It’s a good day for Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour. Just hours after finalizing a new three-year contract to stay with Carolina, the NHL announced that he has won the 2021 Jack Adams Award, given to the coach of the year as voted by members of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association. He is the first coach in Hurricanes/Whalers history to win the award and the third to be a finalist for the position.
After seven years as an assistant, Brind’Amour was promoted to head coach back in May of 2018 and he has done quite well in the three years since then. Over that stretch, Carolina has a 120-66-20 record, good for a .631 points percentage which is the best in franchise history. Meanwhile, their special teams this season were dominant with top-three finishes on both the power play (25.6%) and penalty kill (85.2%), another franchise first. That helped lead them to 80 points this season, good enough for first in the Central Division and third in the league to Colorado and Vegas.
Minnesota’s Dean Evason finished second in voting while Florida’s Joel Quenneville came in just behind Evason for third. However, Brind’Amour had nearly half of the first place votes (61/127) so the race was not particularly close. Adam Vingan of The Athletic (Twitter link) provides the full voting results.
Meh, I would’ve gone with either of the other two. Everyone knew the Canes would be good, not so much the other two teams.
Well done, Coach Rod.