NHL awards watch: Jack Adams Trophy leaders as season winds down

The Jack Adams Award recognizes the NHL coach “adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success.” With the NHL season winding down, four candidates stand above the rest in the chase for the trophy.

Selected by the NHL Broadcasters Association at the conclusion of the regular season, the Jack Adams award has traditionally gone to the coach whose team has either improved most year on year or has massively outperformed expectations.

The award has only ever been won twice by five coaches, and has only ever been won three times by one — Pat Burns.

This year’s crop of contenders features no coach that has ever won the award before; a clear-cut favorite; two coaches who have been at their posts for less than a year; the youngest coach in the NHL and a coach on his way to shattering the franchise record for points in a season, not to mention a statistically unlikely three Jo(h)ns.

Gerard Gallant (Vegas Golden Knights)

If Gerard Gallant doesn’t win the Jack Adams this year, it will be one of the greatest NHL award snubs of all time. Gallant took a Vegas team expected to finish at or near the bottom of the league by most pundits (bookmakers gave Vegas 200/1 odds on making the Cup final in the preseason), and has it sitting at the tippy-top of the Western Conference with just a handful of games remaining. Gallant’s reputation has always been that of a players’ coach. He gets the most out of his players by inspiring and motivating, not yelling and threatening, and his collection of scrap heap heroes in Vegas have ran through the wall for him all season long. The only bigger surprise than Vegas’ Cinderella season would be if the broadcasters didn’t reward Gallant with the Jack Adams.

John Hynes (New Jersey Devils)

The NHL’s youngest coach, John Hynes, was brought in to replace Scott Stevens and Adam Oates in the summer of 2015 after six years at the helm of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. His first two years saw modest success, with a winning record in 2015-16 and a down year in 2016-17.  The Devils seemed to have responded to his coaching in 2018, though; they currently sit in fifth place in the always competitive Metropolitan Division with a 35-26-8 record. Hynes has a reputation for cultivating young talent shown by his extensive time spent with the USNTDP and his track record of success at that level. With the Devils team he inherited filled with young  budding stars in the making, Hynes has found a way to get the most out of a roster that wasn’t expected to do much. If the Devils make the playoffs, you have to think that the NHL broadcasters will reward Hynes with some Jack Adams love.

Jon Cooper (Tampa Bay Lightning)

When Jon Cooper’s Tampa Bay Lightning missed the playoffs in 2016-17 with a 42-30-10 record, you have to think the rest of the Eastern Conference breathed a sigh of relief. The Lightning started slow in 2016 and roared to the finish line after all but declaring that they were conceding with the trade of Ben Bishop to the Los Angeles Kings. The Lightning have continued last year’s momentum into 2018, where they currently sit comfortably at the top of the Atlantic Division with a 48-17-4 record with 13 games remaining on the schedule and only eight points separating them from the all-time franchise record for points in a season. Jon Cooper has won at every level he has ever coached at with a plethora of championships in lesser leagues, you have to think that it is only a matter of time before he manages to win the biggest prize of them all in the hockey world, especially with his star-studded roster and capable GM. That roster may be a knock against him for the Jack Adams, though; the broadcasters usually are loathe to reward a coach who does just as well as was expected of him, so Cooper’s case for the Adams can be considered fringe at best.

John Stevens (Los Angeles Kings)

The Kings are too old, too slow and hampered by albatross contracts, the sportswriters said.  They should just pack it up and trade Kopitar and Doughty before they walk away in free agency and leave the team hanging. For years, the Kings were the team that would squeak their way into the NHL playoffs and then go on a major run, the team no one wanted to face in the first round in the West. But years of heavy miles on a heavy team took its toll, and when the Kings were unable to make the playoffs in 2016-17 the doubters came out in droves to pick apart the carcass. Out goes Daryl Sutter, in comes longtime assistant John Stevens and off came the stifling defensive system that seems to have held down Anze Kopitar and former captain Dustin Brown.

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With the shackles removed, Kopitar is on pace for his best ever statistical season and Brown has completely rejuvenated his written-off career. The Kings are again a team to be feared, and Stevens deserves a large part of the credit for that.