Sheldon Keefe snubbed for Jack Adams nomination after record-setting season
The NHL has released its list of finalists for the Jack Adams Award, given to the head coach who is "adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success", and surprisingly, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe is not among them.
Per NHL dot com, Florida's Andrew Brunette, New York's Gerard Gallant and Calgary's Darryl Sutter are the three Finalists for the Jack Adams, despite only one of those coaches posting a better record than Keefe. That's not to take anything away from Sutter or Gallant, who both led their respective teams back to the playoffs after both the Flames and Rangers had missed the postseason last year.
The Leafs' 54-21-7 record is second only to Florida's 58-18-6 record, and the Panthers were already 8-0-0 before Brunette took over for former Panthers coach Joel Quenneville, who resigned from his position back in October after he was revealed to have known about the Kyle Beach situation and did nothing.
Keefe posted 115 points, setting the Leafs' single season wins and points records, despite dealing with injuries to Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Jack Campbell, Rasmus Sandin, Jake Muzzin, Ilya Mikheyev, Ondrej Kase and Petr Mrazek.
I can't help but think that if Keefe had been coaching almost any other team in the league, he'd have gotten a nomination. In a season where so many Leafs posted career years, you have to imagine that coaching had something to do with it.
| POLL | ||
MAI 19 | 466 ANSWERS Sheldon Keefe snubbed for Jack Adams nomination after record-setting season Should Sheldon Keefe have been a Finalist for the Jack Adams? | ||
| Definitely | 222 | 47.6 % |
| No | 83 | 17.8 % |
| He deserves honourable mention | 124 | 26.6 % |
| It's Brunette's award to lose anyway | 37 | 7.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
