Avalanche's Joe Sakic makes something clear to Jared Bednar about Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar after latest coaching staff move

After the elimination in the 2024-25 NHL season, the Colorado Avalanche announced a pivotal decision involving an assistant coach in Jared Bednar’s staff. Although the franchise’s President of Hockey Operations Joe Sakic assured the head coach’s job is not at stake, he voiced a powerful reminder about the roster featuring Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.

The Avalanche have one of the best cores in the NHL, with the likes of MacKinnon, Makar, Landeskog, Nichuchskin, and others. With such firepower in its ranks, winning and championships are the standard in Colorado. However, they haven’t had much success in recent years after winning the Stanley Cup in 2022.

Following their first-round elimination at the hands of the Dallas Stars, an outcry emerged from Avalanche fans calling for a coaching change. However, those calls don’t appear to carry much weight within the organization, as GM Chris MacFarland firmly stated, “Jared [Bednar] is our head coach.”

However, the front office sent out a warning to Bednar, as assistant coach Ray Bennett has been relieved of his duties. Bednar is on the clear, but that might change if he can’t right the ship in the upcoming season. On that note, Joe Sakic, who’s hoisted two Stanley Cups with the Avalanche in 1996 and 2001, made a powerful statement about the expectations on a team led by MacKinnon and Makar.

Nathan MacKinnon #29 of the Colorado Avalanche and Joe Sakic chat following the series winning victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game Six of the 2022 NHL Stanley Cup Final at Amalie Arena on June 26, 2022 in Tampa, Florida.

“If you got Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon, your [championship] window is open,” Sakic boldly admitted during his end-of-season press conference. “And that’s why it’s important from the management side when it comes to trade deadlines, try and do what you can to give them the best opportunity, you’re not going to have those players forever.”

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Moving on from Rantanen

It was the biggest decision made by Sakic, MacFarland, and the Avs’ front office, and arguably the biggest news of the NHL season: Mikko Rantanen was traded in a three-team blockbuster move, sent to the Carolina Hurricanes.

However, ‘The Moose’ didn’t stay in Raleigh for long, and he eventually winded up in Dallas, where he knocked out the Avs with a hat trick in Game 7 of the First Round series.

Mikko Rantanen #96 of the Dallas Stars celebrates after scoring an empty-net hat-trick goal against the Colorado Avalanche during the third period in Game Seven of the First Round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs at American Airlines Center on May 03, 2025 in Dallas, Texas.

It didn’t take long for everybody to point their fingers at Colorado’s front office as the decision backfired in the worst way during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Still, Sakic made something clear about the decision.

“We felt we had to get deeper, and not only for this season’s team, but moving forward,” Sakic said about the decision to trade Rantanen. “Paying three high-end guys and not having a surrounding cast wasn’t going to get it done.”