Based on a study of how the NHL Broadcasters' Association has made its selections in the past, and each coach's underlying numbers, John Tortorella of the Columbus Blue Jackets is the clear front-runner for the Jack Adams Award this season, followed by the Toronto Maple Leafs' Mike Babcock.
History suggests that Jack Adams voting is primarily based on a perception of how much star power a coach had access to, and how well the team performed relative to expectations. Tortorella undoubtedly leads all candidates in the latter capacity, but trails Babcock in the former.
But there are some other worthy candidates out there, too. Let's take a look at the quantifiable aspects, acknowledge the anecdotal ones, and make a pick as to who will take home the award this year.
Beating the expectations
Establishing which teams exceeded expectations by the widest margin is the easier of the two criteria to calculate objectively. Using a simple coaching metric developed back in 2009, the Blue Jackets are 28.5 points above expectations in the standings (PAX), based on last season's finish regressed 35 percent back towards the league average.
The preceding table lists the seven coaches who have given their teams a boost of at least 10 points in the standings. Unless a team was expected to take a big vault up the standings because of a key acquisition or a return to health, this perspective typically reveals which coaches surprised fans and pundits the most with their teams' success.
However, this stat is not a good predictor of who will win the Jack Adams, because it's only half the equation. Voters also consider the star power to which a coach had access. That's why, just over half the time, the winner isn't the coach with the highest PAX, or even necessarily someone in the top three.
A closer look at the cases where the metric helps shine some light on the key factor that rules out Edmonton's Todd McLellan as Tortorella's chief rival, rules Sullivan and Quenneville out of consideration altogether, and places Babcock at Tortorella's heels.
Star power
First of all, we can set aside Bob Hartley's win over Alain Vigneault in 2014-15, and Bruce Boudreau's victory over John Stevens in 2007-08, given how close the field was those years. It's hard to put exact numbers on a largely subjective exercise, and these were seasons when the winner was within a few points of the PAX leader. Since this season's leaderboard isn't as close, there's nothing to learn from those cases.
The same can not be written of Paul MacLean's win over Joel Quenneville in 2012-13, nor Dan Bylsma's victory over Guy Boucher in 2010-11.
On the surface, these were real head-scratching choices. Quenneville put together what was possibly the second-most dominant season in NHL history -- his Blackhawks were 36-7-5 in the lockout-shortened campaign. Meanwhile, MacLean's Senators improved from a winning percentage of .561 to .583.
Likewise, Bylsma improved the Penguins by just five points in the standings, while Boucher improved the team from three seasons of 71, 66, and 80 points, respectively, to 103 in his first season with the Bolts, and got them into the playoffs for the first time in four seasons.
Far from a miscarriage of justice, MacLean won because he made the playoffs with very little star power. The Blackhawks were stacked that season, but Ottawa's Jason Spezza and Erik Karlsson missed all but five and 17 games, respectively, and the team's leading scorer, Kyle Turris, had just 12 goals and 29 points. He edged out 38-year-old Sergei Gonchar, with 27 points, and 40-year-old captain Daniel Alfredsson, with 26, and then three of the next four highest-scoring Senators were rookies: Mika Zibanejad, Jakob Silfverberg, and Patrick Wiercioch. To the typical voter, it looked like MacLean had cobbled together a competitive team out of rookies and spare parts.
The same explanation applies to Bylsma's victory. That was the season when injuries to Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin restricted them to just 41 and 43 games, respectively.
While injuries played a big role in these two cases, that's not the key factor here. Consider the 2006-07 season, when Vigneault won the award when Vancouver bounced back from 92 points and a playoff absence to 105 points and the division title. That's a nifty season, but Pittsburgh vaulted up from 58 points to the same 105. However, the latter wasn't perceived to be the greater accomplishment, because Penguins coach Michel Therrien had Crosby and Malkin.
If Therrien's situation sounds familiar, then it's understandable why McLellan will not be in the running for this year's Jack Adams race, either. The same logic that disqualified Therrien in the minds of many voters will also apply to Connor McDavid's role in Edmonton's success. Plus, the Oilers have some established big-name players, like Jordan Eberle and Milan Lucic.
However, Babcock might arguably have replicated MacLean's feat by apparently cobbling together a competitive team with nothing more than rookies and spare parts. After all, the Maple Leafs are a team whose perceived top veteran star power is Nazem Kadri, James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak. Toronto received a great bump from its top three scorers, rookies Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner, but they simply aren't viewed in the same light as McDavid.
Although the Blue Jackets aren't as reliant on rookies and spare parts, a notable part of their success this season can be attributed to what Tortorella has been able to get out of Zach Werenski and Sam Gagner. And, similar to the Maple Leafs, the Jackets aren't exactly brimming with veterans whose names are well-known to casual hockey fans.
Looking back at history, Al Arbour won the award only once with the powerhouse 1980s Islanders, as did Glen Sather with the 1980s Oilers, and no Pittsburgh coach has ever won it with either Mario Lemieux or a healthy Crosby. That makes it very difficult to win the Jack Adams with a generational talent like McDavid on the roster.
The repeat factor
Given that the two front-runners are both in the Eastern Conference with no clear consensus between them, there is the possibility that a coach from the Western Conference can pull off a surprise victory.
History provides one more helpful clue about who that dark horse is likely to be: Jack Adams voters don't like repeat winners. There have been only five multi-time winners since it was first awarded in 1973-74: Pat Burns, Jacques Demers, Pat Quinn, Scotty Bowman and Jacques Lemaire.
Since Tortorella won in 2003-04, that's another point that makes the case for Babcock, who has never won. As for the dark horse, it could rule out Minnesota's Bruce Boudreau, who won the award in 2007-08, and open the door for a surprise win by Calgary's Glen Gulutzan.
The Jack Adams is one of the more difficult awards to predict statistically, but it looks like Tortorella is sailing to an easy victory over Babcock, with Gulutzan as the surprise finalist.