The NHL announced the 2023 Jack Adams Award nominees just a few days ago, with that in mind, there is no better time to see how the coaches nominated last year are doing now.
There were three really deserving coaches nominated for the Jack Adams in 2022. Darryl Sutter, then head coach of the Calgary Flames, won the award after coaching the Flames to a 50-21-11 record. It was Sutter’s first time winning the award.
Additionally, Gerard Gallant and Andrew Brunette were nominated. Gallant coached the Rangers to their first playoff appearance in a few years and finished the season with a 52-24-6 record.
Brunette won the Presidents’ Trophy as interim head coach of the Florida Panthers. In 75 games as head coach, Brunette had a .720 point percentage and got the Panthers out of the first round before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
All three coaches have something very unfortunate in common a year later.
Catching up with the NHL’s 2022 Jack Adams Award nominees a year later.
None of the three coaches are still with the team that got them nominated for the Jack Adams award. Sutter and Gallant were released from their coaching duties at the end of this season, with the Flames failing to make the playoffs and the Rangers exiting in round one.
Brunette on the other hand left the Panthers in June of 2022, after helping the team win the Presidents’ Trophy. The Panthers decided to bring in Paul Maurice as head coach instead of bringing back Brunette.
As of today, Brunette is the only coach of the three still in the playoffs, but he is there as an assistant. He is currently an associate coach of the New Jersey Devils behind head coach Lindy Ruff, who is a nominee for the Jack Adams this year.
All three coaches could be back in head coaching roles in the future. Gallant is the most obvious of the three to be back as soon as next season if he would like to. He has had some really successful runs with his past two teams in particular in Vegas and New York. The decision for the Rangers to move on from him does seem a bit odd.
Hopefully Brunette and the Devils can make it to the conference final to face-off against the Florida Panthers so the revenge storyline for the associate coach can occur over a best of seven series!