Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch finishes fifth in Jack Adams Award voting

The National Hockey League announced the winner of the Jack Adams Award for the 2023-24 season, and, to nobody’s surprise, Rick Tocchet of the Vancouver Canucks was voted the league’s best coach.

The Jack Adams Award is awarded annually to the coach who is “adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success.” The winner is selected by a poll of the NHL Broadcasters Association at the end of the regular season.

Tocchet was hired by the Canucks during the 2022-23 season after the team parted ways with Bruce Boudreau. Vancouver missed the playoffs that year with a 38-37-7 record but bounced back in 2023-24 with the organization’s strongest season in over a decade. The Tocchet-led Canucks went 50-23-9, a 12-win improvement from the previous season, and finished with the best record in the Pacific Division.

With 82 first-place votes, 23 second-place votes, and four third-place votes, Tocchet finished at the top of the voting standings by a significant margin. The runner-up was Andrew Brunette, who led the Nashville Predators to a 47-30-5 record in his first season with the club and guided them back into the playoffs after missing out the previous year.

Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch finished in fifth place in voting, as he received three first-place votes, 12 second-place votes, and 13 third-place votes. Knoblauch took over behind the bench in mid-November after the Oilers got off to a terrible 3-9-1 start to the season. Edmonton went 46-18-5 the rest of the way, highlighted by a 17-game winning streak during December and January.

The Oilers haven’t had a Jack Adams Award winner since Glen Sather won in 1985-86. Dave Tippett finished seventh in voting following the 2019-20 season and Todd McLellan finished third in voting after helping the Oilers snap their decade-long playoff drought in 2016-17.

2023-24 Jack Adams Award Voting Results

(5-3-1 points allocation for 1st, 2nd, 3rd)

• 1. Rick Tocchet (VAN) – 483 points (82-23-4)
• 2. Andrew Brunette (NSH) – 145 points (8-28-21)
• 3. Rick Bowness (WPG) – 75 points (5-11-17)
• 4. Peter Laviolette (NYR) – 66 points (5-10-11)
• 5. Kris Knoblauch (EDM) – 64 points (3-12-13)
• 6. Paul Maurice (FLA) – 42 points (1-9-10)
• 7. Spencer Carbery (WSH) – 34 points (4-1-11)
• 8. Rod Brind’Amour (CAR) – 31 points (4-3-2)
• 9. Jim Montgomery (BOS) – 29 points (0-7-8)
• 10. Peter DeBoer (DAL) – 26 points (2-2-10)
• 11. Jon Cooper (TBL) – 23 points (0-6-5)
• 12. John Tortorella (PHI) – 7 points (0-2-1)
• 13. Mike Sullivan (PIT) – 1 point (0-0-1)