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How did Bednar have a historically awful rookie year, yet has turned into one of the best coaches in the league from Sophomore year onwards?

Bjornar Moxnes

Bjornar Moxnes

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2016-2017 Avs finished just better than the 2023-2024 Sharks in modern era. Their roster remained mostly unchanged a year later (To begin the season at least, where they still had a winning record before the Duchene trade), yet they instantly became a bubble team for 2 seasons in a row, before becoming one of the best teams in the league. What happened?

Edit: People bring up MacK and the other high picks like Rantanen and Landeskog. But how did they all improve so much in a single season under the exact same coach?
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Killer Orcas

Killer Orcas

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Took Mack some time to become himself Rants and Landy were young. You can only do so much but players need to perform to. Obviously was right call to stick with him.
 
Brodeur

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I had no recollection of Calvin Pickard starting 50 games for them in 2016-17.

But yeah, TLDR explanation seems to be MacKinnon+Rantanen leveling up and adding Cale Makar full time in 2019.
 
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WhiskeyYerTheDevils

WhiskeyYerTheDevils

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Beukeboom Fan said:
Just going from memory - but Roy bailed out like 2 weeks before the season started and Bednar didn't have much time to put his system in place. Add in a really young roster and 2016-17 was a tough year for the Avs. Sakic knew he put Bednar in a tough spot and was patient not scapegoating JB for the disaster of a season.
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This is probably the biggest reason. Dude had no time to prep his team before the start of the season.
 
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Hennessy

Hennessy

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In addition to the many fine points above, the defense improved remarkably. Gone were old men like Beauchemin and Tyutin, Weircoch wasn't on the ice, and Girard came in to make a decent top 4 of himself, Barrie, Johnson, and Zadorov. Not a unit to brag about by any means, but an improvement to be sure.

Couple that with Mackinnon and Rantanen virtually doubling their output and Varlamov staying relatively healthy with an effective-enough Bernier backing him up, as well as Bednar's system having time to settle in, and it's not some crazy miracle they improved.

And as Roy's misguided influence fell further away, Sakic was able to begin building the absolute unit that would win it all a few years later. A big part of that was realizing the coach got a raw deal and sticking with him.
 
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22FUTON9

22FUTON9

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Players reaching their potential obviously helps, but as others have mentioned Bednar was thrown into a terrible position. Getting a full summer to prepare is probably one of the biggest reason as well. Honestly one of the best moves (or none-moves) Sakic has made. Would have been real easy to just fire him on the spot after the season the avs had.
 
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Oilslick941611

Oilslick941611

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I think coaching has a minimal affect on games. Roster composition is 90% of the way, Head coach is maybe 2% and the remaining *% is the coaching and training staff.
 
AllAboutAvs

AllAboutAvs

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Many good points have been mentioned already and they are all valid but IMO the main issue in the first year (besides the fact that the roster was bad) was that he was put in charge so late that he was stuck with the personnel they had at the time. Bednar's system mainly relies on speed and forecheck. The Avs' team at the time was not built for that system. Not even close. Now add to that the fact that Bednar was not willing to adjust his system to the roster he had and it was bound to be a disaster. Next offseason Sakic started to make lots of changes that were more suited to the system and it started to pay off immediately.

A lot of Avs fans were calling for Bednar to be fired after his first year but I wanted him to stay another year and see what he good do with players more suited to his system. I am glad Sakic was thinking the same way.
 
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lowol

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Another thing I'll add is that coaches, like players, can improve with experience. Sakic and co definitely made the conscious choice to let their rookie coach grow with the rebuilding team he was taking over, given that his personality and style were a good basis for Mack and friends. I think he became more tactically flexible after forcing a simple speedy style on an unbefitting team in his couple years, and he's made year-over-year adjustments that keep his approach fresh as his personnel and the game evolves.

Let's see if he keeps that up this year, in particular by keeping the ice time of his stars in check. Rantanen and Mack were gassed by round 2.
 
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Beukeboom Fan

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Oilslick941611 said:
A bounce back was happening with either Woodcroft or Knoblauch.

I don't know enough about the blues to have a guess, but im guessing it wasn't Berube fairy dust that lead them to cup.
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The Blues obviously got some great goaltending from Binnington which made a huge difference.

I tend to agree that coaches impact can be overstated. It is "weird" though that a guy like Tocchet can be so much more successful in VAN the following season (aka - not the initial bounce) with a very similar roster after replacing a decent coach in Budreau.
 
Pablo El Perro

Pablo El Perro

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As others have said, the effect of coaching is often overrated. He had a bad year because the team had too many weak spots in the roster.
 
Oilslick941611

Oilslick941611

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Xirik said:
McDavid gave no effort under Woodcroft because he wanted "His guy" as coach.
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Honestly, I think the team too over confident and expected to win the cup in September. If you watch "the Drop" series produced to show the team behind the scenes it shows to lead up to the season and during the golf tournament Ryan Mcloed in particular just seemed too big for his britches. I genuinely think that the team needed to go through that rough start, Giving up 8 goals to Vancouver at the start of the season sent both teams on opposite trajectories and one that worked out very well for the Oilers.

McDavid was hurt early in the season and it definitely had an effect, he wouldn't, or couldn't shoot the puck all season and had to adapt to even more of playmaker. Goaltending sucked to the start as well. I don't think any of that had anything to do with the Headcoach as Jay woodcroft ( while he comes off as an over confident Asshole) doesn't preach that type of game. He certainly made changes that didn't go over well and took time for the team to adapt to them. I think most NHL teams can run the benches themselves without a coach if need be, the coach can't win without the players.

Also to your point, He was McDavids coach in Jr, but I highly doubt McDavid had any say in who he hired. Jeff Jackson runs a tight ship and apparently was apparently talking up Knobluach for years as an up and comer.
 
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