Jared Bednar isn’t panicking — but he’s already making changes

Jared Bednar struck a measured tone after the Game 1 loss to Vegas, insisting he had no plans to overreact to a single off night

BY JAKE SHAPIRO

May 20, 2026, 10:20 PM

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Jared Bednar has been through enough Game 1 losses to know one doesn’t define a series.

The Colorado Avalanche head coach struck a measured tone after Wednesday’s 4-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at Ball Arena, insisting he had no plans to overreact to a single off night — even as he acknowledged the urgency that comes with falling behind 1-0 in a best-of-seven.

“I got a lot of belief in the group. I’m not panicking about it,” Bednar said. “But next game is obviously a big game.”

Teams in Vegas’ spot have a 57% chance to win the series after jumping the first game on the road. Colorado has now gone 11-7 in Bednar’s career in Game 1s, they’ve come back to win two of those series after dropping the first game.

But there’s better data here, with this year’s team to suggest the team is still okay. The Avalanche went 8-1 through the first two rounds, and even during a 56-win regular season, they rarely strung losses together. Bednar leaned on this year’s history after the game.

“It’s not like we haven’t lost games this year and bounced back,” Bednar said. “When we address things as a group that we need to be better at, give them clear direction, we are usually better at them.”

Still, calm doesn’t mean comfortable. Bednar didn’t wait for Game 2 to start tinkering. He shortened his bench and broke up his lines in the third period, moving Martin Necas around in search of a spark.

It worked, at least in flashes. Colorado outshot Vegas 13-8 in the third and scored both of its goals in the period before Nic Dowd’s empty-netter sealed it.

“We mixed it up a little bit in the third and got Marty back on different lines, and they both helped drive the lines that they were on and were pretty successful,” Bednar said. “I liked the sustained pressure from line to line in the third period, even though it was a shortened bench.”

Bednar said he wants that desperation showing up earlier on Friday.

“I’d like to see the urgency and the relentlessness that we had in the third period earlier in the game,” he said. “For longer stretches during the game.”

He pointed specifically to the Nathan MacKinnon line, which struggled to find rhythm against the Golden Knights’ defensive structure before the third-period shuffle.

“I felt like that group was a little bit spread out tonight and not as connected as it needed to be against their D-zone scheme,” Bednar said.

Whether the lines that finished Game 1 are the ones that start Game 2 is an open question, and Bednar didn’t tip his hand.

“Should be able to continue that, whether we keep the lines the same or mix them up or not,” he said.

What he did make clear: the message to his group will be specific, not sweeping.

“Getting a clear look at that game, us playing them, we’ll be able to give our guys some direction on how to be better,” Bednar said. “When we’ve done that, our team’s implemented it quickly, and we bounced back.”

Game 2 is Friday.