Bednar appreciates patience shown by Avalanche along bumpy road to Cup

TAMPA --Jared Bednar's instinct was to continue coaching until the clock ran out.

So when the Colorado Avalanche players started celebrating in front of him on the bench during the final seconds of their championship-clinching 2-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on Sunday, Bednar tried to keep them focused.
"I was as nervous as I could be," Bednar said. "I didn't even know the time when it was ending. I see guys start celebrating on the bench and I looked up and I was like, 'There's still seven seconds left. What are we celebrating for?' That's the kind of intensity that we had back there."
When the final horn sounded and the players jumped on the ice, Bednar had a group hug with his assistants and training staff. That's when the emotions started to hit him.
"There was a lot of relief," Bednar said. "I was in disbelief for a while. Guys were already on the ice, but it takes a moment or two to sink in. Even when we were on the ice, it's just hard to believe because you've been working for this, well for me, for six years and on a journey with these guys and building our team."
That journey had a rocky start in 2016-17 after Bednar was hired less than a month before the start of training camp following Patrick Roy's unexpected decision to step down as coach. Colorado went 22-56-4 and finished with an NHL-worst 48 points to miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the third straight season.
In his first NHL job, Bednar recognized that his coaching path, which began as an assistant with South Carolina of the ECHL in 2002, could have ended then if Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic and owner Stan Kroenke had been impatient.
"I have to thank Joe and our ownership group for trusting in me that I could be a guy that could help us win and sticking with me and being patient and giving me the opportunity to come back after that year," Bednar said. "It's not a forgiving League a lot of times.
"Then it was just building from then on."
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Colorado went 43-30-9 and qualified for the playoffs the following season. By the end of 2020-21, the Avalanche were Presidents' Trophy winners as the top team in the NHL during the regular season, but they lost in the second round of the playoffs for the third consecutive season.
Again, there were questions about whether Bednar could get Colorado over the hump to win its first championship since 2001. But those were all answered with the Avalanche dethroning the Lightning, who had won the Stanley Cup the past two seasons.
"That [2016-17] was rock bottom from an NHL perspective, and we didn't think we were going to be here, certainly not in five or six years or whatever it is," Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. "It just shows that management was patient with Jared. They were patient with us. They didn't blow things up after a second-round exit for the third year in a row. They kept believing in us."
Landeskog is part of the Avalanche core that remained from 2016-17, along with forwards Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and J.T. Compher, and defenseman Erik Johnson. Navigating a tougher road along the way with that group made Bednar appreciate it more when it ended with him lifting the Cup.
"That's the thing," Bednar said. "It's really satisfying because that was a tough year and we've been building ever since and there's a lot of heartbreak and a lot of good times along the way. To be able to do it with those guys, there's so many guys here that were with me when I first came in as a rookie coach. And to be able to dig in as a group, Joe, his staff, my staff and all the players that have been a part of it, it's a long journey and there's a huge sense of satisfaction there."
Championships are nothing new for Bednar. He coached South Carolina to the Kelly Cup in the ECHL in 2009 and Lake Erie to the Calder Cup in the American Hockey League in 2016.
Now the 50-year-old former journeyman defenseman, who played nine pro seasons in the AHL, the now-defunct International Hockey League and the ECHL but never made it to the NHL as a player, is the first coach to win the Kelly Cup, Calder Cup and Stanley Cup.
"He takes so much pride in what he does, and he's prepared every day," Sakic said. "I'm so proud of him, him and the entire staff. For five years now it was trying to get better every day, systems and all that. I could never coach. They put in way too much time. It's long hours. To see him rewarded is special. He's a great person, a great coach and players believe in him."