- Jared Bednar starts 2026-27 on the last year of his contract after a Presidents’ Trophy season ended in a sweep
- Colorado led the NHL in goals for and goals against per game and still had the sixth-worst power play
- Read below for the Cale Makar cap question and the David Carle chatter
Jared Bednar just coached the best regular-season team in hockey. He starts the next one on the final year of his contract.
Daily Faceoff’s 2026-27 Avalanche preview calls Bednar about as untouchable as any coach in the league outside Jon Cooper, then spends the next few paragraphs explaining why his seat is warm anyway. Scott Maxwell pointed to four straight postseasons that ended earlier than expected.
“To some, the Cup win can look like an outlier compared to the other playoff disappointments, even if it is a very good outlier to have.”
The regular season was ridiculous. Colorado lost once in regulation through 26 games, sat at 31-2-7 after 40, and finished eight points clear of Carolina for the best record in the league.
Then Vegas swept them out of the Western Conference Final. That was the only time all year the Avalanche dropped four in a row in regulation.
Bednar owns a .617 points percentage across 10 seasons in Denver, seventh best in the NHL over that stretch. He also has not won a game past the second round in any year other than 2022. Denver head coach David Carle gets attached to this job every time it looks shaky, and Colorado handed its AHL team to recent Memorial Cup winner Jussi Ahokas this summer.
Cale Makar owns the other clock in the building. Colorado and its franchise defenseman agreed to terms on an extension Thursday, ending the summer’s longest staring contest:
Whatever the number is, it lands on a team with roughly $400,000 in space right now and about $32 million projected for next summer. Nathan MacKinnon turns 32 next week. Makar turns 29 at the end of October.
Valeri Nichushkin, Ross Colton and Jack Drury all left in cap-clearing moves. Jaden Schwartz, Zachary L’Heureux and Fedor Svechkov replaced them on the cheap.
Goaltending is not the worry it used to be in Denver. The Avalanche finished first in team save percentage at .9062, and Scott Wedgewood was the only goalie in the NHL with more than five games played to finish above .920.
That leaves the power play as the one real hole. Colorado clicked at 17.1 percent, sixth worst in the league, after running the fifth-best unit in hockey from 2020 to 2025.
Their national TV slate starts Sept. 30 against the Kings on TNT and runs through the New Year’s Eve trip to Utah for the Winter Classic. Check out the full list:
Fifty-five wins bought Bednar a mountain of goodwill. It did not buy him a new contract.
