Gallant wuz robbed!

Things are going the New York Rangers’ way this postseason, but the team suffered a setback when Coach Gerard Gallant finished third in the Jack Adams Award voting for best coach, behind Darryl Sutter of Calgary and Andrew Burnette of Florida.

The shame of it was that it wasn’t even close. Here’s how the voting went. Sutter was named on 93 of the 121 ballots, including 54 first-place votes, for 353  points. Second-place Andrew Brunette of the Florida Panthers received 31 first-place votes and 249 points, while Gallant of the New York Rangers was the top selection on 12 ballots and collected 142 points.

Yes, you heard that right.  Only 12 of the 121 voters thought he was the best coach this season.   We may be biased, but that doesn’t feel right. However, all bias aside, there were logical arguments for both Sutter and Brunette.  Also, the voting was done before the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Sutter took a Calgary team that finished out of the playoffs last season and guided them to a first place finish in the Pacific Division with 111 points, one more than the Rangers.

Brunette had a different set of challenges, taking over seven games into the season when Joel Quenneville resigned and the Florida Panthers didn’t miss a beat going 51-18-6 the rest of the way and winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s best team.  It wasn’t entirely a surprise as the Panthers had finished with the fourth best points total in 2020-21.

The award is given to “the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success,” and the voting was done by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association. Under that criteria, there was  a pretty good argument for Gallant who took over a team that had finished the prior season in utter chaos and was one of the youngest in the NHL and led them to a second place finish in the Metropolitan Division,.

No New York Rangers coach has ever won the Jack Adams Award since they started giving it out in 1973-74 and that record will continue for at least one more year.

Sutter joins his brother Brian who won the Adams Award in 1991 as coach of the St. Louis Blues.   When he was named as a finalist, Darryl Sutter told reporters he thought Gallant should win it. “I don’t need that on my resume. Some guys do. I’d rather see young guys win it, (or) older guys who got a raw deal somewhere. A guy like Gerard got a raw deal in Florida, got a raw deal in Vegas. I know who I’d vote for.”

Gallant did win the award when he coached the expansion Vegas Golden Knights to a first place finish in 2017-18.

Of course, both Darryl Sutter and Andrew Burnette are getting their golf clubs out of storage since the Flames and Panthers were eliminated in the Second Round of the playoffs while Gallant is preparing for Game Two of the Eastern Conference Finals.  And in the long run, you know that Gallant is focused on one NHL trophy and it isn’t the Jack Adams Award.