Torts is Not a Jack Adams Finalist

03/05/2024 21:29

Meh:

Rick Bowness, Andrew Brunette and Rick Tocchet are the three finalists for the 2023-24 Jack Adams Award.
#NHLAwards: https://t.co/a2U28zHmZfpic.twitter.com/vTJloBG1QQ

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) May 3, 2024

Tocchet has been the frontrunner for months and is probably going to run away with it. But I honestly think Torts has a case for the top three simply for the fact that he took a team with no high end talent and no business sniffing the playoffs and had them in it all the way until the third period of game 82.

Tocchet assumed control of the Canucks last January, took a 38-win team and improved that total by 12. They went from 6th in the Pacific to 1st and bagged 100+ points for the first time since the Sedins were on the team.

Bowness won 52 games with the Jets and had one of the NHL’s best defenses. It was the second most points in franchise history, including the Thrashers era and first Jets run.

And Brunette was the interim coach in Florida before getting the Nashville gig. They really started firing on all cylinders late and ripped off six-game and eight-game win streaks to finish with 47 wins and make the playoffs as the first wild card out of the west.

These coaches also had two of the three Vezina finalists, so you always look at something like that and wonder how much of it is coaching vs. how much is just having great players. That’s why Torts should have been given some respect here. He had very little to work with and squeezed every bit of juice out of the Flyers. It’s the late losing streak that probably did him in. He may have been a finalist if they didn’t fall apart at the very end, or even if the Carter Hart situation had not been a thing.

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