Sports
Published October 23, 2026 10:31pm | Updated October 23, 2026 11:36pm
DENVER • In a league with an absurd turnover rate behind the bench, two coaches have managed to keep their jobs for over a decade. They stood on opposite benches Friday night.
Jon Cooper and Jared Bednar are the two longest-tenured coaches in the NHL. Cooper has been behind the Lightning bench since 2013, while Bednar has been coaching the Avalanche since 2016. In 2022, Bednar got the best of Cooper in the Stanley Cup Final, and in a slightly less important game on Friday, his Avalanche bested Cooper’s Lightning by a score of 6-3.
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Although their teams have battled each other on the league’s greatest stage, the mutual respect between the two is evident.
“Sticking in one spot is not easy to do. It happens for different reasons, different management groups or whatever, but I think the continuity is a positive,” Bednar said. “No one knows their guys better than Jon Cooper.”
“I love Bedsy,” Cooper said.…
