Voters are out of excuses to keep denying the Avalanche bench boss.
It’s no secret that the Avalanche are going to be a bit short-handed for a while with starting net minder MacKenzie Blackwood on injured reserve, key roster players Gabe Landeskog and Devon Toews set to “miss some time” and Logan O’Connor still not on the right track to returning after his offseason hip surgery. How will this injury wave slow the Avalanche, who have just three regulation losses 41 games into the season, and how will it affect Jared Bednar’s first real chance at being named coach of the year?
Voters Can’t Ignore Legendary Success
In my opinion, it’s disrespectful that Bednar hasn’t been considered in years past, namely the 2022-23 season, where the Avalanche played without a litany of talent (other than Mikko Rantanen) for a large chunk of the season and still managed to win the division. I suppose this season has been the antithesis of that, with Colorado relatively healthy up until now and enjoying record-breaking success.
He, of course, lost out to Jim Montgomery, who led the Bruins to a record-breaking season. Does Bedsy really have to lead the Avalanche to the most wins in a single NHL regular season to win this award? If so, his mettle will be put to the test with a depleted roster for the time being.
Nathan MacKinnon had this to say on the Atltitude Sports postgame, “We’ve been fortunate this year. We’ve had some injuries… we’ve got some depth, and now we lost what, four guys this week? So hopefully some of those guys can get healthy here quickly… Until then, everyone’s gonna have to pick up a little bit of extra slack.”
The Going Will Get Tough
It doesn’t feel like it right now with question marks back on Gabe Landeskog’s health, but it has pretty much been all sunshine and rainbows here in Colorado this season. The Avalanche have iced two of the league’s statistically best netminders, harbor the NHL’s leading scorer in Nathan MacKinnon, and allowed fewer goals against by a wide margin, which bolsters their ridiculous +72 goal differential. It feels like the Avalanche will need to maintain in order to earn Bedsy the nod, and those are lofty expectations.
It’s been made abundantly clear that the voters won’t pick him because he still wins enough with a depleted roster. Only amassing three regulation losses through 41 games has barely been good enough to earn Bednar the majority of votes. That means he will somehow have to keep his team at least near the levels of success they’ve realized this season for him to keep the pole position.
Hurt or Help
I’ve learned a lot from watching Avalanche hockey. Still, the lesson that comes to roost every season is that all teams experience waves of heightened adversity inside a regular season, and Colorado is just getting started on that in game 42. That’s a good thing and a bad thing for Bedsy’s bid.
I think that this injury wave will hurt the bottom line in terms of wins and losses, and thus eliminate Bednar from winning this award yet again. I think he’s been more than deserving this season and in seasons past, but I don’t have a vote.
I don’t see how this team can keep pace with itself, and as soon as the L’s start to roll in, pundits will say, “See, it’s more about the talent than the coaching.”
Bednar himself has detracted from the importance of winning this award and, when snubbed in 2022, went as far as saying, “It doesn’t bother me. I don’t take it personally at all. I’m a realist, and I could nominate eight, nine coaches, and if any of those guys won it, I’d be, ‘Yep, he deserved it” in an interview with the Denver Post. Still, the next few weeks before the Olympic stoppage will prove paramount to whether Bedsy does or doesn’t earn the Jack Adams this season.
Let us know what you think in the comments!
Category: General Sports
