Avs head coach Bednar barks back, says controversy over goal is “nothing”

Controversy? What controversy?

There’s nothing to see here, says Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar.

Speaking with reporters in Tampa Bay before Colorado boarded its flight home to Denver, Bednar responded to Jon Cooper’s cryptic whining after Nazem Kadri’s overtime winning goal in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Cooper apparently thought the Avalanche had too many men on the ice for Kadri’s OT tally, but as I wrote last night, line changes like that happen on almost every play. Bednar agrees.

“I saw it. I thought it was nothing, honestly.” Bednar said. “I thought that happens every second shift in the entire game.”

The head coach then expanded on his answer, via Michael Traikos of Postmedia.

“That’s part of the game. It’s a fluid game. You’re changing on the fly, everything happens. You look at that clip, you back that clip up — and I did multiple times already to see exactly what they were talking about — and Tampa’s got two guys jumping on with their (defense) coming off the ice from a zone away. I count 7-6 at one point. So that is what it is. That’s the way the game is played. I don’t see it as a break or a non-break. I actually see it as nothing.”

With the Avalanche one win away from the Stanley Cup, Bednar could have easily said he wasn’t going to address it. But you have to love him standing up for his team and basically implying Cooper stirred something up for no reason. If we’re getting technical, Tampa did indeed have seven men on the ice while the Avs had six.

If your waking up after @Avalanche game hearing there were too many men on the ice and the goal should not have been allowed… here is the proof. You decide #GoAvsGo pic.twitter.com/QakLY6Cih7

— Brian Willie (@bwillie) June 23, 2022

The Avalanche can taste a championship. The Lightning are one defeat away from heading on a sad vacation. And no manufactured controversy is going to change that Colorado earned one of their best wins in franchise history last night.

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