Jared Bednar reflects on his two years as head coach of the Avs

“After first season I was lucky to be back,” says Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar. After only winning 22 games his first season behind the bench, Bednar was given a second chance. He made the most of it last year, leading the Avs to the playoffs and was a finalist for the Jack Adams award, given to the NHL coach of the year, “We knew we wanted to prove that we were a lot better than what we showed the previous year that we were a different team and they took that to heart. To be able to get into the playoffs in the second season is really satisfying now hopefully we can move forward,” says Bednar.

Moving forward the Avs future is extremely bright, their top players are all 25 or younger..Gabe Landeskog is 25, Nathan Mackinnon is only 22 and Mikko Rantanen is just old enough to buy a beer at 21, “They are best players. They are most competitive players. They are the guys who drive the bus. We do a job of building around those players and supporting those players and then the sky’s the limit,” says Bednar.

One day perhaps the Avs will hoist Lord Stanley’s cup to the sky, the key will be to keep this young talented core of players together, “We are sticking to our re-build but we are going to be patient with it but I think we can get to where we want to go to with the group with the core group of guys that we have right now,” says Bednar.