Gerard Gallant was gone within two seasons of winning the award in Vegas and was then gone again a year after being nominated for the trophy in New York. That, of course, is hardly unique to the coach who guided the Rangers to 110-point and 107-point seasons in a tenure that ended abruptly after last season’s seven-game first-round defeat to the Devils.
Barry Trotz was out two years after winning the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year in Nashville and out again three years after copping it on the Island. Bruce Cassidy was done in Boston two years after taking the trophy. Darryl Sutter had one more season in him in Calgary after winning the award.
So perhaps it is just as well that Peter Laviolette, despite finishing this season as the seventh-winningest coach in NHL history with 807 victories, never has received the Adams. Laviolette has only been a finalist twice.
That was in 2005-06, when he had to settle for winning the Stanley Cup in Carolina while finishing second to Buffalo’s Lindy Ruff in the balloting, and in 2014-15, when Laviolette finished third in the voting to winner Bob Hartley from Calgary after leading Nashville to a 104-point season.