Change coming in Colorado? Bednar's successor is already emerging
David Pagnotta dropped a name Sunday that's going to follow the Colorado Avalanche around for a while: David Carle.
The NHL insider went on The Sheet and pointed straight at the Denver Pioneers bench boss as the future of the Avalanche behind the bench.
Pagnotta's wording was careful but the message wasn't subtle. Whenever Colorado eventually makes a coaching change, Carle is their guy.
Jared Bednar has been running this bench since August 2016. That's nearly a decade in one chair. In this league, that alone earns you a spot in the rumor mill.
The timing stings. Colorado dropped back-to-back home games to Vegas, 4-2 and then 3-1, and now trails the series 0-2 with Game 3 on the road tonight.
A team that finished 55-16-11 with 121 points and a +99 goal differential is suddenly one loss from a 3-0 hole. That's the kind of result that fuels conversations like this one.
Here's exactly what Pagnotta said on The Sheet.
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Why the Denver Pioneers connection makes too much sense
Carle has been the name circulating in NHL circles for a couple of seasons. He's coached USA at the World Juniors, and he's done all of it twenty minutes from Ball Arena.
The college route to an NHL bench isn't a curiosity anymore. Spencer Carbery and Jim Montgomery already kicked that door down for the next guy.
Here's the wrinkle. Bednar isn't a coach you fire after a bad series. He won the Cup in 2022 and his teams keep finishing first in the Central Division.
That's what makes this report uncomfortable. It plants a successor in everyone's mind while the current coach is still chasing another championship.
Chris MacFarland and the front office now operate with a name attached to a chair that isn't open. Every off night, every series loss, every public misstep gets filtered through that name.
For Bednar, the math is brutally simple. Win the next two and the whisper goes quiet until July.
Lose, and the next coaching cycle in Colorado starts the second the handshake line ends.
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MAY 24, 2026
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| Mitch Marner | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Devon Toews | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Jack Drury | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Nazem Kadri | 1 | - | 1 | |
| William Karlsson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Keegan Kolesar | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Gabriel Landeskog | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mark Stone | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Dylan Coghlan | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Tomas Hertl | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Parker Kelly | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kaedan Korczak | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nathan MacKinnon | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Manson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Martin Necas | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| Brent Burns | - | - | - | |
| Ross Colton | - | - | - | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | - | - | - | |
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