There’s a weird byproduct of being a great coach in the NHL over a prolonged period: The league’s broadcasters have a hard time valuing it properly. Case in point: The three coaches who have combined to win the Stanley Cup five of the past six seasons have also combined to win the Jack Adams Awa rd zero times. The one Cup-winning coach in that span won the league’s coach of the year award with another team in 2020, got fired two years later and won the title in his first year with a club. Maybe Jared Bednar and the Colorado Avalanche can knock down that artificial brick wall this season. The weird nature of how the Jack Adams Award gets decided, and who wins it, was front of mind this past week when the Colorado Avalanche were in Tampa, Fla., to play the Tampa Bay Lightning. Jon Cooper was honored before the game for coaching his 1,000th NHL game, all with the Lightning. Cooper is the most accomplished NHL coach during the time he’s been in the league. Two titles, four trips to the Stanley Cup Final, six conference finals and a 4 Nations gold medal, with the potential for an Olympic gold coming next month. He will be a first-ballot Hockey Hall of Fame coach, whenever he decides to stop coaching. He has never won the Jack Adams Award. Bednar is the second-longest tenured coach in the NHL behind Cooper. His team has one Stanley Cup in nine seasons, but the Jack Adams is a regular-season award and no club has been more successful more consistently than Bednar’s Avalanche over the past eight seasons. The only team with more points since the day Bednar was hired? Cooper’s team. Bednar’s Avs are the best since his second season, which was the first of eight straight playoff appearances. Why don’t some of the best coaches win the Jack Adams? Because there are two groups of coaches that have heavy advantages: 1. A team that was bad last year but is good this year. 2. A team that was expected to be bad this year, but it is good. If it’s your first year on the job with a team, and fit into one or both of those groups, even better. There are some rare exceptions, like Dan Bylsma navigating a devastating injury crisis with the Pittsburgh Penguins. But even that isn’t enough sometimes — see what Bednar helped steer the Avs through last season between injuries and a historic number of trades for a contending team. Cooper’s best chance to win was probably in 2014, when he led the Lightning back to the playoffs in his first full season after they missed and he replaced Guy Boucher with 16 games to go. Who won that year? Related Articles Avalanche goalie Trent Miner’s patience, hard work pay off: ‘He is a battler’ Keeler: Avalanche’s Brent Burns has become missing piece to Colorado’s Stanley Cup puzzle Avalanche earn depth-charged 4-0 victory against Columbus, led by Trent Miner, Brent Burns Avalanche’s Josh Manson had a career night with his father watching Avalanche shakes off mini-slump, obliterates Senators in 8-2 win In a bit of irony … a first-year coach whose teams exceeded expectations, Colorado’s Patrick Roy. Like most Jack Adams winners who fall into that category, the gains the Avs made that year under Roy were unsustainable, and he was gone two years later. Bednar’s best chance might have 2018, his second year after taking over for Roy. The Avs improved by 47 points that year and went from dead last in the NHL standings to a playoff spot. Easy pick, in a lot of years. The guy who won helped his franchise collect 109 more points than the previous year — Vegas coach Gerard Gallant, who prevailed because of the Golden Knights’ historic debut season. So why might this year be different for Bednar? Three coaches whose team won the Presidents’ Trophy in the past 10 years have also collected coach of the year honors. Jim Montgomery did it in 2023 with Boston, while the guy he replaced, Bruce Cassidy, hoisted the Cup that year with Vegas. Cassidy did it with the Bruins in 2020, and Barry Trotz did so in 2016 with the Washington Capitals. Spencer Carberry, one of Bednar’s best friends in the business, nearly made it four of 10 last year. The Capitals finished second in the league standings, and Carberry won the Jack Adams. Generally, a team that goes from outside the playoffs or makes a jump in the standings gives the coach a good chance to win. Carberry’s team improved by 20 points. Montgomery’s team, along with Vancouver under Rick Tocchet in 2024, each had a 28-point surge. Montgomery’s Bruins finished with 135 points, which is the number the Avs could be chasing in the second half of this season. Colorado is currently on pace for 135 points. Bednar and the Avs finished with 102 last year, so that would be a 33-point increase. That would also certainly be one of the biggest jumps from last year, though one of Bednar’s other buddies, San Jose’s Ryan Warsofsky, might help the Sharks to an even bigger improvement. Tocchet has the chance to do the same with his new team in Philadelphia. While the focus normally narrows to coaches who helped bad teams become mediocre, or mediocre teams become good, it is equally as hard in a salary cap environment to help a really good team become the best, or even one of the best of all time. The Avalanche finished eighth in the NHL standings last year. Going from eighth to first is as hard or harder than making a big jump from the bottom into the middle. Those coaches in San Jose, Chicago and Anaheim, all have a core of young players who were inevitably going to make a jump forward at some point. What Bednar has helped coax out of the Avalanche is nothing short of remarkable. Maybe it looks obvious now, to a certain degree, because of the club’s star power, NHL-level depth and relative good health. It was not obvious to anyone before the season began. Colorado was sixth in ESPN’s preseason power rankings, fifth in NHL.com’s and third in The Athletic’s. The latter of those projected the Avs to finish with 105 points. That would still be 30 shy of their current pace. The Avs are an even strength juggernaut, which is Bednar’s area of expertise. The starting goalie has missed nearly half the season so far, but the other has been one of the league’s great stories. Successful players arrive from other organizations, and get better for Bednar. Players that other clubs could have had for free get to Denver and become NHL regulars for Bednar. The level of consistency, effort and focus this season has to start with the star players, and they have believe to what the coach is saying. Maybe one of the coaches’ who have helped their young phenoms push the team out of the abyss in San Jose or Chicago will win the Jack Adams. Maybe one of the guys in his first year with the club in Pennsylvania — Tocchet or Dan Muse with the surprising Penguins — will win. If the Avs do finish with one of the greatest regular seasons of all time, there is a very strong case for Bednar. If the season ended today, it probably should be him. We’ll see if the NHL broadcasters are finally willing to reward a longtime successful coach for helping to foster historic excellence. Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis. ...read more read less