Daily Faceoff Live: Are Jim Montgomery and Rick Bowness the early Jack Adams favourites?

On the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Mike McKenna discussed who the early favorites for the Jack Adams Award are.

Tyler Yaremchuk: There are a lot of options (for the Jack Adams Award winner), there’s always been just one or two that grab hold of the race early and its like, OK, these teams are off to great starts, they’re probably going to be in the conversation. This year, I think you can go in every division and find one or two coaches who are just doing some great things this year.

I look at the way Mike Sullivan has taken the Penguins from their slow start with all their injuries and found a way to keep their heads above water. When you look around the league Mike, who’s someone that stands out to you who is a potential early Jack Adams favorite?

Mike McKenna: The easy answer is Jim Montgomery and I think he would be very worthy of it as the Boston Bruins head coach. There were just so many question marks surrounding that team, especially with health at the start of the year. Marchand was out, McAvoy, they’re now back in the lineup and didn’t miss a beat. But it was largely the same team as Bruce Cassidy had last year. Of course, there’s little tweaks, especially with David Krejci coming back. I think that’s just a reinvigorated club that’s played better and faster than I’ve ever seen. A big credit to that is Montgomery.

I gotta give credit to Rick Bowness and Pete DeBoer out in the Central, I didn’t even have the Jets as a playoff team and here they are leading the Central. I did think that the Dallas Stars would be second in the Central and that’s where they are under Pete DeBoer. Those are the ones I really have my eye on, Montgomery might be a frontrunner, but if the Jets keep it up Rick Bowness deserves a lot of love.

You can watch the rest of the episode here…