Brett Marietti remembers the moment he knew Jared Bednar could become one of the best hockey coaches in the world.
Marietti spent nearly a decade with Bednar playing and coaching for the South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL, but he had moved on by the time the Colorado Avalanche coach had become the head guy. Bednar was a young head coach, but he had some issues with a key player on the team.
One day, this player was late. The team was preparing to leave North Charleston on a road trip. Everyone was on the bus. As it was leaving the parking lot, the player arrived.
“This player kind of liked to do his own thing. He wasn’t a team-first player,” Marietti told The Denver Post. “Jared was like, ‘Nope. Keep going.’ They went to the game, won the game and then Jared put the guy on waivers.”
It wasn’t a popular move with the fanbase. But Marietti saw it as a defining moment in his friend’s early coaching career.
“When I heard that, I was like, ‘Yeah, Jared is legit.’ He’s not taking any (expletive). He’s going to do it his way. That was pretty ballsy. But he said look, ‘We are professionals and we’re going to act like professionals.’ And they ended up winning the championship.”
Bednar won the Kelly Cup with the Stingrays in only his second season as head coach. He won the Calder Cup in 2016. He won the Stanley Cup in 2022. His credentials as a very successful hockey coach are impeccable.
Now, as the Avs prepare for the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Bednar has the best team in the NHL and another chance to cement his legacy. A second Cup would silence all of the criticism after Colorado has failed to advance past the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs the past three tournaments, and put him on a track to potentially make the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“He was always and still is the same way as far as being a stickler for details,” Marietti said. “He says, ‘Do this or do that,’ or back then, if his coach said, ‘Do this or do that,’ he stuck to the chalkboard. He was a guy who played by the rules when it came to the game plan. Thatap the same way he coaches. Buy into the system, and the system will take care of itself.
“He’s the kind of guy who is going to sell whatever it is you need. If you need him as an (ECHL) veteran or a ditchdigger, he’s going to be the best veteran or ditchdigger out there.”
An old school coach who has adapted
Bednar has certainly evolved from that young guy finding his way in South Carolina. He was a bit of a journeyman as a young player — four WHL teams, two ECHL teams, a year in the IHL before settling in with the Stingrays.
The Kelly Cup in 2009 kicked his coaching career into another gear, but his first AHL head coaching job only lasted two seasons. He spent time with three different organizations while coaching in the AHL before the Avs gave him a shot at the NHL level.
Bednar doesn’t have one specific mentor or a guy he’s modeled himself after. Bryan Maxwell had a big impact as his coach with Spokane in the WHL. Jason Fitzsimmons gave him his first coaching job with South Carolina. He worked under Jim Playfair and Brad Larsen as an AHL assistant.
“I was always fortunate to be surrounded by really good people,” Bednar said. “I learned a lot from all of those guys. I think you take a little bit from every coach you’ve ever had, what you liked, what you didn’t. The guys you meet at the conferences, like the NHLCA. Guys you work with, guys you coach against — you just kind of gather information from everywhere and develop your own style.”
Bednar was a tough, rugged defenseman. He was an old-school player who played for plenty of old-school coaches.
There is still some of that in how he coaches. But he’s also been able to adapt in a lot of different areas, and it’s a big part of why he has the fourth-highest winning percentage (.569) in league history among coaches with at least 600 NHL games.
“I think his demand level went up. I noticed that,” former Avs star Mikko Rantanen said. “I think thatap how we became a better team there, too. Every year, he started to demand more and more. I think he obviously got more comfortable, too, as a coach.
“I always liked how detailed he was, about the game style and how we want to play. He was always very detailed about opponents and what they’re going to do. And he works hard. I know he works hard off the ice, on the computer and stuff. Itap well-deserved, the career he’s had as a coach. I’m happy for him.”
Bednar was never a star player, but a huge part of his success with the Avs has been his relationships with the world-class players that have driven this era of success. His ability to relate to everyone, up and down the lineup, is paramount.
His ability to communicate what he wants, set a standard for how the team is going to play, and then allow players to flourish within that system has helped this Avalanche team finish first in the NHL in both goals for (298) and fewest goals against (197).
They are just the fourth team since 1967 to accomplish the feat.
“I love how calm he is. There’s no confusion around the subject,” former Avs forward Jonathan Drouin said. “When he tells you something, you know what he’s talking about. You know what he wants from you. He’s very detailed as well. It was very simple, very easy to understand him. He’s very detailed in what he wants his team to do and he’ll tell you straight up.
“It goes to the foundation they’ve built there and the players they’ve had. You just put in the work, you do what you have to do and you go home. But you’re enjoying the time. I always had a smile on my face. There’s a reason they’ve had so much success in Colorado.”
‘You can’t just be a hardo’
There was a while he was leading the club to its first double-digit win season in seven years. He was borrowing from a line from Jon Gordon’s book, ‘The Power of Positive Leadership’ that said ‘great leaders are demanding, not demeaning.’
That is, in a nutshell, a huge part of modern coaching in any sport. Several of Bednar’s players, both past and present, believe it perfectly describes his coaching style.
“There are coaches out there that yell and scream all day. Then when that doesn’t work, they’re kind of out of bullets,” Avs star Nathan MacKinnon said. “So then, what? You’re going to be nice now? Whatap your next plan? We’re all intelligent humans. I think there has to be a good, intelligent message coming from the coach of like why are we doing something wrong, why do we need to change something?”
MacKinnon has played for two coaches over the past two seasons. He’s also spent a lot of time with Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper preparing for and playing in the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and the 2026 Winter Olympics.
“Itap no coincidence that they’re the two longest-tenured coaches,” MacKinnon said. “You can’t just be a hardo every single day. Itap just painful. I couldn’t imagine it, to be honest, just coaching with straight emotion and no logic or reasoning would be tough.”
Bednar played for a lot of coaches like that growing up. He can be an emotional guy.
He will rip into his team in the media after a particularly porous effort, but it’s pretty rare. And it’s almost never because of one bad night. One of the tentpole’s of Bednar’s coaching throughout a long season is to break it into 10-game segments, and only when he sees a downward trend in effort or defensive responsibility does he really get agitated.
During the Avalanche’s HALO analytics conference last month, Bednar revealed that he rarely goes in the locker room after games. He used to. He loved celebrating wins with his players at the ECHL and AHL levels.
But, part of his growth as a coach was to take a step back. The players don’t need him to celebrate, and they don’t want to hear him yelling at them minutes after a game ends. He lets everyone cool off, goes over the video and meets with the players the following day.
“I think he prepares the most of any coach I’ve been coached by,” Avs goalie Scott Wedgewood said. “I’ve never seen him come in and single out anybody or expose one person. I think he controls the room well. He gives everybody both sides of it – whatap working, whatap not working, why itap not working and what you can fix.
“Itap not just, ‘This doesn’t work. (Expletive) fix it.’ Well, what the (expletive) does that mean? He’s very good at giving you context on both sides of what point he’s trying to get across.”
Bednar’s team meetings have become a well-known staple of his identity as a coach. His ability to blend analytics with video clips has made believers out of players old-school and new.
Players come to the Avalanche and are blown away by the level of detail in the club’s pre-scout meetings on game days. They see his ability to self-scout at both the team and individual levels, and find ways to improve.
One of Bednar’s adjustments as a coach that is specific to his time with the Avs is how much input he seeks out from the players in all sorts of aspects — whether it is game-planning for an opponent, tinkering with the power play or when to practice. The Avs even famously changed when they travel to accommodate MacKinnon’s postgame workout routine, which several other players partake in as well.
“I think a lot of my beliefs are the same,” Bednar said. “But because of the time that I’ve spent with some of our guys and our key players, I think there’s a lot more give and take, a lot more communication, sharing of ideas. They’re the ones playing the game. I want to know what they’re feeling in this situation, what they’re seeing in different situations, how can we help? What information do they need? You kind of learn that it’s just experience, even then naturally start giving them the stuff that they need, based on conversations I couldn’t have with guys six years ago.
“It’s always evolving, but the trust factor with our players that we have now has grown over time, I know what to expect from them. I want them to know what to expect from me. So things then naturally change to a certain degree.”
‘I wouldn’t want another coach’
This is Bednar’s 10th season with the Avs. He guided them from the bottom of the league to the mountaintop, and has lived in a “Stanley Cup or bust” world, with all the expectations that come with that, for more than half his tenure now.
Colorado just set a franchise record for points in a season. The external expectations have not been this high since 2022, in part because of how the Avs bulldozed through the first half of the schedule.
Bednar’s ability to fuse his old-school sensibilities and strong communication skills with modern tactics, information and player management are a huge part of why this Avalanche team could be on the precipice of a second championship in five years.
“(Bednar) is a very smart guy, and thatap why it doesn’t feel like itap been too long,” MacKinnon said. “He’s been my coach for 10 years and he’s great. He’s just great at communicating, and he’s a great guy. The guys really enjoy being around him.
“Itap nice to have someone put some thought into what they’re going to say every day. I wouldn’t want another coach.”
