The Colorado Avalanche are still recovering from Saturday night’s loss to the Dallas Stars as they squandered a two goal lead in the third period of Game 7 while Mikko Rantanen and the Stars advanced to the second round. In the aftermath of the loss, the organization fired assistant coach Ray Bennett but did not fire head coach Jared Bednar.

The decision was announced by general manager Chris MacFarland, who spoke to the media alongside Joe Sakic on Tuesd.

Bennett spent eight years as an assistant on Bednar’s staff, and was primarily responsible for the forwards and the power play. The Avalanche converted just 13.6% of their power play opportunities in the seven games against the Stars with three goals on 22 attempts.

“In 5-on-5, I thought we played incredible hockey. We just didn’t get it done in those big moments. Like I mentioned, [Dallas’s] power play was the difference for them, and ours just wasn’t quite as sharp as it normally is,” Sakic said.

Since the start of the 2017-18 season when Bennett was hired, the Avalanche’s power play was the fifth-best in the league at 23%. However, the issue was too glaring to not address after the Avalanche failed to capitalize on the man-advantage in multiple key moments throughout the series.

Bennett has been an assistant coach in the NHL since 1996, as he started with the Los Angeles Kings before going to Saint Louis and then Colorado.

After delivering the news about Bennett, MacFarland and Sakic reassured the media and the fans watching that they were sticking with head coach Jared Bednar.

“100% confident Jared’s our head coach,” MacFarland said.

In nine seasons as Colorado’s head coach, Bednar has made it past the second round just once, when the team won the Stanley Cup in 2022. He has lost all four of the Game 7s that he has coached in and has not been able to beat the Dallas Stars in three separate tries.

He recently spoke about how he didn’t feel any pressure from ownership after the Denver Nuggets sent Michael Malone out the door before the playoffs, but the front office and executives decided that now is not the time to look for a new head coach.

The attention now turns to the roster construction for MacFarland and Sakic, who are tasked with not wasting another year of Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar’s primes. With Gabriel Landeskog’s age and health, he most-likely doesn’t have much time remaining, so the championship window is starting to shrink on the Avalanche