Boston Bruins: Bruce Cassidy disrespected in Jack Adams Award voting
On Thursday, the winner of the Jack Adams Award was revealed. The Jack Adams Award is given to the head coach that is considered to be the best in the NHL for that season, voted by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association. While Carolina Hurricanes’ head coach Rod Brind’Amour rightfully took home the honor, Boston Bruins‘ head coach Bruce Cassidy was disrespected in the voting.
Hours after the winner was revealed, the turnout of the voting was released. Brind’Amour ran away with the voting, accumulating 61 first-place votes, 37 second-place votes, and 17 third-place votes for a total of 433 points. The next closest was Minnesota Wild head coach Dean Evason with 235 points (24-27-34, 1st-2nd-3rd).
Cassidy finished tied for 11th place with a grand total of three points, or one second-place vote. While this isn’t a lot and probably not where Cassidy should’ve ended up, he did finish in front of some notable names likes Barry Trotz of the New York Islanders and Dave Tippett of the Edmonton Oilers.
While where Cassidy ended up in the voting isn’t the issue, it’s who he’s tied with that’s the major problem. Looking closer at the standings, Cassidy is tied with FORMER New York Rangers head coach David Quinn.
Yes, that’s right. Bruce Cassidy, last season’s Jack Adams winner, tied with now jobless David Quinn with one second-place vote. This is what I find the most disrespectful.
The Boston Bruins and Bruce Cassidy dealt with adversity all of 2020-21.
From the start of the season, the B’s and Cassidy had several hurdles to get over.
First, the team lost two key defensemen in free agency. Torey Krug left for St. Louis after Boston wasn’t able to afford his asking price. 14-year captain Zdeno Chara left for Washington after he declined the B’s offer to stay but in a depth role.
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With Krug and Chara gone, the Black and Gold had to rely on several unproven and inexperience blueliners. Matt Grzelcyk and Jeremy Lauzon stepped into much larger roles than the previous season. Grzelcyk played quite well most of the time but Lauzon struggled at times as he made some rookie mistakes.
Additionally, rookie Jakub Zboril also stepped into a full-time role at first. However, like Lauzon he struggled at times, and with being injured along with the additions of Jarred Tinordi and Mike Reilly lost his starting job after the trade deadline.
Not only did Cassidy have to work around and inexperienced and much younger defense than the previous season, he had to work around injuries throughout the entire season.
He went into the season unsure if he would have two thirds of his first line for the start of the season with Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak still recovering from offseason surgeries. Marchand would be ready and miss just three games throughout the season, but Pasta would miss the first few weeks and miss eight games.
The blueline was heavily impacted by injuries this season. At at least one point throughout the season at least one of the original six defensemen from the first game of the season would miss a game with injury.
Grzelcyk would deal with several different injuries as he played in just 37 games. Kevan Miller started off strong but his surgically repaired knee would eventually need some rest as he would miss a few weeks with a sore knee — he played in just 28 games. Brandon Carlo would also miss significant time due to a concussion and neck injury — he suited up for just 27 games. Lauzon missed around a month due to a broken hand.
The B’s also had some issues in between the pipes as they had to resort to rookies Dan Vladar and Jeremy Swayman several times throughout the season as Tuukka Rask would miss a few weeks with a back injury and Jaroslav Halak would miss around the same with COVID.
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Yet, even with all the injuries throughout the entire lineup and the inexperienced defense, the Bruins still finished third in their division and allowed the fourth least goals in the league. Because of this, Cassidy deserves more votes than just his one second-place vote and he definitely deserves more voting points than David Quinn who was fired after the season ended.