The NHL’s 2025-26 season is underway, but there’s still time left to make some more predictions.
We posted our Stanley Cup pick earlier this week, and we also made our choices for individual player awards.
Now, it's time to predict which coach will walk away with the Jack Adams Award as the top bench boss in the NHL in 2025-26.
We believe there are six front-runners for the Jack Adams. Here they are in alphabetical order, with Jack Adams odds from BetMGM.
Scott Arniel, Winnipeg Jets
The Jack Adams Award often goes to the coach whose team made the most significant improvement during the regular season.
Even when Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour won the Jack Adams two years after he guided the Hurricanes to the Eastern Conference final, his team climbed to first in its division after being fourth the season before. And when Jim Montgomery won in 2023 with the Boston Bruins despite the team making the post-season for the seventh straight year, they improved by 28 points to set an NHL record with 135.
Although Arniel's Jets won the Presidents' Trophy last season, he deserves some love from Jack Adams voters if he leads the Jets to the top of the highly competitive Central Division again. Holding off the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche again takes a lot of strength and skill.
If Arniel can keep his players focused on landing home-ice advantage in the playoffs, he’s likely to be a front-runner for coach-of-the-year honors.
Arniel's Jack Adams odds: 61.00 (+6000)
Jon Cooper, Tampa Bay Lightning
If you judge coaching success by the length of time a coach has been in the same city, it’s outrageous that Cooper hasn’t yet won a Jack Adams Award.
Forget for a moment about the two Cups Cooper has earned in Tampa Bay. The seriously impressive detail to know about Cooper is that he’s been the Lightning’s coach since March 2013 and they made the playoffs in all but one year. He is the longest-tenured coach in the NHL, which makes it all the more baffling why he hasn’t won coach of the year.
Cooper was a Jack Adams finalist in 2014 and 2019, but somehow, voters have not given him his flowers.
That could change this season, as the Bolts are once again projected to be a playoff team in the Atlantic Division, and they have room to improve.
Now that the Florida Panthers are expected to drop in the standings because of injuries to key players Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov, the Lightning could have the opening they need to win the division. That should result in Cooper getting the respect he’s due from Jack Adams voters.
Cooper's Jack Adams odds: 19.00 (+1800)
Adam Foote, Vancouver Canucks
Jack Adams voters looking for a big turnaround this season will monitor first-year Canucks bench boss Foote.
Foote was an assistant coach behind Tocchet, who left for the Philadelphia Flyers this summer. Tocchet won the Jack Adams in 2024 when Vancouver jumped to 109 points from 83, and the Canucks fell back to 90 points last season. Foote is now tasked with getting Vancouver back on track in the relatively weak Pacific Division and steering the Canucks into the playoffs.
Better seasons in net from Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen will help, as Vancouver allowed the second-fewest shots but ranked 18th in goals against last season. But Foote must ensure his staff can bring out a bounce-back season from center Elias Pettersson and Vancouver's offense overall.
Foote's Jack Adams odds: 26.00 (+2500)
Joel Quenneville, Anaheim Ducks
Quenneville is making his NHL return this season after being one of the former Chicago Blackhawks' key employees who had an inadequate response to sexual assault allegations.
He will face massive scrutiny in Anaheim, but Quenneville’s capacity to get great performances out of teams is one of the reasons GM Pat Verbeek chose him to lead the Ducks out of the doldrums and into a playoff position for the first time in eight years.
The relative anonymity of players and coaches in the Anaheim market will benefit Quenneville as he attempts to demonstrate he’s still a capable coach in hockey’s top league. The Ducks have a great group of young players itching to get into the post-season this year, so Quenneville should be able to get easy buy-in from his charges. And if Anaheim can sneak into a playoff spot in the Pacific, Quenneville could be in line to win the second Jack Adams of his career and the first since the 1999-2000 campaign.
Quenneville's Jack Adams odds: 8.50 (+750)
Rich Tocchet, Philadelphia Flyers
Tocchet won the Jack Adams Award with the Canucks in 2023-24. But unlike his time in Vancouver, Tocchet will be leading a very young Flyers team that probably won’t be a playoff team this season.
That said, there’s every possibility for Tocchet to exceed expectations in Philadelphia and get the Flyers back into the playoffs for the first time in six seasons.
Philly GM Daniel Briere made some veteran additions to the Flyers’ lineup this summer, and Tocchet might just be able to use his motivational and hard-but-fair skills to accelerate Philadelphia’s rebuild. John Tortorella almost made the playoffs with Philadelphia in 2023-24 before a late-season collapse, so perhaps Tocchet can go one step further.
Tocchet's Jack Adams odds: 23.00 (+2200)
Andre Tourigny, Utah Mammoth
Tourigny is in his fifth season coaching the group that moved from Arizona to Utah, and his team has improved every year.
Last season, he led Utah to a sixth-place finish in the Central. Expectations have risen, especially after Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong added great assets in wingers JJ Peterka and Brandon Tanev and defenseman Nate Schmidt.
Earning the first playoff appearance in Utah would be a feather in Tourigny’s cap, as the Central is a brutally tough division where at least a couple of teams will be disappointed when they finish out of the playoff mix. The Mammoth have been one of those disappointed teams in each year of Tourigny’s tenure, but if he can change that this season, Tourigny is going to get Jack Adams votes – and he could wind up winning the award.
Tourigny's Jack Adams odds: 8.50 (+750)
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