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?

[stl76]

How do you reconcile that with Woodcroft vs Knoblauch last year for the Oilers? Or Berube for the 2019 Blues?

You misspelled Binnington.

Berube definitely had an impact on the team. He brought a no nonsense attitude and intense focus to the locker room that was hugely beneficial…and I don’t think the Blues would have won the Cup without Berube. But I KNOW the Blues would not have won’t without Binnington being Binnington.

 

[tucker3434]

Talent means a lot more than coaching.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

You misspelled Binnington.

Berube definitely had an impact on the team. He brought a no nonsense attitude and intense focus to the locker room that was hugely beneficial…and I don’t think the Blues would have won the Cup without Berube. But I KNOW the Blues would not have won’t without Binnington being Binnington.

I just find it interesting that posters say that team success is "2% due to head coach" when we have several recent examples recently of coaches who made very significant differences to their team's success. Knoblauch took a team with a .300 point% and completely turned it around. Sure the Oilers had a boatload of talent, but it was pretty much the identical team, and the team's play was night and day.

I can see a case that "a league average coach does not matter much to a team's success". But I think that the elite guys do make an appreciable difference. Guys like BrindAmour in CAR or Tocchet in VAN fundamentally changed how their team played and were both successful in giving their team an identity. The issue is separating the coaching from the roster when we're typically talking about the elite teams in the league. You always have folks who say that anyone could coach the mid 2010's Hawks, or the 2020's Lightning.

 

[Sasha Orlov]

The team got better

 

[Washed Up 29YearOld]

McDavid gave no effort under Woodcroft because he wanted "His guy" as coach.

I’m pretty sure McDavid isn’t the type to not try.( and ridiculous to think that) Fairly certain he was injured

 

[dirtydanglez]

sakic should get a lot of the credit. he handed bednar the keys to a ferrari. insane amount of talent on that team.

 

[Ararana]

Imagine you're playing for the Colorado Avalanche being led by one of their all time greats, Patrick Roy, and the f***er bails on you and your teammates a month before the season. You're new coach walks in and it's some no name from the AHL.

Motivation was at an all time low and they had no time to learn new systems with a new coach. Jesus f*** that roster had: MacKinnon, Duchene, Rantanen, Landeskog, Johnson, Barrie, Varlomov. They had no business only getting 48 points. It was a shit show of a situation caused by Patrick 'look at me' drama queen Roy. Lots of credit to Sakic for believing in Bednar.

In the end it got us some kid from the AJHL named Cale Makar.

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

Imagine you're playing for the Colorado Avalanche being led by one of their all time greats, Patrick Roy, and the f***er bails on you and your teammates a month before the season. You're new coach walks in and it's some no name from the AHL.

Motivation was at an all time low and they had no time to learn new systems with a new coach. Jesus f*** that roster had: MacKinnon, Duchene, Rantanen, Landeskog, Johnson, Barrie, Varlomov. They had no business only getting 48 points. It was a shit show of a situation caused by Patrick 'look at me' drama queen Roy. Lots of credit to Sakic for believing in Bednar.

In the end it got us some kid from the AJHL named Cale Makar.

Losing the lottery was a blessing in disguise.

 

[lionsDen]

One thing of note Bednar came late in on his first year… with Roy not giving much time for a change

 

[LevelingSolo]

Show me a good coach and I show you a good goalie.

Coaches matter for sure, but they don't matter as much as fans think they do. The best coach ever will never overcome shit goaltending or a bad roster.

Ironically enough, the 2022 Avalanche did just that

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

Motivation was at an all time low and they had no time to learn new systems with a new coach. Jesus f*** that roster had: MacKinnon, Duchene, Rantanen, Landeskog, Johnson, Barrie, Varlomov. They had no business only getting 48 points.

most of those guys in 2017 weren't anything close to what they are today. MacKinnon was a disappointment, Duchene was embarrassingly bad, Rantanen was super raw, and Varlamov had a terrible season. By the end of the disaster year it was brutally clear that Colorado's overperformance with that core in 2013-2014 was a mirage.

but just as much blame goes on the supporting cast. I remember Andrighetto and Barberio stood out for being competent and occasionally even good. Just about everyone else was mediocre at best and below NHL-caliber at worst, with the ratio heavily tilted towards the latter. Even guys who had the talent to be in the vicinity of ok were bad. Iginla had 18 points. Soderberg had 14. Mitchell had 7.

per the question, Bednar did his best with the aforementioned malcontents and dregs. He wasn't to blame for a bad team being bad, though he certainly wasn't worthy of any kudos for it being historically bad. He gets some credit for Colorado's improvement by implementing an aggressive transition attack, although any coach with a pulse (besides maybe Torts or Babcock) would do that when their best players are MacKinnon and Makar.

 

[HockeyFan100]

Biggest reason was all the dead weight that was gone the following year. All these guys who were regulars either retired or played in the AHL/Europe the following year:

Mikhail Grigorenko
Rene Bourque
Jarome Iginla
Fedor Tyutin
Patrick Wiercioch
Joe Colborne
John Mitchell
Cody Goloubef
Eric Gelinas
Calvin Pickard (did play one NHL game for TOR)
Jeremy Smith

And that's not including old man Beauchemin, who was bad. He played 1 more year for the Ducks.

Once again, to me, that was the #1 reason why they were so bad. Other reasons that might have already been said said include: their #1D (Johnson) and #1G (Varlamov) were out for most of the season. Their good NHL players like Landeskog, Barrie, Duchene and Soderberg all had the worst year of their careers by far. Roy quitting right before the season started giving Bednar hardly any time to prep... Pretty much anything that could've went wrong, went wrong.

 

[ijuka]

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.

Explain Carolina Hurricanes.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Show me a good coach and I show you a good goalie.

Coaches matter for sure, but they don't matter as much as fans think they do. The best coach ever will never overcome shit goaltending or a bad roster.

The funny thing is the opposite is essentially proving to be true for Bednar Every goalie he's had, has went on to do significantly worse things once they leave Colorado.

As for the OPs question. People forget Bednar wasn't hired for the Avs HC gig until like late August or maybe even early September after Roy just quit on the team a couple weeks before training camp.

I certainly don't think that 2016/17 Avs team was playoff bound, but I think they probably finish anywhere from like 10-15 points better if Bednae had the proper time to acclimate to the team ahead of camp.

 

[Oilslick941611]

Explain Carolina Hurricanes.

Roster composition

 

[Nogatco Rd]

Christ, that 48 pts was less than the Oilers ever got in their decade of darkness.

Really puts the Capitals’ expansion season into perspective.

8 wins, 5 ties, 67 losses for a total of 21 points.

 

[Erik Alfredsson]

Coaches are capable of learning and improving too you know, it's not like they never get any better from the start of their NHL careers.

 

[shadow1]

Bednar's first Avalanche team had 10 players who never played another NHL game after 2016-2017.

 

[Statto]

How do you reconcile that with Woodcroft vs Knoblauch last year for the Oilers? Or Berube for the 2019 Blues?

Throw in Sutter for the Kings in 2012.

It’s a very symbiotic relationship between player and coach. To say a coach only has a small impact is one of the worst takes ever on this board.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

Show me a good coach and I show you a good goalie.

Coaches matter for sure, but they don't matter as much as fans think they do. The best coach ever will never overcome shit goaltending or a bad roster.

Bednar lifted the cup in 22 with crap goaltending, just saying

 

[ijuka]

Roster composition

That's not a roster screaming top competitor to me.

 

[Ararana]

Losing the lottery was a blessing in disguise.

I was livid when they lost lol. The Avs deserved the best player in the draft after that terrible year, the universe conspired to make it so.

 

[Oddbob]

Perhaps having MacKinnon breakout and Makar joining are the answer?

 

[a mangy Meowth]

Perhaps having MacKinnon breakout and Makar joining are the answer?

Perhaps he was the steward of these great players and is responsible for helping them reach their potential?

 

[Oddbob]

Perhaps he was the steward of these great players and is responsible for helping them reach their potential?

A little sure, but MacKinnon was probably going to break out and Makar was good right away so likely the players are mostly responsible.