Mailbag: Jack Adams candidates; Blackhawks offseason

Here is the April 16 edition of the weekly NHL.com mailbag, where we answer your questions asked on X and Bluesky. Send your questions to @drosennhl on X and @drosennhl.bsky.social on Bluesky and tag it with #OvertheBoards.

I feel like there are a lot of good candidates for the Jack Adams Award. Who do you have in the top three? -- @punmasterrifkin

No joke, this list of a dozen candidates for coach of the year this season took me all of 15 seconds to come up with:

Spencer Carbery, Washington Capitals

Scott Arniel, Winnipeg Jets

Martin St. Louis, Montreal Canadiens

Dean Evason, Columbus Blue Jackets

Jon Cooper, Tampa Bay Lightning

Jared Bednar, Colorado Avalanche

Jim Hiller, Los Angeles Kings

Jim Montgomery, St. Louis Blues

Craig Berube, Toronto Maple Leafs

Ryan Huska, Calgary Flames

Travis Green, Ottawa Senators

Sheldon Keefe, New Jersey Devils

There will be only three finalists, and your timing is perfect because we're running our final Trophy Tracker selections of the season this week. Sixteen of us here at NHL.com voted on five major awards: Hart Trophy for the League's most valuable player, Norris Trophy for top defenseman, Vezina Trophy for best goalie, Calder Trophy for rookie of the year and the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year. The Jack Adams voting finished with Carbery on top, followed by Arniel and then Evason at No. 3.

My top three selections for our voting process were 1) Carbery; 2) St. Louis; 3) Cooper.

Carbery tops the list because of how he helped the Capitals navigate their way through Alex Ovechkin's remarkable chase for Wayne Gretzky's goal record. Not only was Washington's coach spot-on with how he embraced Ovechkin's pursuit of the record he eventually broke April 6 with his 895th goal and the importance of it in the annals of hockey history, but he was able to keep the Capitals laser focused on the task of winning games. Ovechkin has played the right amount, and Washington did not cede its entire offense to his record chase. The Capitals went from being a team that barely snuck into the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season to one that will finish first in the Eastern Conference. They turned over about a third of their team and Carbery was able to make the transition for every player seamless, finding the right fits for them and allowing chemistry to develop. The Capitals are one of the League's best teams at controlling play and limiting turnovers. They make quick, smart plays instead of attempting the homerun plays that lead to rushes the other way. Moreover, they seem to genuinely appreciate playing for Carbery, a testament to how he has handled the roster, ice time, Ovechkin's chase and everything else this season.

St. Louis has presided over the Canadiens' growth spurt this season, empowering captain Nick Suzuki to be the leader, and giving younger players like Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Lane Hutson enough rope to be themselves to work through early season struggles and the occasional slumps to get in position to be a playoff team.

Cooper just keeps doing great things with the Lightning. It shouldn't go unnoticed that their forward depth was thin for most of the season until they addressed it before the NHL Trade Deadline on March 7 by adding Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand. Cooper eased the loss of Steven Stamkos by finding the right fit for Jake Guentzel. They adjusted their power play because Stamkos' shot from the left circle was no longer available to them, and yet it's still top five in the League.

Given the state of their rebuild at this point, what are your expectations for the Blackhawks knowing they are heading into a crucial make-or-break offseason for general manager Kyle Davidson? -- @StacyAlbano

Go big. That's my expectation for the Chicago Blackhawks. Go big in free agency. Go big in trades. Go big with the next coach. He must have NHL head coaching experience. This can't be a first job for anyone. Change the culture. Don't accept mediocrity again just because you have young players. The last thing you want is for young players who you identify as part of your evolving core to grow in a losing environment. That's how you build a losing culture. And it's so hard to change.

So, target forward Mitch Marner if he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Target defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Ivan Provorov if they hit the market. Target forwards Brock Boeser, Nikolaj Ehlers, Brock Nelson and Sam Bennett. Target culture-changing veteran players. You're not getting them all but get two or three impact players in free agency and trades to put around Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar, Sam Rinzel , Lukas Reichel, Artyom Levshunov, Kevin Korchinski, Oliver Moore and whoever they pick in the 2025 NHL Draft. Acquire more depth through free agency and trades. Build a lineup that has a top six and bottom-six distinction, that has a top pair on the back end, a distinct middle pair and third pair.

The Blackhawks cannot go into next season expecting or understanding they're likely going to be at the bottom of the League again. Could it happen? Yes. But if it happens it needs to happen organically, not by plan. Stay there too long and it becomes hard to dig out.

Where does the responsibility fall for the New York Rangers collapse? Players? Coaches? Management? It seems disingenuous to simply say "things didn't go our way" with a roster that won the Presidents' Trophy last season and without major injuries this year. Where does the buck stop? -- @MikeBolino

All of the above.

It's fair to question how general manager Chris Drury handled the departure of forward Barclay Goodrow in the offseason, giving him little to no indication he'd be waived so he would be claimed by the San Jose Sharks. I refuse to believe that was enough to send the players into a tailspin and fight back against management with their play, but the Goodrow situation followed by the handling of former captain Jacob Trouba before he was traded to the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 6 certainly had an impact.

Trouba and Goodrow were major parts of the Rangers' leadership core; one was gone before July 1 and the other felt he couldn't lead in the same way when everyone knew the Rangers were trying to move him out of town. The room wasn't the same. It didn't help that the Rangers were also potentially looking to trade Chris Kreider, and that became public. He's their longest-tenured player and well respected in the room. For whatever reason, Kreider's play and that of forward Mika Zibanejad suffered. Alexis Lafreniere got his big contract and regressed. Did the Rangers sign him too soon? Kaapo Kakko was traded to the Seattle Kraken on Dec. 18 and found his offensive game. Why didn't that happen in New York? Was he traded too soon? Fair questions.

However, the players needed to persevere through all of that. They did not, so the blame is also on them. Too many poor starts. Too many lapses. Too many missed assignments. Not enough resiliency. The only regular player who can honestly say this season was better than last is forward Will Cuylle. Otherwise, there was regression across the board.

But part of that is also on coach Peter Laviolette and his staff. Don't expect to find stones unturned, but they couldn't get the Rangers to play with the same level of consistency and urgency as last season. The power play struggled. Although the puzzle pieces and the setup changed at times, the results did not. Nothing seemed to work consistently. Rush chances-against have been a major problem all season and so has blown coverage in the defensive zone. Why weren't those areas fixed? Fair question.

It's all of the above for the Rangers, who will enter the offseason with plenty of questions and the expectation for changes.

Bruins coach next year? -- @thatghosthouse

It is too early to know all the candidates for this job or any other job that might become open soon after the regular season ends Thursday. Some who could eventually be available before the Boston Bruins hire their next coach might still be coaching in the League right now. It's also not clear yet the direction the Bruins want to go with their next coaching hire. Do they want to go bigger with one of the proven NHL coaches? Do they want to take a former NHL head coach who has been refining himself as an assistant or associate this season? Do they want to promote from within? Do they want to dive into the college ranks and try to pull one of the best NCAA coaches out to bring him to Boston?

Here are some names to consider, but these are names for any potential opening.

Of the coaches with NHL experience that we know are available now, the list includes John Tortorella, Joel Quenneville, Jay Woodcroft, Derek Lalonde, Bruce Boudreau, Gerard Gallant and Dave Tippett. That list will expand once coaching changes are made around the League, potentially as soon as late this week. It's certainly possible not all the names listed above will get jobs. It's not even clear if all of them want another job for next season.

Of the current assistant or associate coaches with NHL head coaching experience who likely would pursue another head coaching job, the list includes D.J. Smith (Kings), David Quinn (Pittsburgh Penguins), Jeff Blashill (Lightning), Lane Lambert (Maple Leafs associate), Jeremy Colliton (Devils) and Mike Yeo (Senators), among a few others probably.

If the Bruins want to try to pull a coach out of the college ranks, surely the top candidates would be David Carle from the University of Denver, Nate Leaman from Providence College and Jay Pandolfo from Boston University. Carle is the hottest name among the college coaches, but there is no indication yet that he even wants to leave Denver.

They could stay in-house and go with assistant Jay Leach, who was hired June 12 after three seasons as a Kraken assistant that followed four as coach of Providence in the American Hockey League (2017-21). Current Providence coach Ryan Mougenel could also be a candidate. He's been successful with the Bruins' AHL affiliate in four seasons since taking over for Leach.

The point is there are a lot of candidates already with the likelihood of a few more coming. It's too soon to predict who will be the Bruins' choice. We have to know the entire field of candidates before making an educated guess.