Jared Bednar had a rough first season behind an NHL bench, leading the Colorado Avalanche to an NHL-worst 22-56-4 record. It could have spelled a quick end to his NHL coaching career, just one season after he led the Lake Erie Monsters to a Calder Cup championship in the AHL.
But according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the expectation is that the Avs will bring Bednar back for another season.
“Joe Sakic has said this week that Jared Bednar will return as head coach of the Colorado Avalanche,” Friedman said on Hockey Night in Canada’s Headlines segment. “He feels that Bednar deserves more of an opportunity to do the job that he was given this year.”
Bednar was hired by the Avs to be their head coach on August 25, a move that came later in the off-season than normal for a coach hire. The reason why is because former coach Patrick Roy resigned from the position on August 11, citing “philosophical differences” between himself and the team’s front office, which is led by Sakic, a former teammate of Roy’s.
“It was more like the type of players and stuff like this that [we] didn’t necessarily agree on, and it goes upon that,” Roy told NHL.com. “It was people working for the team and stuff like this that we were a little different, but no more than that.”
The Avs job is Bednar’s first in the NHL. He has previously coached in the AHL with Lake Erie, Springfield and Peoria, and in the ECHL with South Carolina.
[relatedlinks]
