|
October 18, 2024  After the Avalanche came back
to beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-3 in overtime Friday night, I asked Jared Bednar how much of a relief it was to get the first
win of the season after an ugly -- very ugly -- 0-4 start. The
question was neither original nor profound, but sometimes you just ask ... rather than, as many hockey scribes manage to do,
prefacing a query about the second power-play unit with a speech longer than the Gettysburg Address. "Here's the thing,"
Bednar said. "You don't want to drop too many because we know how hard it's going to be to climb out of that hole. It
is a relief. More importantly than relief, it's looking past that. It's the guys getting rewarded, finally, for playing the
right way. The Boston game, we did a lot of right things. We deserved a better fate in one and two. "Game three, I didn't like.
But you start looking at how many really good periods you play and how many chances you have and what you're giving up, 0-4
stings and 0-5 would be that much worse, especially playing that hard and playing the right way as a group and staying positive.
It's tough to stay positive if you don't ever get results. That'll go a long way, stacked on top of two pretty good against
Boston and now three good ones again tonight. We have to keep going." All of that, of course, is artful acknowledgment that the Avalanche goaltending
through the first four games -- from Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Auninen -- was dreadful. I mean, Bednar knows we
saw it.
His support of Georgiev as "our guy" was more about short-term realism than an unconditional
embrace. Georgiev's problems early in the playoffs last season can't be shrugged off as irrelevant or untroubling. But who
else is there? Auninen is a backup at best and Kappo Kahkonen, claimed from Winnipeg on waivers, is no answer, either. For
this team, one currently minus Gabe Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin, Jonathan Drouin and Devon Toews, to stay
within striking distance of a playoff spot will require consistent goaltending at worst, and larcenous work in the net on
most nights. Bednar is more measured when discussing shaky play in the net than was the Rockies' Don Cherry. The Rockies' goaltending
in Cherrry's single season (1979-80) with Colorado indeed was bad, but in retrospect, I probably concurred too easily with
Cherry’s position that Hardy Astrom, who was acquired from the New York Rangers and making decent money, was the worst
NHL goalie of all time. A handful of others in the league who played 20 or more games that season had worse goals-against
averages than his 3.75, and there were even a couple who played more than half their teams’ games—Hartford’s
John Garrett and Los Angeles’s Mario Lessard. Regardless, Cherry held his nose long enough to use Astrom—yes,
management and ownership wanted him out there, but Cherry could have defied them—in 49 games, while also trying Bill
McKenzie, Michel Plasse, and Bill Oleschuk in the net. A low point came in February 1980, the Rockies had to settle for a 4–4 tie at
Hartford. Plasse had only 17 saves. Cherry had let loose many times, but he got into high gear that night. “Our goaltending
was horseshit,” he told me as he stood a few feet from the trailer where I had done a between-periods interview with
a fledgling Connecticut-based cable operation called ESPN. “Let’s face it. Come on. Let’s be honest. We’re
not going to go anywhere until we get a goalie. I’ve tried everyone except the guy who works in the confectionary store.” Joel Quennevuille
was a Rockies defenseman during Cherry's season behind the Rockies' bench. Later, when he coached the Avalanche, I quickly
learned his code. When he thought the Avalanche had gotten rotten play in the net, Quenneville responded to the inevitable
question about his goaltender through gritted teeth. "He was OK," Quenneville would snap. Bednar's thoughtful approach both to coaching and also talking
about remains impressive and striking. It was interesting to see him in intriguing matchups through the first five games.
including the man he replaced, Patrick Roy, came to town with the Islanders for New York's 6-2 win last Monday night; and
also when Jim Montgomery hit town with the Bruins, who won 6-4 and stretched the Avs' losing streak to four. Montgomery coached
the Denver Pioneers to an NCAA championship in 2017 before moving to the NHL, first with the Stars. He also essentially bequeathed
the DU job to his young assistant, David Carle, who has led the Pioneers to two more Frozen Four titles and at some point
in the near future likely will step up to the NHL, too. Roy confessed he wished he might have handled the scenario that led to his resignation differently.
He also kept a surprisingly low profile during the visit to Denver, but accepted the Avalanche organization's acknowledgment
of what he meant to this market and franchise, at least as a player. But it's funny now to look back and realize that Bednar has the third-longest tenure among head coaches
in the NHL and is about as entrenched as an NHL coach can get. In a league that treats coaches as recyclables and scapegoats, there were a couple of times when if Joe Sakic would
have been following NHL Standard Operating Procedure by making a change. But now? Short of unmitigated disaster with responsibility traceable to Bednar, the tholughtful coach isn't
going anywhere.
|
