New York Rangers coach Gerard Gallant should win the Jack Adams
No coach has ever won the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year while guiding the New York Rangers. Can Gerard Gallant be the franchise’s first? The short answer is yes, but the long answer may be a bit more complicated. The main thing in Gallant’s favor is that results matter and the New York Rangers are currently in fourth place overall in the NHL. This is a serious turnaround for a team that finished 17th in each of the last two seasons.
Voters love a winner
The team is winning and that bodes well in the voting, but is it enough? Alain Vigneault in 2014-15 and Roger Neilson in 1991-92 both coached the team to the President’s Trophy, but were runners up in the Jack Adams voting. John Tortorella was also a runner up in 2011-12 after the team came within a point of the top record after narrowly making the playoffs the previous season. Mike Keenan coached the Rangers to a then franchise best 112 points and a President’s Trophy en route to a Stanley Cup championship in 1993-94. He was not even a finalist for the Jack Adams that season , but it’s worth noting that the Adams voting is done before the playoffs start so the Cup win didn’t factor in.
Tom Renney was a finalist for the award in 2005-06 after bringing the Rangers back into relevance after a seven year playoff drought, doing so on the backs of Jaromir Jagr and Henrik Lundqvist. He finished third in voting. Roger Neilson also finished third in voting for his efforts in his first year with the club. In that 1989-90 season he brought the team to the franchise’s first divisional title. The team had finished in third place the year before and had not had a first place finish since 1941-42 when the league had only seven teams.
Lastly, Fred Shero finished as runner up in the 1978-79 season after helming the team to an 18 point increase from the prior season. What can we discern from this skate down memory lane? That results matter, but they are not all that matters in the voting. Expectations and how the results were achieved are also weighted into the voting process.
The Rangers are a team emerging from a rebuild and are doing so in grand fashion. The moves, both to the roster and the front office ensured the team was making a push forward for a post season berth. However, no one could have expected that this team would come together as it has, nor that it would enjoy this level of success. This team was expected, at best, to be a playoff bubble team.
Time to believe in the New York Rangers
The 2021-22 New York Rangers are a team with a resilience unseen for the past several seasons. This team has heart, fights until the end and is always a threat for a comeback. As per morehockeystats.com the New York Rangers are tied for the league lead with 26 come-from-behind wins. If nothing else, 26 such victories proves it to be no fluke.
This is where coaching plays a role beyond running drills, line-up changes and barking at the officials. Gallant has instilled in his players a confidence, given them a chip on their shoulder and a belief that they can and will win. This is also what separates him from the Rangers coaches of the recent past. David Quinn tried to teach the team, Vigneault let the professionals govern themselves and Tortorella was a hot headed militant. Like them or not, agree or disagree with them, each of the coaches had their style, but each of them failed where Gerard Gallant has excelled.
Leaders choose to lead, not tell
Each of these coaches chose to coach their teams, Gallant has chosen to lead his. This is where the teams “it” factor originates. It is why the team can have fallen in overall offense, (from 10th to 16th, year on year), can give up more shots per game (29.71 to 30.91, year on year) and have virtually equal possession numbers to last season but still be battling for first place in the division, while last year’s team missed the playoffs.
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The analytics crowd and national broadcasts were quick to point out that the Ranger success was unsustainable. That the efforts of Igor Shesterkin and the Rangers’ powerplay were not enough to keep the team atop the standings. Their opinions may matter when the votes are tallied, yet, the team is still at the top of the standings. Gallant’s leadership has been the key that unlocked this team’s potential. That is how this team has found success, surpassed expectations and why Gerard Gallant deserves the 2022 Jack Adams Award.
Gerard Gallant’s success thus far with the New York Rangers has been undeniable. But what about President and General Manager Chris Drury? Does his year in charge translate to a nomination for the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year award? Having taken the reigns near the end of the season last year, Drury was busy improving the team from the get-go. Early decisions were made to replace the coaching staff and hire Gallant, a definite win for the new GM.
Captain clutch knew where to find his clutch players
He would go on to add character players in Barclay Goodrow and Ryan Reaves at little cost to the future. He signed Ryan Lindgren, and extended cornerstone players Shesterkin, Adam Fox and Mika Zibanejad. At the trade deadline Drury added Andrew Copp, Frank Vatrano, Tyler Motte and Justin Braun, again, at little cost to the future of the organization.
Every one of these moves was made to help improve the team now, but done so without surrendering any of the team’s youth or purging the team’s prospect pipeline. Drury additionally oversaw the teams selections at the 2021 draft where the team selected Brennan Othmann 16th overall. Each of these transactions qualify as wins for Drury, but it has not been all roses for GM.
Signing Patrick Nemeth to a three year deal appears to have been very shortsighted and much was made about the value of the Goodrow contract ($3.6M for 6yrs). The biggest downvote to Drury’s tenure thus far has been the trade of Pavel Buchnevich. While salary cap constraints forced Drury to move Buchnevich, the return of Sammy Blais and a second round pick was a low yield return.
All said, credit should be given where credit is due. Drury built upon the core he inherited, adding character to a team much in need of it. He brought in the key that unlocked the teams potential in Gallant and has a team in a first place race while having sacrificed nothing of the organization’s future. With Lou Lamarillo winning the Jim Gregory Award the past two years, there is no reason to doubt that Chris Drury deserves the recognition in 2022.
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