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Scott Arniel

Scott Arniel, Spencer Carbery, Martin St. Louis Named Jack Adams Finalists

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The Jets’ Scott Arniel, the Capitals’ Spencer Carbery, and the Canadiens’ Martin St. Louis are this year’s Jack Adams Award finalists as the NHL’s top head coach, the league announced.

All are first-time finalists. Unlike most other awards (like the Selke, whose finalists were announced today), the Adams is voted on by broadcast media members, not print/digital.

In his first season behind the Winnipeg bench after taking over for the retiring Rick Bowness, Arniel guided the Jets to their first Presidents’ Trophy and best regular season in franchise history. Promoted after serving as an assistant under Bowness since 2022-23, the former Jets 1.0 forward logged a 56-22-4 record.

This is Arniel’s second stop as an NHL head coach. He was previously at the helm of the Blue Jackets for a year and a half, posting a 45-60-18 (.439) record in 123 games before being fired at the halfway point of the 2011-12 season. He would be the first bench boss in Jets 2.0 franchise history to win Coach of the Year honors.

Over in Washington, Carbery oversaw one of the league’s biggest point increases from 2023-24 to 2024-25 in his second year behind the Capitals’ bench. He’s now posted a 91-53-20 (.616) record across his two seasons in the role, including an Eastern Conference-leading 51-22-9 record this year for Washington’s first division title in five years. While it’s not considered for this award’s purposes, he also just guided the Caps to their first playoff series win since 2018 with a five-game dispatching of the Canadiens in the first round.

Carbery helped improve Washington’s offense from a 28th-ranked 2.63 goals per game last year to 3.49 in 2024-25, second-best in the NHL. If he wins, the 43-year-old would be the first to take home Coach of the Year honors at every stop of the NHL’s professional development pyramid. While in lower levels of the Caps organization, he won COTY honors with ECHL South Carolina in 2013-14 and with AHL Hershey in 2020-21.

As for St. Louis, the Hall-of-Fame winger could add coaching-related honors to a trophy case that includes a Stanley Cup, two Art Ross Trophies, MVP honors, and three Lady Byng Trophies. Coming off his third full season behind the Montreal bench, the 49-year-old helped guide a young Habs squad out of the dark stages of their rebuild. The team recorded their first 40-win season in six years and ended a three-year postseason drought that was tied for the longest (1999-2001, 1920-1922) in franchise history. A Habs bench boss hasn’t been named COTY since Pat Burns in 1989.

Poll: Who Will Win The 2025 Jack Adams Award?

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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 Arniel’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. Arniel’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 grittier, dump-and-chase style. The downside of that shift has been Toronto’s drop from averaging 3.63 goals-per-game last year, to just 3.07 this year – though the team has still managed a hardy 8-5-2 record through their first 15 games. Berube may not be inspiring as much as his other first-year peers, but the culture shift he’s instilled could make him a strong Jack Adams candidate if the Leafs find another layer.

There’s also Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery, who won a tight race for the Eastern Conference’s second Wild Card last season. And while Washington didn’t inspire much in the postseason – getting swept by the New York Rangers – they’ve clearly used the appearance as motivation in the new year. Washington is red-hot, sat with a 9-4-0 record and ranked in the top 10 of goals-for, goals-against, and penalty kill percentage. The Capitals’ season is undeniably headlined by Alexander Ovechkin’s chase for Wayne Gretzky’s scoring record – only 34 goals away! – but Carbery has pulled together a quietly-thriving team in the backdrop. It’s a record more inspired by emerging lineup pillars – like Dylan Strome, Aliaksei Protas, and Connor McMichael – more than being led by individual stars. The Capitals still need to squeeze more out of new additions like Andrew Mangiapane and Pierre-Luc Dubois. A spark in net wouldn’t hurt either. But the momentum that Carbery has built up in his second year has Washington looking much more the part of a strong playoff hopeful than they did last year, even despite an injured blue-line.

The NHL season has hardly begun, but plenty of new and inexperienced head coaches have found their groove right out of the gates. Their momentum could spell out the Jack Adams finalists far ahead of an official announcement, or they could soon be uprooted by settled veterans like Florida’s Paul Maurice, Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour, or Vegas’ Bruce Cassidy. All have started strong, providing plenty of options for who could run away with this year’s Jack Adams Award. Who do you think will keep their hot start going and take home this year’s ’Coach of the Year’ trophy?

Mobile users, click here to vote.

Winnipeg Dealing With More Injuries On The Blue Line

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It’s been nearly a week since Winnipeg Jets’ defenseman Ville Heinola’s season was put in question due to an infection in his surgically repaired ankle. It doesn’t appear there’s any room for optimism in Manitoba after today’s meeting between head coach Scott Arniel and the press.

Arniel indicated that Heinola underwent surgery to remove the infection from his ankle and the team would have a clearer picture of his recovery timeline shortly. The team’s bench boss also shared that defenseman Logan Stanley “tweaked” something in yesterday’s preseason contest against the Edmonton Oilers and he will need testing over the next few days. Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press reports there is worry within the Jets organization that Stanley will be out longer than day-to-day.

It would be a major three-month swing for Winnipeg’s blue line if Stanley can’t start the season on time. The team hoped Heinola and Stanley could fill valuable spots on the back end after losing Nate Schmidt and Brenden Dillon this offseason through a buyout and free agency, respectively. Now, it appears depth defensemen Dylan Coghlan and Haydn Fleury will carry more responsibility than expected to start the year.

This could create major challenges for a Jets organization that has largely relied on their defense to win games over the last two years. Since the start of the 2022-23 season, Winnipeg’s offense has finished 21st and 15th in goals per game, respectively, and 21st and 17th in shots compared to the rest of the league. They’ve had much better results on the flip side by finishing 10th and 1st in goals against per game over that same span and finishing 10th and 11th in shots against.

If the Jets are put into a situation early in the year where Coghlan and Fleury are expected to maintain even bottom-pairing minutes these results shouldn’t be expected to last. Winnipeg does have the benefit of deploying Connor Hellebuyck between the pipes but a weak defense has impacted even his performance in the past.

The Jets may need to pivot relatively soon to one of the existing free-agent options to hold their blue line steady or pick up one of the inevitable blue liners to hit the waiver wire over the next few days. The team will have a clearer picture of what they’re dealing with over the next couple of days and it could impact their decision-making leading into the start of the regular season.

Jets Name Scott Arniel Head Coach

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The Winnipeg Jets have officially named Scott Arniel as the fifth head coach in modern franchise history (Twitter link). The deal was first reported by TSN’s Darren Dreger (Twitter link). Arniel served as an associate coach under Rick Bowness this season, stepping in during Bowness’ two personal leaves this season.

Arniel presided over 18 games in relief of Bownesss, posting a 10-5-3 record. It was his first time serving a head coach since the 2012-13 season, when he led the AHL’s Chicago Wolves to an 11-25-5 record. That season capped off a seven-year span of head coaching roles for Arniel – including two seasons with the Columbus Blue Jackets where he posted a combined 45-60-18 record. Arniel moved on from head coaching to join the New York Rangers as an associate coach in the 2013-14 season – bolstering the team’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals. He’d go on to serve five seasons with the Rangers before flipping to the division rival Washington Capitals, where he spent another four seasons.

Bowness would bring Arniel onto his staff when he joined Winnipeg in 2022. The pair have since led the Jets to two first-round exits, though they’ve posted a 98-57-9 record. Arniel, who played in six seasons with the Jets during his 11-year playing career, was reportedly a front-runner for Winnipeg’s vacant head coach role ever since Bowness announced his retirement. And while the club did look externally, holding interviews with Todd McLellan and Craig Berube, their next bench-leader will come from within the organization.

Arniel will take on an incredibly talented Jets lineup, headlined by star forward Mark Scheifele and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, who both signed long-term extension with the club last summer. But it’s a lineup subject to change, with the Jets currently carrying 10 pending free agents – including Cole Perfetti, Sean Monahan, and Tyler Toffoli – with just $13.353MM in cap space. The team is reportedly considering moving top winger Nikolaj Ehlers’ $6MM cap hit to help free up some cap space – a potentially substantial move following Ehlers’ 61-point season. Arniel will luckily have strong supporting cast to lean on even without Ehlers, with Winnipeg still boasting each of Kyle Connor, Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, and Josh Morrissey under contract for next season.

It’s been four years since the Jets advanced past the first round of the playoffs, and they’ve only made the Western Conference Finals once in the 13 years since taking over for the Atlanta Thrashers. Arniel will look to buck that trend next year with a strong roster next year, though cap constraints could make it a tougher lift than he’s hoping for.

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