Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff was snubbed for the Jack Adams Award for the NHL’s best coach, as Jon Cooper won the honor instead.
The NHL announced on Wednesday that Cooper, the longtime head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, won the Jack Adams Award for the first time in his NHL career.
While Cooper is obviously one of the NHL’s best head coaches and should have won this award several times in the past, it was still surprising to see him get the honor when Ruff led the Sabres to the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.
According to Kalshi prediction markets, when the award finalists were first revealed in May, Ruff had an 89% chance of capturing the award over Cooper and Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Dan Muse. Instead, Cooper took it home in an upset, as he had just a 7% chance to win.
Lindy Ruff Should Have Won the Award
In his second go-around as the Sabres’ head coach, Ruff led the team back to the playoffs, snapping a 14-year playoff drought, the longest in the NHL.
The Sabres not only made it back to the playoffs, but they also won the Atlantic Division for the first time in team history, getting 109 points during the regular season, second only in the Eastern Conference to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Sabres players, both young and old, credited Ruff for helping bring together the team and coaching them out of the NHL basement after languishing in it for so many years. The Sabres have been the laughing stock of the NHL for quite some time, but with Ruff back coaching the team, they have now turned into a league powerhouse.
Ruff should have been rewarded for the team’s turnaround by winning the Jack Adams Award. Instead, Cooper won it in a big upset.
Jon Cooper Gets a Lifetime Achievement Award
For Cooper, he has long been deserving of winning the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top coach. After all, he’s been to four Stanley Cup Finals with the Lightning, and he’s won two cups with the team.
Somehow, Cooper had never won the Jack Adams Award, even though he’s the longest-tenured and most successful head coach in hockey. So, he was long deserving of the honor, and this year, the voters finally gave it to him.
However, it feels like this was more of a lifetime achievement award than anything else.
After all, while the Lightning had a terrific season, they did not win the Atlantic Division, as they came in second place behind the Sabres, with 106 points. That’s a great year, no doubt, but with the Sabres winning the Atlantic Division, it feels like that should have been the tiebreaker when it came to the award winner.
Once again, Kalshi had Ruff as a significant favorite to win this award just one month ago when the finalists were revealed, so this is quite the major upset by Cooper to capture the award.
Ultimately, Cooper is an incredible hockey coach, and he’s been well deserving of winning the Jack Adams Award for many, many years.
But this should have been Ruff winning it this season, and it’s as big of a snub as you’ll ever see for this honor.
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