Rapid Rewind: Jack Adams Trophy Finalists

The NHL continued to announce finalists for the 2019-20 awards. On July 15, 2020, the League announced the Jack Adams Trophy Finalists. The Jack Adams award goes to the NHL’s best coach and is voted on by the members of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association. The winner will be announced during the conference finals.

The three finalists came from the Eastern Conference. One finalist from the Atlantic Division, while the other two finalists came from a tough Metropolitan Division. All three finalists are veteran coaches, but one was in his first season with the team. Each finalist had to overcome some kind of adversity during the season, but managed to led his team to the postseason. The finalists all have a compelling case to win the award, but only one will take home the hardware.

Bruce Cassidy and the Presidents Trophy

Cassidy helped the Boston Bruins to a 44-14-12 record, and the team took home the President’s Trophy, as the best regular season team. The Bruins were eight points ahead of the Lightning when the season was paused on March 12, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the largest lead any division leader had at the time. Cassidy managed to lead his team to its seventh straight 40-win season. Sure, he had a veteran team to help him out and make sure that the team bounced back after some rough patches, but he still was a big reason the team finished where they did.

Cassidy didn’t have to deal with as many injuries of the adversity the other coaches had to deal with, but I’m sure he faced some music being the bench man in a sports town like Boston. The Bruins had the second best power play and third best penalty kill in the league, which was another reason for its success. The goaltending duo of Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak won the Jennings Award for allowing the least amount of goals in the regular season. 

John Tortorella and Overcoming Injuries

John Tortorella had to deal with some major question marks before the season even started after losing his top goaltending and scorer in free agency. Would Joonas Korpisalo excel or fail at being the starting goalie? Who is picking up the slack for the loss of Artemi Panarin and Matt Duchene? Then the season began and key players started dropping like flies to injury. Josh Anderson, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Cam Atkinson, Zach Werenski, Seth Jones and Korpisalo all missed extended periods of time during the regular season.

The Columbus Blue Jackets should have been dead in the water, but the goaltending of Elvis Merzlikins helped to save the season. The teams in front of the Blue Jackets in the standings also were not finishing down the stretch, which was helping their case. The players that didn’t get hurt were having lackluster offensive years, but the team was still managing to play solid defense. The regular season was a roller coaster for the team, but somehow the coach managed to keep players focused and have two separate 10 game point streaks.

Alain Vigneault and His First Year Magic

Alain Vigneault didn’t have as many injuries to key players as the Blue Jackets, but his team went through some adversity. Early in the season, the team couldn’t seem to buy a road win and Carter Hart was struggling on the road. Then the news that Oskar Lindblom would miss the rest of the season due to cancer treatments came out. The team and coach did a good job rallying around Oskar and pulled itself together. Vigneault also dealt with the loss of Scott Laughton and James van Riemsdyk for an extended period of time.

He managed to finish the regular season winning nine of ten games before the pause, and finished second in the Metropolitan Division. The Philadelphia Flyers were one of the hottest teams before the season was paused and managed to get 78 points from November 1, 2019 to March 10, 2020, which was second to only the Boston Bruins. Vigneault helped the team to a seven point increase in  just 69 games played from last season when they played a full 82-game schedule. The team also had four winning streaks of at least four games. 

Jack Adams Trophy Winner Prediction

As much as this pains me as a Flyers fan, John Tortarella will be taking home the Jack Adams award as the League’s best coach. Sure, Vigneault did a great job with the Flyers in his first regular season, but Tortarella just had so many injuries to overcome this season. A lot of Blue Jackets players also underperformed. Cassidy did a great job with the Bruins, but again the adversity and injuries that the Blue Jackets had to deal with this season makes its head coach the winner for this award.