL season on the head coach’s hot seat?
Peter DeBoer doesn’t think so.
DeBoer is the now former head coach of the Dallas Stars. He was fired after last season, having been seen most recently around here stationed behind the Dallas bench. From there he watched his team knock Bednar and the Colorado Avalanche out of the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring, before he got the pink slip. DeBoer and the Stars had been the Avs kryptonite in recent years, knocking Colorado out of the postseason twice while advancing to the Western Conference Finals the past three seasons. Unfortunately for DeBoer, the Stars came up short all three times, with last season’s series loss to Edmonton costing him the job he had held since the spring of 2022. As of right now, DeBoer – who remains unemployed – has 97 playoff wins, the most of any coach who hasn’t won a Stanley Cup.
Bednar of course did win the Cup back in 2022, so he’s got that going for him, which is nice.
What he doesn’t have is 97 playoff wins (he’s got 52) and more than that single trip to the conference finals.
Now entering his 10th season behind the Avs bench, Bednar has taken Colorado to the postseason for eight straight years. But other than the 2021-22 Cup winning season, the Avs have failed to make it past the second round every time, including the past two seasons when DeBoer and Dallas sent them out to the golf course early.
DeBoer is gone, but the Stars aren’t. And neither are the two-time defending Western Conference champs in Edmonton, the Las Vegas Golden Knights or the Seattle Kraken, a couple of other teams that have knocked the Avs out of the playoffs during Bednar’s tenure here. Are the new and improved Avalanche – with Bednar at the helm – ready to take them all down now that Colorado has retooled what was already a formidable roster?
If we’re to believe what we hear coming out of Avalanche camp, this is the most talented roster Colorado has had since they won the Cup in June of 2022. Will that be enough to change their playoff fortunes?
Bednar is well respected and well liked by everyone in Colorado’s hockey community. But if the Avs don’t make a serious run at another Stanley Cup this season, what happens then? Will Bednar – who is the longest tenured head coach among the four major Denver sports and the second longest tenured head coach (with the same team) in the NHL – be the one to take the blame? Should he be?
Where are the goalposts right now, so to speak?
It sure seems like all other excuses are gone. Colorado didn’t have to do a whole lot in this past offseason, roster-wise, after having made major changes at last season’s trade deadline. They shored up several positions, locked up almost all the key players with contracts, and should have good chemistry already with the new faces. Assuming big Val Nichushkin is on the right track, and that his health/off the ice situation is on solid footing, that won’t be a distraction to point at. They have depth at key positions, they’ve found the goaltender they like, and only one key contract issue – this one involving center Marty Necas – left to be resolved. In other words, the front office has handled all the business, and business looks good.
That leaves everything on the backs of Avs players and coaches to finally get over that hump, the same one that DeBoer’s teams couldn’t climb. If this Avs team can’t either, Bednar is not likely to get another chance in burgundy and blue.
