Who Will Win The 2025 Jack Adams Award?

Of all of the trophies in hockey, the Jack Adams Award has become the most debated. Meant to award the coach determined to have most contributed to their team’s success, the trophy has instead become a way to award coaches that tally extended win-streaks, resilient comebacks, or unexpected runs to the postseason. Recent winners include Vancouver’s Rick Tocchet, Boston’s Jim Montgomery, and now-replaced Calgary head coach Darryl Sutter. All three kicked off their award-winning year with hot starts in the first two months, making now a great time to check in on this year’s early favorites.

The easy early choice has to be Winnipeg Jets head coach Scott Arniel, who’s inspired an incredible 13-1-0 record to start the new year. Arniel was promoted to replace Rick Bowness full-time this summer, after covering for the 800-game pro coach at multiple points last season. The hire was hotly debated at the time, with Jets fans split between whether Arniel’s role as the team’s penalty-kill coach would push slow-paced defense onto a roster that clearly needed to lean into fast-paced offense. But that hasn’t proven a worry on the ice, with Winnipeg’s 63 goals and +11 goal-differential both proudly leading the league. That’s been inspired by the usual suspects playing well – with Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers, and Josh Morrissey rightfully leading the team in scoring. But the depth of production is perhaps the biggest testament to Carbery’s impact. Winnipeg has 10 players with at least 10 points, including Cole Perfetti and Mason Appleton – who both struggled to find their scoring consistency under Bowness. Carbery’s Jets also boast the best power-play in the league (42.1 percent) and a league-average penalty-kill (80 percent success).

Arniel headlines a long list of first-year head coaches finding immediate success. John Hynes has led his Minnesota Wild to a second-place 10-2-2 record, and Sheldon Keefe has made the New Jersey Devils the playoff-favorites that many expected them to be last year. But it’s the mentality shift of Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube that seems to be making the biggest ripples in a new setting. The hard-nosed former pro has led a defensive charge in Toronto, with the team allowing their fewest goals-against per-game since 2020-21 under Berube’s reign. That’s helped along by summer additions like Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, but the team as a whole has shifted towards a…