Joe Sakic pledged to "stay the course" with the Avs and he's already backing it up

Joe Sakic broke a little news Monday.

Pledging to “stay the course” with the current blueprint of the Avalanche, general manager Joe Sakic today proved that is more than lip service by announcing a one-year contract extension for coach Jared Bednar.

Bednar originally signed a three-year contract with the Avs, so now he has two years left on his deal.

“He’s done an amazing job,” Sakic said. “We believe in Jared and never wavered.”

Bednar guided the Avs to the fourth-best single-season turnaround in NHL history, as the Avs went from a 48-point team to 95, from the worst team in the league to a playoff team. The run ended Sunday night to Nashville, but Sakic said he has no big plans to make any significant changes to the team.

“We have a young team. We expect growth from them. We’re going to stay young, and in the next couple years we may get even younger,” Sakic said. “If we can, we want to maybe try and get a little bit quicker. But I love the way we play the game. It’s fast, it’s entertaining. You’ve seen the Pepsi Center the last couple months – a new generation of fans and the building is live, back to where it once was. This group of players, they believe in each other, they play hard and there’s no quit in them. The dressing room had great chemistry and we want to make sure that, whatever we do, the chemistry is good.”

The Avalanche will have a lot of money under the salary cap to spend on potential free agents starting July 1 – potentially as much as $30 million. Sakic did say that if a player “interest us, we’ll take a look and consider it”, but indicated that a wild spending spree isn’t in the cards. Avs fans probably shouldn’t expect John Tavares to be wearing a burgundy and blue sweater anytime soon, in other words. But, hey, you never know.

Other quick-hitting items from Sakic’s presser:

• The team hasn’t decided on a new AHL coach yet. That AHL team will play in Loveland starting this fall, moving from San Antonio. The team parted ways with their most recent AHL coach, Eric Veilleux.
• Sakic expects defenseman Connor Timmins to make the club out of training camp.
• By saying he hopes the Avs become even younger and quicker, it might be a strong signal that potential unrestricted free agents such as Blake Comeau and Mark Barberio may not return. Maybe that’ll be totally wrong, but it’s a sign probably.
• Sakic is OK with top prospect Cale Makar going back for a sophomore season at Umass-Amherst, but hopes – and sounded like he expects – him to turn pro when the season’s over.
• The Avs expect to name a new ECHL affiliate at some point soon.
• He had essentially a “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” demeanor when asked about the status of goalie Jonathan Bernier, who can be UFA on July 1.

Here is the entire press conference, on video:

https://t.co/utnihu5aZX

— Adrian Dater (@adater) April 23, 2018