Sakic said what he had to say at that point. I still think Bednar would have been fired if the Avs hadn't made the turnaround. It doesn't matter, though, because the Avs got their crap together, made the playoffs and looked pretty good in two rounds.
I don't think Bednar would have been fired. The eye test and the stats showed that the team was still playing very very well during that bad stretch. The problem was mostly goaltending and the way our goalies were playing that was not on Bednar.
The only other thing that could be put on Bednar during that stretch were the OT losses. He was making other little mistakes such as player preferences and so on but no coach is perfect. The OT losses are another issue though. I kept saying it at the time...he kept going back to Mack/Rants/Barrie to start the OT and those three should not be played together in OT. They are all fairly high risk players. OT is about puck possession and being patient while having the puck waiting for the right opportunity. Those guys together were taking way too many low probability shots, losing the puck and giving a breakaway in the process. Bednar finally started sending them separately and he finally got through to them on how to play in OT and they started to do very well. From Feb 27th they went 4-1 in OT. They also went 2-1 in SO which means another three games that they did pretty well in OT.
I think Bednar did an admirable job in getting them ready to play each game during that stretch as it was very deflating for the players playing that well and the goalies would screw it up for them. It would have been easy for him, especially with a young team, to lose the locker room and he didn't. He kept them focused and believing in the system and it finally turn around. I don't think he was ever in any danger of losing his job.
