Should the – After a third-round sweep by the Vegas Golden Knights, the Colorado Avalanche’s spring disappointment has reignited debate over whether Jared Bednar should be replaced—despite a résumé of success and a run shaped by injuries to key stars.
Colorado’s season didn’t just end—it ended in a way that left the room tense.
After a Presidents’ Trophy-winning campaign. the Avalanche arrived at the post-season with expectations set to a level only a handful of teams can live with. Colorado finished the regular season with 121 points. a plus-99 goal differential. and only lost once in regulation in the first two months. The message was simple: Stanley Cup or bust.
Instead, the Avalanche were swept in the third round by the Vegas Golden Knights. The path to that result wasn’t drawn to look kind. Colorado received a relatively favorable draw. starting with a Los Angeles Kings team that won just 22 regulation games. then beating a beat-up Minnesota Wild squad. before meeting a Vegas group that had already made a coaching change late in the season after playing below its standards. There was a plausible scenario where Vegas could have knocked Colorado out. but what made it sting was the clinical nature of the sweep.
The post-season is when patience runs out fastest. and this one has turned the spotlight toward the man at the center of Colorado’s bench. Jared Bednar is the second-longest tenured coach in the National Hockey League and guided the Avalanche to a Cup just a few years ago. Still, the question hanging in the air is whether this is the moment the organization needs a new voice.
Bednar should be on the hot seat
It’s hard to justify pointing only at Bednar for a season where his team produced elite numbers. Colorado scored the most goals. conceded the fewest. and “essentially lapped the rest of the league” in the first half of the season. Bednar’s track record also includes a Stanley Cup win four years ago. which makes an early off-season change sound harsh.
But the Avalanche have a history of coming up just short when it matters. Over the past four seasons. Colorado has exceeded 100 points in each campaign. and it also boasts arguably two of the top five players in the world. Yet in that same span, this was the only time they made it past the second round. Following their Cup win, Colorado was upset by the Seattle Kraken in the first round. The following year. the Dallas Stars toppled them in Round 2. and last year the Stars bounced them again in the first round. Add the stunning defeat to Vegas on top of that. and it’s now four straight post-seasons where the Avalanche have underwhelmed.
Those are the outcomes that tend to lead to coaching-seat heat—especially when the regular season suggests something bigger should have happened. And with several coaching candidates already discussed around the league. the names floating in this cycle include David Carle. Jay Woodcroft. and Bruce Cassidy. with the latter framed as a possible option “if he ever gets permission to speak.”.
Still, there’s a counterargument that won’t go away, because key pieces were missing when the stakes went up.
Injuries shaped the matchup more than fans may want to admit
There were two main blows that helped explain why the Avalanche looked slower against Vegas once it mattered most. Colorado was without star defenceman Cale Makar for the first two games against the Golden Knights. That absence changed their tempo and their danger level. Without him. the Avalanche were forced to play more at Vegas’s pace. with Vegas owning the neutral zone while Colorado was far less dangerous off the rush.
Then Nathan MacKinnon went down after blocking a shot in Game 3 and wasn’t near 100 percent for the rest of the series. With both of the team’s best players significantly banged up, a historic comeback wasn’t realistic.
Colorado’s challenge wasn’t only about their own injuries. Carter Hart delivered in a major way for Vegas with a .944 save percentage in the series, and with those circumstances stacked against them, there was little—if anything—Bednar could have done to overcome the Golden Knights decisively.
Bednar’s fit with star power is also part of why this debate won’t be settled easily. The argument in his favor is that he has a “good relationship” with Colorado’s star players. That matters in the NHL right now. after teams have seen friction when high-end talents don’t mesh with coaching styles. Colorado even traded Mikko Rantanen and brought in Martin Necas, and that transition was described as almost seamless.
One thing remains clear: the Avalanche will decide what they value most—regular-season dominance or the ability to turn it into series wins. When you’re chasing a standard as high as “Stanley Cup or bust,” the margin for disappointment shrinks fast.
Analytical paragraph grounded in the facts
Colorado’s spring ended in a sweep. but the same season carried elite regular-season production. a Cup résumé for Jared Bednar. and multiple reminders that the Avalanche weren’t fully healthy—Cale Makar missed the first two games. Nathan MacKinnon was limited after Game 3. and Carter Hart posted a .944 save percentage for Vegas in the series. That mix is what makes the post-season feel less like a simple coaching failure and more like a clash between expectation and circumstance.
Where the situation stands now
For some. the numbers and the long stretch of early playoff exits—first-round disappointment against Seattle. a Round 2 loss to Dallas. another first-round loss to the Stars. and then the third-round sweep by Vegas—are enough to demand change. For others. Bednar’s résumé. his record-setting regular seasons. and the role of injuries and matchup conditions make the case that a coaching switch wouldn’t fix the unanswered question.
Whether Colorado moves on from Jared Bednar in this cycle—or decides to trust his temperament and skillset again—this post-season has made the decision feel urgent.
Colorado Avalanche Jared Bednar Vegas Golden Knights Nathan MacKinnon Cale Makar Carter Hart Stanley Cup playoffs