At least one change is coming to the Colorado Avalanche’s bench for the 2025-26 NHL season. President of Hockey Operations Joe Sakic and General Manager Chris MacFarland (via Meghan Angley of Guerrilla Sports) shared that the team is moving on from assistant coach Ray Bennett.
Bennett had been an assistant coach for the Avalanche since the 2017-18 season, primarily running the team’s power play. It’s somewhat of a surprise, given Colorado’s powerplay never finished outside the top-10 (outside of the 2019-20 season), and finished their Round One loss to the Dallas Stars with a 30.4% success rate. Given his success with the Avalanche, the Boston Bruins, Philadelphia Flyers, New York Islanders, and Anaheim Ducks could all look to Bennett for additional help with a man advantage.
Bennett is likely the only coach departing Colorado’s bench this offseason. Surprisingly, the pair of front office leaders were asked about head coach Jared Bednar’s status, to which MacFarland replied, “100% confident Jared (Bednar) is our head coach.” Bednar has managed a 390-246-64 record in 700 games as the Avalanche’s head coach, including a Stanley Cup championship in 2022.
Other notes from the Central Division:
- Although the Minnesota Wild became the first professional team in North American sports to lose in the opening round of the playoffs for the eighth time in ten years, no changes are coming to their coaching staff. According to Michael Russo of The Athletic, General Manager Bill Guerin doesn’t expect any coaching changes for the Wild this offseason, which extends to their head coaching situation for their AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild.
- Passing along a statement from their Director of Scouting, Alex Daugherty of The Tennessean, reiterated that the Nashville Predators want to select one or two goaltenders during this summer’s draft. The news is surprising, given that Nashville relatively recently extended starting netminder Juuse Saros to an eight-year extension and traded heir-apparent Yaroslav Askarov to the San Jose Sharks. Although some netminders could be taken in the first round, any of them would be a reach for the Predators with the fifth overall selection.
Avalanche GM had the worst trade deadline of all time for a contending team. Trade a superstar who singlehandedly eliminates you to try and be proactive but also go all in on an old man Brock Nelson? They should have kept Mikko and the absurd assets given up to get Nelson. That team would have steamrolled an injured Stars club and Winnipeg again
@amk1920 — The problem with the Rantanen situation was so many of the talking heads reporting/suggesting that #96 wanted to be paid. As in, more than #29’s $$$, which supposedly didn’t sit well with the brass. If they had kept him as an own rental, there was a risk that he might have gone MIA in the second half. Think similar to Miller vs. Pettersson. Personally, I would’ve rather them take that chance and convince him to play his ass off to showcase his value to the rest of the league, if he didn’t want to re-sign.
Oh, whose fault is it that the team lost three out of four games after leading in the first round, that they blew all seven games with Bednar, that the team won one out of four series after the Cup, that they lost three straight series to Dallas, etc., etc., etc.? Well, it’s good to get that out of the way!(sarcasm) When the Avalanche won the Cup in ’22, I had two feelings. On the one hand, a Cup is a Cup, but on the other hand, it was clear that Bednar was going to be extended. I’ve never seen him as a man capable of anything more than driving the Macs to death in the hope that they’ll sort themselves out (this is the main reason why PP didn’t work, but of course Bennett is to blame).
You do understand that the predators have 3 first round picks, right?
I am pretty sure you have the Dallas and Colorado power play numbers mixed up for first round. Dallas was 30.4% and CO was 3/22 or 13.6%. You can talk about how good Dallas’ PK is all you want. There were zero adjustments made during the series which is why they parted ways with Bennett. There were times during the regular season the PP was stagnant due to passing all around the world waiting for that perfect cross ice pass or to the bumper rather than putting shots on net and taking chances to hammer in a rebound. When you have a perennial Art Ross as well as Norris trophy candidates running your PP, the team should fall into a top 10 each year regardless of who the special teams coach is.