Jared Bednar doesn’t have time for nonsense.
Yours, mine, or anyone else’s.
He became the winningest coach in franchise history on Tuesday night, bringing home his 266th victory in his 500th contest, and when asked about the outstanding accomplishment, he basically shrugged it off.
“I’m glad it’s here and gone so we can stop talking about it, to be honest with you,” Bednar said after that game. “As far as the record goes, I’m glad it’s over and done with.”
That was that.
The man doesn’t suffer fools, lacks of effort, or losing in general, and he’s sick of talking about a number he’s sure to leave in the dust.
He’s been busy.
Busy creating a winning culture. Busy crafting championship values. Busy winning the club’s first Stanley Cup in 21 years. Busy handling easily the most adversity he’s seen in his time behind the Avalanche bench. Busy coaching and navigating a way out of an ugly downturn where his squad was free falling in the standings and looking up at a fading playoff berth. And now busy climbing up the ladder and looking at finding consistency as the hard part of the season rolls into focus.
He’s got more important things on his mind, but 266 wins in seven seasons is no small feat. It deserves some recognition. Michel Bergeron, who coached the Quebec Nordiques for eight seasons (1980-87 and 1989-90) required 634 games to reach 265 victories. Bednar did it in over 100 fewer contests.
Bednar did it with a franchise record 56-win season under his belt. He also did it with a woeful 22-win campaign to kick things off.
This is a guy who took his first NHL coaching job in August after his predecessor abruptly left the organization ahead of what would be the Avalanche’s worst season since the great migration south from Quebec City. He had less than a month to get ready and a lame duck roster to work with and he jumped into the frying pan regardless.
The next year, he took the team to the playoffs for the first time since 2013-14, and the Avs have been there every season since.
“He’s been my coach since my rookie year, so I got to know him really well, and especially last year, what he was able to do,” Mikko Rantanen reminded us aging wordsmiths. “He’s been coaching hard this year. We haven’t been cruising like last season. We were kind of on the cruise-mode a little bit. We were winning games and playing good. Not that many injuries. So this year has been tough, and [he’s] maybe had to coach even more, us and the younger guys, and he’s been doing a good job. He adjusts really well for things and [has] been good.”
Bednar brought Denver its first back-to-back postseason hockey series since 2002-03 and 2003-04, but people were calling for his head when Colorado lost seven of eight following the holiday break.
With a semi-pro lineup that would make Jackie Moon shiver.
Andrew Cogliano, veteran of five NHL teams, boasting 1,184 regular-season games played and another 116 in the postseason, told me at the time “there’s no better coached team” than his current one.
He doubled down on that on Tuesday.
“Obviously, he has been here a good amount of time, but not a crazy amount. So to do it in, what is it seven, eight years here, it’s very impressive. I’m not really surprised, to be honest,” No. 11 said. “He’s very deserving. A very, very good coach. Very detailed. Easy guy to play for. I think that’s the biggest thing. I think players enjoy playing for him. I think it’s very easy to play for him in terms of bringing it every night and competing. And like I said, I think he does a really good job. He’s got a really good pulse on the room because he has a really good idea of what needs to be done and what’s happening really on the ice.”
That ‘Fire the coach!’ ridiculousness seems like a bad, meat-sweats level, post-holiday fasting, dry January fever-dream at this point. Now, the Avalanche sit in third in the Western Conference, have outscored their opponents 25-8 over the last six victories, haven’t trailed once, and are looking at getting healthy following the All-Star break.
The best part of this recent turnaround is that nobody tuned out the message that Bednar was broadcasting. When things got tough, the players leaned on their coach.
“Seven or eight years with the same coach probably could get tiring, but with him it [isn’t],” Nathan MacKinnon said. “He’s not in your face. It’s good. He’s very smart. He has our respect, and he respects all of us, which is great.”
“You got to find a balance there too. It can’t be overly positive, but I think you can’t be overly negative either,” Rantanen said of coaching during tougher times. “You got to find the balance [because] you got to demand from your players a lot. I like that. Coaches do that, but also you got to give space to them too. So I think he’s really good at that.”
These are guys that could get sick of working with Bedsy and his staff, but they haven’t yet.
“He’s a good guy. That’s really it. If he was painful or annoying, who knows, right? But it’s easy,” MacKinnon said. “I think he knows when to push the buttons, when to be hard on us, when to be positive. I think it’s easier. He’s getting to know us. He knows how we like to treat everyone in the locker room and how he treats everybody. So there’s definitely chemistry to be built with your coach.”
Artturi Lehkonen, man of many recent goals but few words, said Bednar’s true skill is knowing his players and what they can do.
“He reads the room well. He works hard. I really like his coaching style,” he said. “He trusts me as a player. That’s what you want to have as a player, you want to have the coach’s confidence that you’re going to do your job out there.”
And that includes in wins and losses. It includes during hot streaks and dry spells. It includes the career-type years of guys like Rantanen and the downturn, sophomore slump seasons of guys like Alex Newhook.
“He’s a good coach, and since I’ve been here, he’s been really open with me and honest. Obviously, he wants me to succeed,” Newhook said. “[I’m] privileged to be under him, and obviously winning last year and then leading it into this year, it’s all been good.”
After Bednar set the new record in Colorado’s 3-2 hold-on victory over the Washington Capitals, the squad’s sixth in a row, the coach wasn’t overly enamored with the effort the way a fan might be.
No, he praised the goaltending but said there needed to be more energy. The team had more to do and give and correct than merely getting another dub in the left column.
That’s where his mind is. That’s where his focus is.
That’s why I didn’t ask the guy, who used to talk to me about movies and James Bond and TV shows and was in on Schitt’s Creek in season one before anyone else, his thoughts on the Oscar nominations that came out this week. I’m sure he has opinions, but he doesn’t stand for distractions in times that require focus.
For Patrick Roy, his whole career was about winning, nothing else. That provided a legacy but maybe left a void. For Jared Bednar, it’s about winning the right way, and creating the winning habits that will carry everyone to success—both individually and as a team.
There are no shortcuts. Unless you’re talking about scavenging chew from your players.
“He’s always bumming chew off guys and stuff and sneaking in guys stalls looking for some pouches, which is pretty funny as your coach,” said MacKinnon with a laugh. “But it makes sense. He is one of the guys in a way, I think. I think he toes a line well of being your best buddy and being your coach.”
With a level of confidence from his players, and with his winning pedigree in Colorado, it’s no wonder the longest-tenured coach in Avalanche history, and the third-longest currently tenured coach in the NHL, has become the winningest coach in franchise history.
He sniffed the record for the most wins in an NHL season last year but settled for winning the Stanley Cup. He set expectations in training camp for a tough start to a challenging year after a short summer, and beat those expectations with a revolving door of a roster. He’s challenged young guys to step up, leaders to lead by example, new players to support the vision, and weathered the successes and challenges that have come with that this season.
And somehow it still feels like he’s just getting started.
