- Jon Cooper, Dan Muse and Lindy Ruff named finalists for the 2025-26 Jack Adams Award
- Ruff joins Tortorella, Bowman and Vigneault with five career nominations
- Read below for the full case for each coach plus team reactions
The NHL named its 2025-26 Jack Adams Award finalists on Friday, and the three coaches up for the trophy all built their cases in different ways.
Jon Cooper, Dan Muse and Lindy Ruff got the call.
Cooper guided the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 50-26-6 record and second place in the Atlantic, locking up their ninth straight playoff berth.
The 58-year-old is a three-time finalist who lost out to Barry Trotz in 2018-19 and finished third in 2013-14. A win this year would make him the first Lightning bench boss to take the award since John Tortorella in 2003-04.
Muse pulled off something nobody saw coming in his first season as an NHL head coach. He inherited a Pittsburgh team that needed plenty of stitching, used a league-high 44 players over the year and still ended a three-season playoff absence at 41-25-16.
Pittsburgh ranked third in goals per game at 3.54 and tied for sixth on the penalty kill at 81.4 percent. The 18-point jump from last season puts the 43-year-old in line to become the first rookie head coach to win the trophy since Patrick Roy with Colorado in 2013-14.
Ruff’s story might be the wildest of the three. Buffalo sat 11-13-4 and dead last in the Eastern Conference on Dec. 5.
From there the Sabres went 39-10-5 to win the Atlantic Division crown, snap their 14-year playoff drought and post a 30-point swing from last season. Ruff already has a Jack Adams on the shelf from his first run with Buffalo back in 2005-06.
The 66-year-old is also tied with Tortorella, Scotty Bowman and Alain Vigneault for the most career nominations, with five.
“This isn’t a one-man job and the hours these guys have put in and where we got to, a complete team effort,” Ruff said.
Spencer Carbery of the Capitals took the Adams home last season. The 2026 winner gets announced later in the offseason, with the rest of the major NHL Awards finalists rolling out over the next two weeks. Goalies were already named on Wednesday, when the Vezina trio dropped.
