Avalanche fans are stunned after Friedman's latest Jared Bednar revelation
Jared Bednar and Nathan MacKinnon are now staring at the hardest Avalanche question of the summer.
Colorado just got swept out of the Western Conference Final, so the heat on Bednar was always coming.
But Elliotte Friedman's read is what makes this more complicated than a simple firing debate.
The comparison to Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh says a lot.
Sometimes it is not about a coach suddenly becoming the problem. Sometimes it is just about time, fatigue, and a voice that may have run its course in one room even if the coach still has major value.
That is the line Colorado has to walk now.
Because if the Avalanche let Bednar go, Friedman's point is the scary one. There is a decent chance they do not find anyone better.
That should make the front office stop and breathe before doing something emotional.
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A shocking Elliotte Friedman report just changed the conversation around Jared Bednar
This is where the conversation gets real.
The Avalanche were not some mediocre team that stumbled into April. They won big, carried real expectations, and then got flattened by a Vegas team that found its edge at exactly the right time.
That is brutal.
It is also the kind of ending that makes everyone want a clean answer. Fans want one person to point at. Coaches usually get that first.
But Bednar's case is not that simple.
John Tortorella, the coach who just swept Colorado, even stepped in publicly and told people to get off Bednar. That matters. So does the respect he showed afterward when he called Colorado a hell of a team and Bednar one hell of a coach.
That is not charity.
That is one bench telling the truth about the other.
Cale Makar also made it clear after Game 4 that Mackenzie Blackwood deserved more than what the Avalanche gave him. That sounded like a room owning the failure on the ice, not dumping it all on the coach.
Still, the Sullivan comparison lingers.
If Colorado believes the message has gone stale, then maybe a change starts making sense even if Bednar remains a top-level NHL coach.
That is the fear with these situations.
You can keep a great coach one year too long.
You can also fire one and spend years regretting it.
For the Avalanche, that is the trap now.
This does not feel like an obvious dismissal.
It does not feel like a full endorsement either.
It feels like a franchise trying to decide whether this was a bad series, or the beginning of a bigger shift.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 27, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Nikolaj Ehlers | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Shayne Gostisbehere | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | 1 | 1 | |
| K'Andre Miller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| William Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Cole Caufield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Phillip Danault | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | - | - | |
| Jakub Dobes | - | - | - | |
| Noah Dobson | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||