Greatest NHL coaches who never won the Adams

Thursday marks the 123rd birth anniversary of Jack Adams, the namesake of an NHL trophy that arrived too late to embody his excellence.

Adams passed away 50 years ago last month, more than two decades after finishing the coaching phase of his career. Five years after his death, the NHL introduced its coach-of-the-year award, effective in 1974.

Better late than never? Absolutely. With that said, the Jack Adams Award plugged a void that gaped in the NHL’s trophy case for 56 seasons.

While the absence of hardware and formal year-end recognition diminished no legacies, there is an awkward separation between eras. The likes of Al Arbour, Scotty Bowman, Ken Hitchcock, Mike Keenan and Fred Shero were each rewarded for at least one excellent year in their excellent careers. Other builders who are below a Hall-of-Fame caliber have rightly claimed the award for a one-year peak in their careers.

Still, this is one area where those names will never have the company of those who graced the “Golden Era.” But had there been an annual coaching accolade from the NHL’s inception, it is a safe bet each of these 10 bench bosses would have had a turn with it. All statistics can be found on Hockey Reference.

10. Art Ross
After formative stints in Montreal and Hamilton, Ross built the Boston Bruins as we have long known them. Doubling as the general manager from their inception, he served 17 nonconsecutive seasons behind their bench

As could be expected, the earliest years were unremarkable. With that said, Ross would supervise 12 winning seasons and playoff appearances. Four of those postseasons culminated in a Stanley Cup Final, including a title in 1939.

Overall, Ross racked up a 394-313-95 regular-season and 32-33-5 record.

9. Tommy Ivan
Taking up the unenviable task of filling Adams’ skates, Ivan sustained Detroit’s prowess for seven years. Between 1947-48 and the 1953-54, the Red Wings appeared in every playoff and five Cup finals. They prevailed in 1950, 1952 and 1954.

Ivan had a decidedly less successful run in Chicago that ended midway through 1957-58. But he still aggregated a solid 288-174-111 record through eight-and-a-half total seasons as an NHL bench boss.

8. Billy Reay
Many Jack Adams Award winners never won a Cup or will realistically earn Hall-of-Fame enshrinement. Had the trophy been created earlier in Reay’s run with the Blackhawks, he could have been in that club.

Beginning with his 1963 arrival, Chicago enjoyed 13 consecutive winning seasons and three Stanley Cup Finals. The Hawks would lose to Montreal in all three cases. Nonetheless, their sustained consistency after NHL membership doubled from six to 12 teams was impressive.

Throw in a year-plus with Toronto and a cut-short 14th campaign in Chicago, and Reay totaled 542 regular-season wins. He also oversaw six first-place finishes, but only of those one came after the Adams Award was inaugurated.

7. Pete Green
Granted, NHL membership was miniscule when Green led the original Ottawa Senators’ dynasty. But remember that the NHL champions had to go through a PCHA or West Coast League team to win Lord Stanley.

Under Green’s guidance, the Sens appeared in five straight NHL finals. Three of those upgraded to “World Series” tickets, and Ottawa beat its Western foe for the 1920, 1921 and 1923 titles.

Through six seasons in all, Green attained a 94-52-4 career record in six seasons. His final campaign was his worst, but only because the Sens went 17-12-1 and missed the playoffs by one point.

6. Jack Adams
Taking the Detroit franchise’s reins for its second season, Adams oversaw a .500 campaign, followed by the team’s first winning year. A six-year period of patience paid off when he finally delivered a multi-round playoff run in 1933.

Coincidentally, that was the Red Wings’ (nee Falcons, nee Cougars) first season under their permanent banner. After hitting their stride, Adams’ Wings only missed two playoffs in 14 more seasons. Over a 12-season stretch between 1933-34 and 1944-45, they went to seven Stanley Cup Finals, winning three.

Adams vacated his post two years later, focusing on general management afterward.

5. Punch Imlach
During Imlach’s heyday, his Maple Leafs always finished above .500 and only missed the playoffs once (in 1968). Over his 11-year Toronto tenure, he won four Cups and made two other appearances in the final.

He later tried to do for Buffalo’s expansion franchise what Adams had done for Detroit and Adams for Boston. But he withdrew from coaching after a heart attack during the Sabres’ sophomore season in 1971-72. Floyd Smith, who easily could have won the first or second Jack Adams Award, would pick up his slack.

4. Lester Patrick
Whereas Ross and Adams gutted out growing pains, the inaugural coach of the Rangers was an instant success. The franchise’s freshman season yielded first place in the American Division and the NHL’s third-best record at 25-13-6. Fellow expansion class of 1926 teams Chicago and Detroit finished below .500.

The next year, Patrick’s pupils were the 1928 Stanley Cup champions.

In Patrick’s one losing season out of 13 behind the Blueshirts bench, the team went 19-20-9. That was still good for third in the American Division, a seed they parlayed to a Stanley Cup Final berth.

In all, Patrick’s Rangers reached the championship round five times, prevailing once more in 1933. They also placed first or second in the league or division six times.

3. Hap Day
Dick Irvin (more on him momentarily) directed the Maple Leafs’ only championship in the 18 years between 1922 and 1940.

And then the Day decade dawned. Within two years, Toronto’s championship drought ended with a historic Stanley Cup Final comeback against Adams’ Red Wings.

By the time Day called it a career in 1950, he had won 259 regular-season games and made nine of 10 possible playoffs. By 1949, he had won five Cups, swelling the Toronto franchise’s all-time banner count from three to eight. And he had just overseen the trophy’s first three-peat in NHL history, downing Irvin’s Canadiens once and Ivan’s Wings twice.

2. Dick Irvin
Five Jack Adams Award winners have attained the honor with multiple teams. Part of that trend is owed to the modern-day coaching carousel.

But if anyone could have achieved that distinction in the black-and-white era, Irvin would have been it. After all, he won a Stanley Cup with Toronto and three more with Montreal. Of his 16 total final appearances, his second came in his second year with Chicago in 1931.

In all, Irvin amassed only six losing seasons and one failure to make the playoffs in a 27-season career. He aggregated 692 career wins, eight first-place finishes and twice kept his single-season loss count in the single digits.

1. Toe Blake
It is easy to forget how the Canadiens did not dominate some stretches of the NHL’s first half-century. That is, in no small part, a credit to Blake and how he transitioned from Hall-of-Fame player to Hall-of-Fame coach.

In the 24 years before Blake took the helm, the Habs won three Stanley Cups and went to five other finals. Under Blake, they never failed to never failed to finish above .500 or make the playoffs in 13 seasons. And they would win eight Cups in nine finals.

In 1957, Blake became only the second Montreal coach to ever deliver back-to-back championships. From there, he became the first to orchestrate three, then four and finally five in a row. Eight years later, the first of modern NHL expansion, he won one more, capping his career with 82 playoff game victories.