DENVER — There's a large house two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean near Charleston, S.C., that five years ago was an empty lot. A little grass, some dirt and scattered trash. It wasn't a large lot — it easily could have been mistaken as part of the neighbor's unkempt side yard — and it certainly didn't draw the attention of most passers-by.

But Jared Bednar is different. He always has been. Nothing is ever what it is; it's what it could be.

He didn't see a desolate space. He saw a five- bedroom, 4K-bath home. A hot tub and a pool. Modern architecture to contrast the traditional beach look of every other house on the street. That lot was his future.

And the Colorado Avalanche, to him, wasn't a down-on-its-luck franchise abandoned by its coach. Bednar saw a Stanley Cup contender.

"Back when we were coaching together, Jared was flipping houses and taking advantage of the market. I want to say he had a dozen properties at one time, and I'm not talking Boardwalk. These were rough properties, Baltic and Mediterranean, that he saw potential in," said Jason Fitzsimmons, a scout for the Washington Capitals. (For the record, Bednar said he had more than two dozen.) "But as the result, he saw the big picture. And the big picture was to build this house on the beach that he and his wife, Susan, would ultimately retire in."

Bednar paid $210,000 for that property, records show. Its estimated value today? North of $1.5 million.

As for Bednar's Avs? They had a league-low 48 points last season, his first on the job. Tonight, they will try to even the series against the Nashville Predators in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs' first round. Regardless of whether they advance to the conference semifinals, the young Avs appear set to make noise in the NHL for years to come with a coach who saw what could be in Denver.

Bond of friendship

When Bednar woke this morning, he had 15 missed text messages — give or take. It doesn't matter what day you're reading this. That estimate is ever accurate. But on this particular morning — Tuesday — the messages were filled with "Let's go, Avs!" and chatter about how Washington did against Columbus. And there was elation over the Avs' dominance of the Predators in Game 3 and some light roasting of Bednar's suit choice.

"Jared is not a flashy guy, but at least this season he tried to put some money into his wardrobe. I guess what he's wearing on the bench this year is a little better," said Rob Concannon, the president of the ECHL's South Carolina Stingrays.

The praise between friends is matched only by the heckling in a never-ending group text between Bednar, 46, and his former Stingray teammates from the late 1990s: Concannon, Fitzsimmons, Brett Marietti and Dan Fournel, all of whom live a two-hour time difference ahead of Denver — in and around Charleston. They try to keep conversation encouraging, but "when you see Jared on TV giving an interview, it's hard to take him seriously sometimes," Marietti said. Bednar's thick northern accent delivered in a steady monotone — yet somehow inviting to the media — belies the guy who throws 50-person pool parties in the summer and the one who was once the most feared defenseman in the ECHL (Bednar might not have been Ross Rhea, but he could have played in "Slapshot.").

That said, there's nothing phony about him. From the day he was traded from Huntington to South Carolina in 1995, through Fitzsimmons persuading him to give up his skates and transition to coaching in 2002 and now leading a team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Bednar is the same as he has always been, just with a bigger paycheck.

Loyal. Focused, but loyal. Perhaps a bit dry, but more notably loyal. Even his cellphone number — with the area code 843 — still shows his allegiance to Charleston.

If one of his teammates was dealt a cheap shot on the ice, Bednar wasn't going to talk — he would act. When his former D-linemate Aaron Schneekloth, now the coach of the Colorado Eagles, needed advice on switching to coaching, Bednar invited him out to shadow how he ran things in the AHL. And if there's a player in his dressing room who doesn't fit his culture, they won't have a sweater for long.

"He wants the team to be able to stick up for each other. He wants us to be a tight-knit group of guys who want to play for each other, who want to go into battle with each other, who have each other's backs," Avalanche forward Alexander Kerfoot said. "If you look at us, that's what we are."

It's not Bednar's way or the highway, Fitzsimmons said, but if you want to be a better player — if you want to be a better person — listen to him, and he'll never let you down.

Paid his dues

The indirect turnpike Bednar drove from Charleston to Denver was peppered with priceless tolls.

His playing career peaked in the AHL — the hockey equivalent to minor league baseball's Triple-A — and before the Avalanche offered him its head-coaching position two offseasons ago, getting a shot at the NHL felt within sight, just not quite within reach. But this was always Bednar's vision, and "anything Beds has ever said he's going to do, he's never failed to follow through," Marietti said.

Bednar won wherever he coached in the minor leagues. He won the Kelly Cup with the Stingrays in 2009 and the Calder Cup with Lake Eerie in 2016, making stops in Peoria, Ill., and Springfield, Mass., along the way.