Valeri Nichushkin leaves a decorated and complicated legacy in Colorado.

There were long stretches, including during the last championship run, where he was one of the best two-way wingers in the NHL. And there were two moments off the ice where his conduct sabotaged postseason chances. He left the team during the first round of the 2023 playoffs against the Seattle Kraken under troubling circumstances and was suspended hours before Game 4 of the Dallas Stars series the following spring.

Open arms lead to broken hearts, but the Avs welcomed Nichushkin back, knowing a third violation could result in a lifetime ban. And the record when Nichushkin played remained remarkable.

But give Joe Sakic, the old, new GM, credit for recognizing that Nichushkin was trending in the wrong direction.

He faded last season. No, he was not the reason the Golden Knights broomed the Avs in the Western Conference Finals — that list starts with Nathan MacKinnon, Jared Bednar, and Brock Nelson — but he was no longer a menace in front of the net or along the boards.

By trading Nichushkin to Columbus for three draft picks, Sakic acknowledged the obvious — something of a surprise given the confidence he showed in the team at the end-of-the-season presser.

The Avs could not just run it back. What happened in Vegas needed to stay in Vegas.

Sakic shipped out Ross Colton and Jack Drury to buddy Chris MacFarland in Nashville, and sent Nichushkin packing.

There is no guarantee it works, but the moves served two purposes. It creates nearly $11 million in salary cap space to add a piece — perhaps they pursue Mario Ferraro — or use the draft picks to execute a midseason blockbuster.

This is what good leadership looks like. While I still disagree with Sakic’s reasoning for keeping Bednar, he is not afraid to be bold. He let MacFarland operate in this fashion and has continued the tradition.

The Avs need to get younger, even as they cross their white-knuckled fingers that the playoff version of Nelson and Nazem Kadri is not a harbinger of things to come.

It can be argued that Nichushkin is a better player than the Nuggets’ Aaron Gordon. And while the local hoops franchise frets about Gordon’s future, Sakic ripped off the band-aid with Nichushkin.

Did he get enough in second, third and fifth-round picks? Probably not. But if it allows the Avs to add a young impact player in the coming weeks or months, then it works.

There is a reason Trader Joe is buying the groceries again. He knows what he is doing.

WNBA Clark Mess

The WNBA was gifted its Tiger Woods with the arrival of Caitlin Clark. And the league has spent the last three years trying to prove that it doesn’t need her. The pettiness and jealousy are stunning. The lack of leadership from commissioner Cathy Engelbert is embarrassing. We can all agree that Clark is not better than some of her predecessors. But none moved the needle like her. The TV ratings, increased salaries and better travel scream as much. Yet, the league continues to let opponents bully and foul her in ways that are unspeakably bad. Does Clark beg for calls? Yes. That does not mean refs should turn a blind eye to Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas placing her fist on Clark’s throat in a pile-up. If the league wanted to send a message, Thomas would have been suspended for 10 games without pay, not one. The light discipline means that when it comes to Clark, it remains open season.

World Cup break

The hydration break has created an H2OhMy! effect on the World Cup. It helps that the United States won its pool. But it goes beyond that. There is actual scoring, the most since 1958. The more goals, the more exciting it becomes for fringe fans. It is unclear whether this World Cup will be a transformational moment for soccer in the United States, but the style of play makes that outcome seem more realistic.

Colorado has a bunch of picks , which is Friday and Saturday in Buffalo, but currently only two (Nos. 43 and 74) is in the first 125 selections. The Avs also have pick Nos. 126, 128, 149, 152, 195, 214, 215 and 222.

The newest addition to the group came Thursday, when the Avs traded Valeri Nichushkin to the Columbus Blue Jackets for three picks, including No. 43 in the 2026 draft.

Having 10 picks, even with most in the latter stages of the draft, could help the Avalanche replenish a very thin pool of prospects. The Avs have traded away several prospects in the past few years, along with a lot of premium draft selections.

The 2024 draft is a good example of how the Avs have used later picks to help the team win right now. William Zellers was the No. 76 selection, and he was part of the trade that sent Casey Mittelstadt to Boston for Charlie Coyle. Max Curran was a great find at No. 161, developing into a legitimate NHL prospect before heading to Calgary in the Nazem Kadri deal.

Colorado needs more picks like Zellers and Curran, either to be part of trades over the next couple of years or to help replenish an aging roster. The Avs haven’t drafted a player after the first round with 200-plus games of NHL experience since A.J. Greer in 2015 and they haven’t selected a player after the first who has played more than 200 contests for Colorado since Ryan O’Reilly in the second round in 2009.

The franchise’s needs in the prospect pipeline are pretty broad. Colorado has a decent collection of young goaltenders, headlined by Ilya Nabokov, but the Avs are very thin at forward and defense. The Avs have nearly as many goalies (three) as forwards (four) on their reserve list — those are players the club holds rights to, most of which are draft picks who are still in college or playing overseas.

It’s not a coincidence that Joe Sakic’s first two trades after returning to the general manager role involved acquiring draft picks and two young forwards. The Avs need to get younger over the next season or two to help extend the championship contention window, and they need more assets to use in future trades as well.

Nabokov is the club’s top prospect, with defensemen Mikhail Gulyayev, Sean Behrens and Francesco Dell’Elce behind him among the drafted players in the pipeline. The Avs have compensated for a lack of premium draft picks with a significant foray in college/European free agents like defensemen Alex Gagne and Gustav Stjernberg, forwards T.J. Hughes, Matthew DiMarsico and goaltender Nikita Novosyolov.

Goaltenders | Defensemen | Wings

There are only two NHL teams besides the Colorado Avalanche who are in the conversation for best collection of centers and those clubs have combined for five Stanley Cup Final appearances in the past four seasons.

Center talent and depth was undeniably one of the reasons Colorado stormed through the regular season as the league’s top team and breezed by Los Angeles and Minnesota in the first two rounds of the playoffs. It’s also a valid reason for Avs fans to be frustrated.

Florida has two championships and a third Cup Final appearance with Aleksander Barkov, Sam Bennett and Anton Lundell. Edmonton has two trips to the Cup Final with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

But the Avs stalled out in the Western Conference Final this past season with Nathan MacKinnon, Brock Nelson, Nazem Kadri and Jack Drury at center, not to mention Nicolas Roy and others capable of moving to the middle when needed.

Those guys are obviously a big reason why the “Cup or bust” expectations will remain next season.

“The core guys are still here, so we’re going to shoot and try and win another Cup next year, and make it two,” Avalanche president and general manager Joe Sakic said. “But I will tell you, it’s a tough league. We’re not the only team that is trying to win the Stanley Cup. I mean, it’s a deep league. There’s a lot of great teams, and there’s only one team at the end of every year that’s happy.

“With our group, their goal is to try and win another Stanley Cup, and that’s what they’re going to shoot for, and that’s what we’re going to try and hopefully do.”

What just happened

MacKinnon led the NHL in goals for the first time and finished third in the Hart Trophy voting. His 127 points are third-most in franchise history, and he now owns the two best seasons since the club moved to Denver. When MacKinnon was injured blocking a shot with the Avs up 3-2 in Game 3 of the conference final, the season effectively ended in that moment.

Nelson had a great regular season — netting 33 goals, scoring 65 points, and finishing third in the Selke Trophy voting. When he and Valeri Nichushkin were paired together, it was the best 1-2 punch in the NHL at controlling possession and one of the league’s top penalty-killing duos as well. Nelson struggled throughout the postseason, most frustratingly when he failed to convert several great chances against Vegas.

Kadri arrived at the deadline to much fanfare. His production improved with Colorado despite moving down the lineup. He helped the power play surge in March and look competent in the first two rounds. He also sustained a broken finger in April, which kind of got lost among all the other injuries Colorado players were dealing with during the Vegas series.

Drury was OK as the club’s No. 3 center, but was excellent when moved back to his No. 4 role. He’s one of the very best 4Cs in the league and a strong penalty killer.

Roy arrived one day before Kadri, and spent most of his time on the wing. He was strong in a supporting role during the playoffs. Both Parker Kelly and Ross Colton spent some time at center, but coach Jared Bednar liked both more on the wing. Rookie Zakhar Bardakov also spent some of his limited ice time at center and looked like a player who might fit better in the long term as a wing.

“When I look at their team, I guess I lean towards not making a whole bunch of changes,” ESPN analyst Ray Ferraro told The Denver Post. “But I would wonder if there’s a way they can spruce up the middle of the ice with a little more speed? So maybe Kadri needs to go to the wing, and if you do that, can you find a centerman that can play there?

What����ap next

The Avs’ center depth and talent looked formidable before the stunning results against Vegas.

Will Nelson bounce back after a tough postseason? He was a consistent playoff performer with the Islanders.

Kadri is a slightly different case because of his history in Denver, but Nelson was much better in his first full season after the trade. Could Kadri, given the unsettling aspects of a trade and the finger injury, find a bump in play next year?

To further Ferraro’s point, Kadri turns 36 years old on Oct. 6. Nelson turns 35 nine days later. MacKinnon will be 31 in September, though he obviously remains one of the fastest, most dynamic players in the sport. Roy turns 30 in February.

It is an interesting idea, trying to find a younger center with more pace to join the group. Kadri had mixed results on the wing when he spent some time there for the Avs.

Drury is a restricted free agent and is one of the keys to this offseason. With Colton off to Nashville, the Avs have nearly $7 million in cap space. They also need to sign at least two NHL defensemen.

While Colorado views Drury as a No. 4 center and would certainly like to keep him, there is probably a team or six out there that would like to have Drury as an option for its No. 3C role. If the two sides can’t find the middle ground on a contract, the Avs could hold their ground and see what an unpleasant arbitration process yields.

That would likely lead to a one- or two-year contract and more than likely a new team in the near future. If Drury won the arbitration case, that could cause salary-cap-related problems for the club. Or the Avs could explore a trade for Drury’s rights before it ever got to that.

If everyone is here on opening night, the Avs still have a very strong 1-4 up the middle with Roy and Kelly as solid options in reserve. High-profile college free agent addition TJ Hughes can also play center. He’s been an offense-first player, but his college coach believes he can help an NHL team in the near future in any role.

Future depth chart

*Unrestricted free agent in 2027; + Restricted free agent on July 1; # RFA in 2027

This is where things could get interesting.

The Avs look set in net, both at the NHL level and beyond, for next season. The defense corps needs some work, but there’s an excellent top four to build around.

But the place to look for where newly named general manager Joe Sakic might shake up this roster for next season is on the wings. It already started Tuesday, when the Avalanche sent Ross Colton to the Nashville Predators, reuniting him with Chris MacFarland, for two third-round picks.

And Colton might not be the only wing who isn’t on the roster on opening night.

What just happened

When all of Colorado’s wings were healthy last season, it was hard to name more than one or two teams with a better collection of them in the NHL.

Martin Necas had a career season, setting new highs with 38 goals and 100 points. He was also Czechia’s best player at the 2026 Winter Olympics, had a great second round against the Minnesota Wild and then was one of Colorado’s least impactful players against Vegas in the Western Conference Final.

Gabe Landeskog’s brilliant comeback story continued. He won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, did not miss a game in the regular season because of his reconstructed knee and then had five goals and 11 points in 13 playoff games.

Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen were both very good and very important players, though neither produced goals at the same per-contest rate as they have in recent seasons. Both also missed time during the playoffs with injuries, and their effectiveness was limited by said ailments in other contests as well.

Colton scuffled for long stretches in the regular season and spent the first two games of the playoffs as a healthy scratch, but was one of the club’s more consistent players once inserted into the lineup. Nicolas Roy, who also saw some time at center, was a great fit as a depth scorer and versatile player after arriving from Toronto ahead of the trade deadline.

Parker Kelly had a dream season, smashing career-best totals with 21 goals and 35 points. Logan O’Connor missed nearly the entire regular season, but looked like the critical depth playoff performer of old once the postseason began.

Joel Kiviranta’s year after a breakout offensive campaign did not look as impressive on the scoresheet as the 2024-25 season, but he remained a trusted depth guy for coach Jared Bednar. Zakhar Bardakov made the team in training camp and showed flashes of intriguing energy, but the NHL rookie played in just four of the final 12 regular-season games and did not play in the playoffs. He is a restricted free agent and could return to Russia because there isn’t an obvious path to more regular time next year in Denver.

Gavin Brindley was the club’s best rookie and an early-season spark plug, but he was sent to the AHL shortly after the Avs loaded up at the deadline and did not return. Taylor Makar made the most appearances (12) of a forward who began the season with the Colorado Eagles and looked like a player who might turn out to be a fourth-line regular at some point in the future.

What����ap next

Colton is gone … will anyone else from this group join him?

Necas is about to start the first season of an eight-year, $92 million contract. His full no-move clause kicks in July 1. He could finish with 110 points next season, but he can’t answer the big-picture questions about his ultimate value until the 2027 playoffs.

When Nichushkin and Lehkonen are healthy and in form, they give the Avs star-level value on very team-friendly contracts. But, the first part of that sentence feels more in question, given their ages and style of play. Lehkonen is also entering the final year of his contract, so all options — an extension, playing it out or a trade — seem plausible.

In each of the past two postseasons when Colorado advanced beyond the first round, Lehkonen’s impact declined. That was definitely injury-related in 2026. Nichushkin’s availability issues have been well documented.

Not everyone in this core group will age at the same rate. Finding a way to inject another impact player into this group that is closer to Necas’ age or even younger would be ideal, but the Avs don’t have the future assets (nor the cap flexibility) to do that right now. Trading another outer-circle core piece might be the only avenue.

Landeskog had no tangible issues with his knee this year, but that doesn’t mean it’s fine in perpetuity. His value obviously goes far beyond the production. Colton has to be replaced, though there could be an internal candidate or two — at least to start next season.

Either Roy or Kelly could end up back at center if Jack Drury doesn’t return. Conversely, Nazem Kadri could slide to the wing to help one of the top-two lines if Bednar thinks one of the depth guys can handle the No. 3 center spot.

Brindley and Makar will be two guys to watch during training camp, along with T.J. Hughes, who had no trouble being an impact guy for the Eagles, but his ultimate NHL ceiling is both unclear and fascinating.

There are lots of questions here:

1. Will the Avs just run this group back, minus Colton, and expect either better health luck, improved postseason results or both?

2. Will the Avs be able to find a younger top-nine forward while still rebuilding the back half of the defense corps?

3. Could the Avs afford to part with a top-end forward to specifically add one more impact defenseman, and is there enough depth up front to cover for that, at least until the trade deadline?

Moving Colton for cap flexibility kicked off the Sakic 2.0 regime and the 2026 offseason. It might not be the last big shakeup, either.

Future depth chart

^ Unrestricted free agent on July 1; * UFA in 2027; + Restricted free agent on July 1; # RFA in 2027

The Avs have failed four consecutive seasons to reach the finish line. But did you see the speed, the passing, the scoring before the final lap? Amazing, right?

Sports make hypocrites of all of us.

And the Avs’ long-awaited, season-ending press conference Thursday nestled their leadership firmly into this category.

For a franchise that adopted a Stanley Cup-or-bust mentality in October, vice chairman Josh Kroenke and president/general manager Joe Sakic sure seemed satisfied with a seven-month process that came up embarrassingly short in an early Las Vegas summer.

“Our style worked all year,” Sakic said. “It just didn’t work for one week.”

“The continuity is what has established this core group,” Kroenke added, “as elite.”

In the wake of another playoff disappointment, I naively thought management would shed their long-held beliefs and focus on sobering truths.

The truth is coach Jared Bednar’s system no longer works in the playoffs. Colorado can outscore anyone, anywhere in the regular season. However, force the Avs to face a possession-oriented, defensive-minded team that protects the middle of the ice in the postseason and watch them melt. Sakic, in one of his few moments of critique, allowed that the Golden Knights “frustrated” the Avs. More like took their soul and made the hockey world question their strategy and pride. But sure, let’s go with frustration (insert eye roll).

The truth is the Avs need a new voice. Keeping Bednar — and there was no discussion of moving on from him or any member of his staff — feels like staying in the marriage for the kids. Not sure if you heard, but the guys in the room have his back. “He has the total confidence of the players,” Kroenke said when I asked why the organization was sticking with Bednar. Chipped in Sakic, “He’s the best coach for the group. They love playing for him. They believe in him. And I am going with the players.” Letting the players make this decision is like allowing children to choose breakfast and wondering why they have a stomachache from ice cream and Flaming Hot Cheetos.

Not saying that Bednar is a Disneyland dad. But he is not a disciplinarian. Of course, the players adore him because his style is frenetic and fun. But how do they reward him when it matters most? After losing consecutive home games to the Golden Knights, the Avs took a 3-0 lead in Game 3 and collapsed. A suspect penalty on Josh Manson hurt, and Nathan MacKinnon blocking a puck with his knee really hurt, but those are excuses.

The shift after MacKinnon exited, the Golden Knights scored. Want to show you love your coach? Rise up in the biggest moments, not on a lazy Tuesday night in Columbus. Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour is considered Bednar’s coaching twin. How did the Hurricanes respond to heart-in-a-blender losses in Games 1 and 3 to Las Vegas? With character-defining victories. The Avs countered by getting swept.

The truth is Sakic’s motivation for next season’s team is flawed. “They will be hungrier,” he insisted. Older? Definitely. Hungrier? Nope. Seriously, how much bigger an appetite for redemption can they muster? They entered last year with an unhealthy obsession to avenge their playoff elimination by Dallas. So, climbing one rung higher and losing to a different team will lead to raising the Cup? Sorry. Not buying it. Nobody can question the Avs’ drive. They want another championship, but are they willing to adapt in the postseason to get it?

The truth is the Avs are not winning another title without the schedule breaking their way. We all loathe the NHL’s postseason format that pits good teams in early rounds and dilutes the value of a top seed. Only one of the last 15 Stanley Cup winners also won the President’s Trophy, a statistical oddity that does not exist in the NFL, MLB or NBA. But nothing sounds more limp than a great team asking for help. If the Avs faced Utah and Anaheim in the first two rounds, do they beat Las Vegas? Maybe. But the Avs put together one of the best seasons of all time, so the idea that they must have the perfect path to reach their goal is unbecoming.

The truth is the Avs must confront uncomfortable questions with their roster. They looked tired in the playoffs because they are getting old. The reality is that it is more likely that Brock Nelson, Valeri Nichushkin and Nazem Kadri regress than have greater success. Same goes for Parker Kelly.  The Avs must look to trade one of their big contracts to slow the aging process and leave them fresher in the postseason.

The truth is that one championship is not enough for the core of Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Gabe Landekskog. Yet, where the masses saw disappointment, Sakic saw accomplishment. “We could panic and blow it up and start it over. But what this team did was pretty remarkable. The last two trade deadlines were meant not just for that year but to bring another Stanley Cup (eventually).”

The Avs have a handful of needs this offseason — Mackenzie Blackwood must establish himself as the No. 1 goalie after Scott Wedgewood showed his ceiling and Colorado requires a new power play plan.

The Avs’ biggest need is not a change in their roster, but a change in their belief system. They must be willing to get more physical and tougher.

Otherwise, Makar will be wincing through pain trying to explain the unfathomable, Blackwood will be dropping F-bombs in disbelief and MacKinnon will be ducking reporters despite being the team’s best player.

Sakic said that the Kroenkes have given him everything he needs. There might be, Sakic hinted, a trade. But it is hard to see a seismic event matching what has occurred over the last two seasons. The roster, for the most part, is set.

The truth is the Avs cannot change the ending until they change their thinking. Their loyalty is going to prevent them from posting the necessary eight more postseason victories.

The Avs are going to be good next season.

But the truth is, they are not going to win another Cup without changing how they view their team. And those are just the cold hard facts.

Count to 10. Deep breath. Exhale. Slowly. Put the pitchforks down and ask yourself this question:

Who could the Avalanche get to coach their team — right now — who would be better — again, right this very second — than Jared Bednar?

David Carle? Best coach in the time zone. I was in that camp a year ago, my friend.  The driver of DU’s hockey dynasty is allegedly not ready to walk through that door.

Jay Woodcroft? Can he draw up a defense? No thanks.

Craig Berube? Too much Maple Leaf. Pass.

Kris Knoblauch? Nah.

Bruce Cassidy? Sure, but there’s a catch: He’s technically off the market. The Golden Knights, classy to the last, refuse to let their former coach out of a contract that runs through 2027 — even though they’d relieved him of his duties with eight games to go in the regular season.

After Carle or Cassidy, whom the Vegas brass have locked up in in dungeon near Circus Circus, the pickings look awfully slim.

Which, we’ll grant you, isn’t the sexiest reason to run it back with Bednar. But we’ll give you another rationale: Joe Sakic is inheriting something of a hot mess, at least as championship-level teams go.

Sakic built the best house on the NHL’s block four years ago. But when he handed the keys over to Chris MacFarland, the maintenance costs went through the roof. Which, by the way, now leaks when it rains.

When MacFarland left the Avs’ general manager post to run the Nashville Predators on Tuesday, he left a pile of bills on the kitchen table and the basement unfinished. Colorado has roughly $3 million of cap space available for ’26-27 and only 17 players under contract. The Avalanche don’t have a first-round pick until 2029.

MacFarland took a Kyle Schwarber approach to roster management — C-Mac swung hard and swung from his heels, but the misses could be heard for miles. Trading Mikko Rantanen was supposed to ease the cap strain for ’26-27 and ’27-28, but the Avs landed back on that track anyway thanks to the Martin Necas contract. Swapping out Rantanen and Bo Byram didn’t age well. Neither did hanging onto Samuel Girard for as long as they did.

Cale Makar is expected to undergo surgery that will almost surely delay the start of his ’26-27 season. Also, he’s eligible for a contract extension on July 1 that could almost double his current cap number of $9 million. Necas is making $11.5 million a year through 2034 to be a playoff ghost. Brock Nelson, your 2C, is making $7.5 million a year to play defense.

Captain Gabe Landeskog turns 34 in November; Scott Wedgewood turns 34 in August. Devon Toews turns 33 next February. Valeri Nichushkin will be 32 in March. Nazem Kadri will be 36 in the fall. Nelson and Josh Manson will turn 35 in October.

, the Avs are on a track to use 56.1% of their expected ’26-27 cap space on players 31 years of age or older. That’s a lot of old dogs to try and teach new tricks.

Bednar isn’t nearly as divisive a winner as Sean Payton, but he’s getting closer by the summer. Like Sunshine Sean, Bedsy offers a high floor, good-to-brilliant regular seasons, and inevitable playoff heartbreak brought on by a combination of stubbornness and the inability to adapt on the fly. Every time that second title looks close, something happens that snatches the dream away.

A decade of Bednar has produced one Stanley Cup title, two conference final appearances and four second-round exits. For a team whose core has at least two future Hall-of-Famers in Nathan MacKinnon and Makar, and featured a third in Rantanen for most of Bednar’s era, that feels like a slightly underwhelming return on the trophy front. Very good suddenly feels very stale.

Fun fact: Seven of the last nine Western Conference championship coaches got to the Stanley Cup Final within their first 12 months on the job — including John Tortorella in Vegas, who’d only landed the gig in April.

Counter: Six of the last nine Eastern Conference-winning coaches were on their jobs six years or longer when they reached the Cup Final.

The last eight Cup championship-winning coaches did so with about four seasons with their current team already under their belts, on average. A quick-strike hire might get you there, but they usually don’t get over the line — the Final coach with the most tenure with a franchise has won three of the last five Cups and five of the last eight.

Bedsy also hasn’t lost the locker room, for whatever that’s worth. MacKinnon trusts him, which is no mean feat. Logan O’Connor has told me in multiple chats over multiple seasons that players appreciate Jared’s steady, calm voice during a nine-month grind.

“His work ethic and his preparation is something that there is zero complacency in what he does day-to-day,” O’Connor, the former Pios star, said last spring. “How (Bednar) operates, the meetings he runs, the message he delivers, what he expects from players, having good relationships with players — I think he creates a clear picture of how he wants us to play.

“And that goes from first line to fourth line, individuals to power play to penalty kill. I think you know exactly the expectations that he has for you. And then it’s on us to go out there and execute those expectations. I think he just has the utmost respect from us players. And it’s no surprise that he’s had as great of a run as he has, given the volatility in the (coaching) market. And we all love playing for him.”

For Sakic and the Kroenkes, the question of Bednar, whose current contract extension expires at the end of next season, is largely this:

Do you prefer something safe and predictable — 50-plus wins in the regular season, followed by a second-round postseason exit — or the crap shoot of a new coaching hire?

Do you want to be hockey’s version of the ’90s Atlanta Braves? Or do you want to roll the dice? After being shamed on The Strip, we’re about to find out if Super Joe’s still in a gambling mood.

He was positioned between the two benches as part of ESPN’s broadcast team while the Vegas Golden Knights stunningly swept the Presidents’ Trophy out of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Western Conference Final. It’s been a few days, but the shock of the result is still fresh.

For more than six months, the Avs set the standard in the NHL this season. Then, it was washed away in a week.

“In each of the first three games, there was a point in the game — like a significant moment — and Colorado lost all of those moments,” Ferraro told The Denver Post. “It����ap not like they lost 5-1. They were in every game, but in those big moments that were available to turn each game, they lost every one.”

So now the offseason beckons, and it has suddenly become arguably the most important one of the Nathan MacKinnon-Cale Makar era. Everything was building over the past two years, from the historic in-season overhaul two seasons ago to the high-profile additions ahead of the March trade deadline, towards a championship run this spring.

For two rounds, the Avs looked like a juggernaut. Now, there are questions everywhere.

Will this group be able to win a second championship together? What can they possibly do now, after this dream season didn’t produce a title?

“When you’re in the air Colorado is, to nudge forward it����ap a really high bar to climb over. Where they are, to improve some of the decisions are pretty minute,” Ferraro said. “You can change the system. You can change a coach. But if the top end of your roster gives you no goals, then you lose.

“To me it becomes simple, but the solutions probably aren’t simple. In my mind, it’s how would you improve a really good team? And it’s not easy.”

‘They’re not the chances you need’

As the series against the Golden Knights progressed, Colorado’s ability to create high-level chances diminished. The Avs had plenty in Game 1, but Vegas grabbed the lead and Carter Hart kept the league’s top offense at bay.

In Games 2 and 3, the Avs had more shot attempts, more shots on goals and, at least in their minds, enough quality scoring chances to win. By Game 4, the mounting injuries and frustration were too much to overcome.

After losing a series in 2025 where the Avs felt like they outplayed Dallas, is there a through line to be drawn?

“I don’t think they made the right adjustments,” said Bruce Boudreau, former coach and NHL Network analyst. “When you’re playing a team like Vegas or Carolina that clogs up the neutral zone and is very aggressive against you, you’ve got to change your tactics a little bit.

“They’re the best team in the league at coming up the ice with four guys. But when they don’t have the neutral zone ice to skate it in and make those plays, they need to figure something else out. … It����ap not easy to check, because they have some great, skilled players, but the formula is easy to check, if that makes sense.”

Boudreau was at the helm of a dynamic, electric offensive team in Washington. Those Capitals teams, led by Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, were young and had not won a championship. They were inundated with questions about whether they could play the right way at the crucial time of year.

This Avalanche team has won. Jared Bednar’s plan worked, and this core executed it with near-flawless precision in 2022.

But each of the past four seasons has produced an ending more agonizing than the last. The questions that are usually reserved for teams and players who haven’t done it are now resurfacing for this Avs group.

“It is a good question. I don’t know if it is a major change,” said Cory Schneider, an analyst for NHL Network and MSG Network. “Maybe just a small philosophical change of not getting stubborn. It does seem like they can get frustrated, like you can frustrate them, you can frustrate some of their top guys if you don’t give them what they want. If the other team is saying we’ll give you A, but we won’t give you B, then if we can get some good goaltending, we can frustrate you.

“I don’t think it����ap a major overhaul, but how can they find another way? It probably starts at the top with the top guys. It might be more of a mentality change than a big personnel change.”

Colorado’s top six scorers during the regular season did not score a goal against Vegas. The top guys didn’t score enough. The depth guys didn’t score enough.

“That reminds me of 2010,” Boudreau said of his Presidents’ Trophy-winning club in Washington. “We had 121 points, but then all of a sudden you run into some adversity and the power play doesn’t go, and I can see some similarities so quickly. It����ap the frustration of … this never happened to us before, so what do we do?”

Vegas found a way to stifle the Avs, just as Dallas has done the two previous years. It was excellent defense. It was great goaltending, at times.

What are some potential solutions for when this problem arises again could be the key to unlocking another title, regardless of any personnel changes that might happen.

“What can be different? Until they get in between the circles for their chances, they’re not the chances that you need,” Ferraro said. “How do you generate more Grade A chances? I think they had probably as many as Vegas. They didn’t finish as well, and they did not, in my mind, between the circles as much as Vegas did.”

‘It����ap going to be an interesting summer’

The first big domino is Bednar’s status.

The Avs pushed their end-of-season media availability to early next week. A year ago, it came three days after losing to Dallas in Game 7. The power play’s failure in that series cost assistant coach Ray Bennett his job.

Bednar is the winningest coach in franchise history. He’s the second-longest tenured coach in the NHL, behind Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper. The Lightning have not won a single playoff round since Bednar’s Colorado team defeated them in the 2022 Cup Final, but there has been far less chatter about Cooper’s job security.

“I happen to think Bednar is really good,” Ferraro said. “He’s a really, really good coach that coaches a team that just had 121 points. If they’re letting him go, they better have a really good idea of who’s coming next.”

The other big domino is general manager Chris MacFarland. Multiple outlets have reported that Nashville wants to speak with MacFarland, who is nominated for GM of the Year. If he were to leave, that opens the door to an entirely new set of questions for this offseason.

If MacFarland stays, the biggest long-term item on the to-do list is Makar’s next contract. But, in the short term, what can or will the Avs do that will affect the 2026-27 edition of the team?

There are 17 players who appeared in at least three of the club’s 13 playoff games under contract for next season. Jack Drury is a restricted free agent. Defensemen Brett Kulak, Brent Burns, Nick Blankenburg and Jack Ahcan are all unrestricted free agents, along with forward Joel Kiviranta.

Colorado has a shade below $3 million in cap space, . That’s not enough to revamp the back half of the defense corps, not to mention a new deal for Drury and room for a 13th forward.

“I’m reading different opinions on “blow it up” and I don’t think people quite understand A) the impossibility of that and B) would you look at a team that had 121 points, or would you look at seven days?” Ferraro said. “I can almost guarantee they’re not going to have eight new players next year. That����ap not happening.”

At least one, if not two, of those 17 players under contract will need to be moved to create the cap flexibility to fill out the roster. The Avs were in a similar spot last summer. They traded Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood to Columbus.

That allowed them to sign Brent Burns, and it gave them enough breathing room below the cap ceiling to add Kulak, Nicolas Roy and Nazem Kadri before the trade deadline.

To do more than that will be its own challenge. The Avs are short on draft picks and prospects to use in trades, but there are also lots of teams with plenty of cap space who might want to add one of the Colorado veterans.

“I think it must be the most torturous and difficult task to sit there and go, ‘I think we should be patient. I don’t think we should make major moves,’ ” Ferraro said. “It must be really disappointing and really frustrating, because you’re close, and then you’re losing four games, so are you close? That’s what they’re wrestling with.”

When the season ends the way it did, it feels like everything and anything could be on the table. There were similar feelings a year ago, with a stunning Game 7 loss to Dallas still fresh in everyone’s minds.

MacFarland, along with team president Joe Sakic, preached patience then, and belief in this group. They were rewarded with the best regular season in franchise history, and an 8-1 romp through the first half of the playoffs.

But then the Western Conference Final happened. How the Avs respond will affect not only their chances of winning the Stanley Cup in 2027 but also years beyond that.

It’s an aging group. It’s also a group that just ran the league for six months. The forthcoming decisions are not going to be easy.

“It����ap going to be an interesting summer, because they’ve shown they will be aggressive,” Schneider said. “They’re similar to Vegas in that sense, where they’re not afraid to make a change. There’s no sacred cows there. If anybody was willing to pull off a pretty bold move, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was them.”

Mikko Rantanen sent his friends and former teammates home in a blur — his third-period hat trick and assist to erase a 2-0 deficit happened in the final 13 minutes of a do-or-die Game 7. That painful night in Dallas now feels merciful, compared with what this Avs team just experienced. A four-game sweep by the Vegas Golden Knights was somehow worse. It was an internal injury diagnosed too late, triggering a week-long spiral of physical and mental anguish.

“I think it just feels like a waste, to be honest,” Avs forward Logan O’Connor said. “Eighty-two games, you get tons of great pieces and feel as though you have a team that can do something special. We said it in training camp — it’s Cup or bust for us. Regardless of where you fall short, we fell super short of that goal.”

For nine months, that loss in Dallas looked like a prologue, the catalyst for a historic start to this season and eventual legacy-cementing championship for Jared Bednar, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and the rest of the Avs who reached the mountaintop five years ago but have languished through a variety of playoff disappointments since.

The Avs won the most games, scored the most goals and allowed the fewest during a dominant regular season. They steamrolled through the first half of the tournament, losing just once while scoring more than four goals per game.

Then the Golden Knights broke them. It took a week — a blink of an eye in the context of a long season, but the adjectives to describe how players felt in the Avalanche locker room Tuesday night were strikingly similar to that night in Dallas.

“Frustration. Sadness, I guess,” Avs defenseman Josh Manson said. “Really felt like we had a good team. We didn’t do the job. We lost. The expectations for this organization are high. And, just … didn’t go the way we wanted.”

By Game 4 of this series, the only way to tell it was the Avs on the ice at T-Mobile Arena was the uniforms. Colorado looked nothing like the team that demoralized opponents all year with its offensive and defensive prowess.

Every aspect of the Avs’ invincibility was punctured by a team that fired its head coach 51 days before this Western Conference final began and lost more games than it won during the regular season.

Colorado scored just seven goals in four games for the first time since early in the 2023-24 season. Scott Wedgewood, the NHL’s leader in goals against average and save percentage, was outplayed by a goaltender who, this time a year ago, was one of five defendants in a messy sexual assault trial and who wasn’t signed to an NHL contract until late October.

This Avs team was 45-0 when leading after two periods, until Vegas made it 45-1 in Game 2. Colorado was 52-0 when building a multi-goal lead at any point in a game, until Vegas made it 52-1 in Game 3.

This was the deepest team in the NHL, built to survive the war of attrition in the Stanley Cup playoffs. It was one of the healthiest teams in the league as well, but by the end of this run, the Avs’ injury luck was nearly as bad as their shooting woes.

Everything was leading to one outcome for the Avs — a second championship in five years, another parade and immortality for all the key figures. A week later, everything has changed, and there’s just as much uncertainty — maybe more — than the morning after Rantanen donned a green-and-black cape in Game 7.

“I mean, this one … I feel like it����ap going to take some time to kind of digest and process,” Avs forward Brock Nelson said. “I’m not worried about next year right now.”

A more complicated offseason

Colorado’s offseason looked pretty straightforward a week ago.

Brett Kulak and Brent Burns are unrestricted free agents. Jack Drury is a restricted free agent. The biggest potential storyline was Cale Makar’s massive new contract, but that one doesn’t start until the following season.

The Avs have very little cap space, so someone under contract will likely need to be traded to retain Drury and one of the defensemen, or to replace Kulak and Burns. Pretty simple stuff, relative to what other offseasons might look like.

Now? Everything has to be on the table.

The questions begin with the future of the coaching staff. Colorado fired one of Jared Bednar’s longtime lieutenants, Ray Bennett, last May after the power play failed in the Dallas series. The power play was still a problem for much of this season, the one source of consternation, even when all of the other parts of this club were at the peak of their powers.

If the Avalanche decide to let Bednar go, he would be fielding calls from other NHL teams before the end of the day. The one candidate who has a resume similar to Bednar’s who isn’t currently one of the 32 head coaches is the guy John Tortorella replaced in Sin City, Bruce Cassidy. But one of the biggest off-ice stories of this postseason has been the Golden Knights denying Edmonton and Los Angeles permission to speak with Cassidy because he’s still under contract with Vegas.

The next major question, with both short- and long-term ramifications, is the state of the roster. This team was built to win the Stanley Cup in 2026, and every core piece is under contract at least through next year.

That felt like a great thing 10 days ago. If this Avs team did go on to win the Stanley Cup, they’d be one of the top favorites for 2026-27 as well.

Now? The Avs looked old against the Golden Knights. Beyond Burns, who will be 41 when next season begins, Colorado has six key figures who will be 32 or older when the 2027 Stanley Cup Playoffs begin — Nazem Kadri, Brock Nelson and Manson will be 35 or older, while Gabe Landeskog, Wedgewood and Devon Toews will all be at least 32.

Then there are Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen. Having those two excellent two-way players on team-friendly contracts has been part of Colorado’s secret sauce since 2022. No other NHL team has two secondary stars like them when they are healthy and playing well.

Their style of play and injury history, not to mention Nichushkin’s off-ice troubles, have made them high-risk, high-reward players in recent seasons. Lehkonen was hurt in the second round and far off his typical impact against Vegas. Nichushkin couldn’t finish the conference final because of an injury, and this year was his worst per-game offensive output since the 2020-21 campaign.

Martin Necas is the youngest core player on the team, but his new contract at $11.5 million per season kicks in next year. He was great against Minnesota, but the external allegations that he isn’t a postseason player resurfaced after he was one of the least impactful players on the roster against Vegas.

The Avs chose not to move any core players after losing to Dallas last year. The rationale was that they shook up the roster so much in-season that some stability going into this year would help fuel another run.

For nine months, that plan looked perfect. Staying the course looks far more uncertain now.

“I certainly hope so,” Landeskog said when asked if this core has another run in it. “I believe in that.

“It’s hard, but I think at the end of the day, if there’s one thing I learned over the last handful of years, it’s get knocked down, you just get right back up. Yeah, that’s the only way to do it.”

The 2026 Western Conference Final was played anywhere Vegas wanted it. The corners. The boards. The neutral zone. In between the Avalanche players’ ears, mostly.

The Golden Knights turned the NHL’s fastest team into a Corvette on cinder blocks. This wasn’t just a sweep. It was Hartbreak. It was arguably the biggest Colorado sports choke since Broncos-Jaguars in ’96. It was six days in May we’ll never get back. It was so bad, David Adelman cringed.

“Disappointed. Humiliated,” Avs forward Logan O’Connor, as stand-up as they come, told reporters at T-Mobile Arena after his season ended in a 2-1 defeat. “I think, to a man, (we) just weren’t good enough. Not a single guy was the whole entire series.”

The Golden Knights burned with hunger, fear and desperation, especially at Ball Arena, where the tone for disaster was set. Vegas players pounded the glass and drove the puck as if they’d just watched their coach get fired on March 29 — and any one of them could be next.

The Avs played hurt, yes. They also played fat and happy in Games 1 and 2. They carried the look of a roster with guaranteed contracts and guaranteed tee times, the harbinger of a fore-game sweep.

That starts at the top.

Stan Kroenke and Josh Kroenke are hoops, football and soccer guys first. They treat the Avs like a burgundy-headed stepchild. They love that their little hockey team, at least compared to the Nuggets, is a no-drama llama. They’re happy to let Joe Sakic sweat the small stuff.

Vegas fans brought the brooms Tuesday night. It’s time Super Joe started swinging his around.

The Avalanche are too stubborn. Too comfortable. If general manager Chris MacFarland wants to leave the Front Range to go rebuild the Nashville Predators, let him. C-Mac’s re-arranged deck chairs about 17 times since the Avs won it all five years ago. All it’s done is make the best fans in hockey angrier and the best roster in the game older. Way, way, waaaay older.

Once Cale Makar was out and Nathan MacKinnon got dinged in the knee, Colorado began to show its age. Brent Burns turns 42 in March. Nazem Kadri will be 36 in October; Brock Nelson and Josh Manson turn 35 that month. Scott Wedgewood turns 34 in August. Captain Gabe Landeskog turns 34 in November. Devon Toews turns 33 next February; Valeri Nichushkin will be 32 in March.

The Avs wouldn’t be running it back in 2027. They’d be hobbling. And hobbling , the smallest cushion in the NHL.

“How big their window? I don’t want to say it’s closing. But it’s not opening,” former Avs great Erik Johnson, now an ESPN analyst,

“They’ve already played (the) shake-up-your-core card with (Mikko) Rantanen, right? So they’ve played that card. What’s the next card they play, if they still feel like their window’s open — which I think it is?”

Play the Joker, Super Joe. Go wild.

The Avs need fresh eyes. Fresh legs. Fresh voices. Fresh ideas. Almost every “tough guy” MacFarland acquired lost their edge once they moved to the mountains. Almost every 2C revamp since a younger Kadri left five years ago eventually crashed or burned. Jared Bednar has become the George Karl of Avs coaches — a regular-season savant and a playoff fraud.

Bednar’s white board during the playoffs never seems to have an answer for a team that takes away the rush, clogs the neutral zone and clamps down on the tempo. Once Bedsy finds a Plan B in May, he rarely sticks to it. Colorado appeared out of gas by midway through Game 3 of the Western Conference Final. Zone entries stunk. Zone exits stunk. A team with the best record in the NHL looked like strangers playing pick-up on the pond.

Injuries? Cry us a river. Dallas beat the Avs in the first round of the ’25 playoffs without Jason Robertson and Miro Heiskanen. The Knights didn’t have captain Mark Stone for Games 1 and 2 in Denver. Injuries in the Stanley Cup are excuses — everybody’s got them. You find a path. You find a way.

The Avs rolled over. Over the last 13 minutes of the second period and the first eight minutes of the third stanza, Colorado, while trailing 1-0 in a do-or-die contest, got one shot off. One. When Vegas’ Tomas Hertl appeared to interfere with Martin Necas with 8:04 left in the second frame, the latter went down in a heap while the former just laughed. No call. MacKinnon got tripped. No call. Vegas had too many men. No call.

The bracket says a VGK sweep had to be a fluke. It wasn’t. Vegas goalie Carter Hart, icky narrative and all, was the best player in the series. The Avs ran into a bigger, smarter, sharper version of the Kings. Yet while Los Angeles knew it was out of its weight class from the jump, John Tortorella’s guys smelled a sucker with a soft underbelly. Play with your food against Vegas, they’ll take your lunch money and ransack the kitchen.

At least it was over with early, unlike Game 3’s cruel cosmic joke. Kadri didn’t track Stone some 4:42 into Game 4, and the sight of the 57-year-old winger somehow beating Kadri and Makar down the ice, then backhanding Vegas into a 1-0 lead, summed up a series in all its agony.

The hockey gods twisted a rusty knife with 6:08 left in the opening stanza. Nelson beat the Vegas defense for a point-blank look in front of the Golden Knights’ crease, not all that different from the chance Stone got. Only No. 11 fired high and saw his puck snatched out of the air by Hart, the way your uncle used to catch a mosquito and squash it in his palm.

“I think Jared Bednar is a heck of a coach,” Johnson opined. “But at the same time, if you go through the window of Landeskog, MacKinnon and Makar, and you only get one Cup in that whole Avalanche era of their greatness, I think that’s a failure, right?”

Darn straight. If you can’t find Plan B on the ice, it’s time to find it somewhere else. Until the Avs feel uncomfortable, no one should ever feel truly comfortable about them lifting Lord Stanley again.

Everyone thinks Jared Bednar is a great guy. But he is no longer a good fit for the Avalanche.

He is the best coach in franchise history. Yet, running it back would be the worst thing the organization could do.

Bednar’s resume saved him when the Avs fizzled for three consecutive years after winning the Stanley Cup.

What happened in this Western Conference Final hit different.

The best team in hockey was clobbered. The Avs were broomed away like so many cigarette butts and plastic daiquiri cups, the seventh No. 1 seed swept in NHL history.

BTS came back and performed at Allegiant Stadium across the interstate. BTA (belt to bleep) returned in Game 4 at T-Mobile Arena.

The Golden Knights, so underwhelming and uninspiring that they fired their coach with eight games remaining in the season, put the Avs out of their misery with a 2-1 victory.

Leave the miracles to Mike Eruzione, the 2004 Boston Red Sox and that perm-coiffed dude who married Selena Gomez.

This Avs’ exit needs to come with a major announcement, that president Joe Sakic and general manager Chris MacFarland have decided to dismiss Bednar with one year remaining on his contract.

There is no joy in writing this. It is not all Bednar’s fault that the Avs picked a bad week to play their worst hockey, failing to win a game in a playoff series for the first time since 2008. They almost got shut out in a closeout.

So, let’s meet in the middle and say half the onus is on Bednar because of a system that no longer works in the postseason against defensive-minded, possession-oriented pests like the Dallas Stars and Knights.

Just like their matchup against Las Vegas, the Avs are boxed in, frustrated, with no easy way out. Some version of this problem arose when Seattle and Dallas eliminated the Avs, but there was compelling evidence to stick with the coach, given Valeri Nichushkin’s absences and Gabe Landeskog’s injury.

There is no good reason for what just happened over the past six days. Only excuses.

Are the Avs, a team that won 16 more games than the Golden Knights during the regular season, so fragile that they stood no chance without Cale Makar for two games and Nathan MacKinnon compromised for a few periods?

All we talked about was their depth, starting in October and louder after the trade deadline in March when MacFarland cemented his executive-of-the-year status.

They were a Noah’s Ark team — two of everything. And no player could sway the outcome in one game? Embarrassing.

Captain Mark Stone missed the first two games of this series, and it did not undermine Las Vegas. He was a catalytic force on Tuesday, catching a long lob in stride behind the defense in the first period, most notably Nazem Kadri, and whipping it around Mackenzie Blackwood’s left leg for a 1-0 lead.

If not for Blackwood’s acrobatics, the Avs would have been routed.

Still, the Golden Knights were winning.

After the particularly disturbing Game 3 loss, when the Avs lost for only the second time in 76 playoff games when leading by three goals, Colorado resorted to whimpering.

Down 3-0, Bednar kept pointing to the metrics, insisting they were dead even. OK, Kenny Atkinson. How about we simmer down on the analytics and focus more on the manalytics.

When the Avs needed a big hit, big shot or big stop, they failed to deliver. That is what defines the postseason: shining in the clutch. Under Bednar’s watch, the Avs wilted under the LED lights washing over Bruno Mars Drive and The Strip.

The players are not blameless.

MacKinnon did not produce a goal in the series. Marty Necas, paid to provide the big performances previously delivered by Mikko Rantanen, had one in the postseason.

Brock Nelson aged like Keith Richards, and never looked the same after returning from the Olympics. Devon Toews made costly mistakes unbecoming of a player of his caliber. Kadri did not plug in the power play — 1-for-10 against Las Vegas. And even before he got hurt, Nichushkin did nothing of note.

So many breakdowns. So many errors in their own zone.

Does some of that fall on Bednar? Sure.

“At the end of the day, coaches are coaches,” Makar said in a somber postgame locker room. “He means so much to this team, and he’s allowed us to play our games and process that from years and years for this. He deserves a lot of credit for getting us to this point. Again, he’s not playing the game, he’s not out on the ice.

He’s giving us everything we possibly can, information-wise, to go out there and be the best we can be, and unfortunately … you feel like you let people down. He’s one of those guys that you feel like worked so hard, the whole coaching staff, everybody. You just feel like you let them down a little bit.”

Bednar could have changed line combinations sooner. Could have tweaked the power play lineup. Could have challenged bad calls with ferocious intensity. Could have pulled Scott Wedgewood in favor of Blackwood after the second goal on Sunday.

In reality, there is no single reason why Bednar should go. It is the aggregate.

For the past four years, the Avs have not only failed to raise another Cup — we can all agree one is not enough with this core — they have not reached the championship round.

Stand pat, always an option for Kroenke Sports, and the Avs might be a top seed again. But the regular season is not the problem. The Avs have aced those pop quizzes.

The playoffs are the final. Or the Final, if you will. That is a huge part of the grade when entering with title-or-bust expectations.

Since 2022, they are 0-for-4.

Truth is, if two-time champion Mike Shanahan can get fired by the Broncos, no professional Colorado sports coach should be safe forever. Shanahan, the GM, got Shanahan, the coach, canned. Bednar’s scheme is what could do him in.

For those defending Bednar, it is understandable. It is also misguided.

The Avs are stuck with multiple big contracts — MacKinnon, soon-to-be Makar, Landeskog, Necas, Kadri, Nelson, Toews, Blackwood, Sam Malinski — that will limit their movement unless they are willing to eat money.

It is much easier to switch out the person standing behind the bench than those sitting on it.

This could go one of two ways, like most things. The Avs thank Bednar for his services and hire a young genius like DU’s David Carle or a veteran like Bruce Cassidy. Then, they win a Cup.

Or Bednar succeeds elsewhere, and the Avs fade, making it clear the players, not the system, were the problem.

It is worth finding out.

The feeling is that Avs officials never want to pull the plug on Bednar because they like him and love how he works with everyone (which is why his situation is not comparable to Michael Malone with the Nuggets).

Whatever the case, ownership has given Sakic and MacFarland freedom to try everything the past two seasons with roster upgrades. After this playoff meltdown, they now have a responsibility they can no longer shirk.

As hard as it might be, it is time for Bednar to go because sticking with him, as the series with Las Vegas showed, is a losing bet.