Colorado got swept and kept Bednar anyway, and Sakic got it right

Colorado had every excuse to blink. A Presidents' Trophy, a franchise-record 121 points, and then four straight losses to Vegas in the Western Final. In plenty of markets, that's how a coach ends up doing TV by Christmas. Joe Sakic went the other way on Wednesday and gave Jared Bednar four more years, through 2030-31.

It's the right call, and it isn't close.

File under: Hot seat, now closed.

Why the sweep didn't cost him

The easy read of a sweep is that the coach got outcoached. The better read is everything that came before it. Bednar has taken this team to the playoffs every season since his first, and that first one was a 22-56-4 teardown he inherited in August 2016 after Patrick Roy resigned.

He's the 13th coach in NHL history to make the playoffs in nine straight seasons. Only Jon Cooper has been in his chair longer. The Cup came in 2022.

What the numbers say: 445 wins, 262 losses and 75 overtime losses. That's a .617 points percentage over ten seasons, and the one bad year was the rebuild he was hired to survive.

Why it had to be now

Look at what Sakic did this summer. Cale Makar signed the richest contract in league history. When you hand your franchise defenseman that kind of money, you don't leave the guy running the bench on a short leash. The front office just told the room the timelines match: the star, the core and the coach, all on the same clock.

That matters to the players. A coach heading into a season with a sweep hanging over him gets second-guessed every time the team drops two in a row. Sakic took that noise off the table before the first puck.

"Jared has done an outstanding job over the last decade, and there's no doubt in my mind he's the best coach for this group," Sakic said. "He commands the room and has complete confidence of the players."

Bednar kept his own statement short: "I look forward to working hard each day this season, and beyond to accomplish our goal of winning another Stanley Cup."

Where it goes from here

Here's the catch. Four more years buys patience in October, not in May. This group is built to win now, and the standard in Denver isn't the regular season anymore. Another big regular season that ends early, and this extension becomes the first question in every Colorado column next spring.

The read: Sakic backed a coach who has earned it, and he did it before the season could make the decision for him. The job is safe. The pressure isn't going anywhere.

The Avalanche open at home against Los Angeles tonight.