How real is the Jack Adams Award curse?

Matt Larkin
Matt Larkin(MLarkinHockey)
Darryl Sutter
Credit: Dec 7, 2022; Calgary, Alberta, CAN; Calgary Flames head coach Darryl Sutter on his bench against the Minnesota Wild during the third period at Scotiabank Saddledome. Mandatory Credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

If there’s ever a day to philosophize on curses, it’s Halloween. Every major sport has them. The EA Sports video game cover curse takes no prisoners regardless of the league. Baseball is probably most associated with infamous hexes, from the Curse of the Bambino to the Curse of the Billy Goat. The best-known hockey curse might be Bill Barilko’s missing remains; the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t win a championship in the 11 years between his plane crash and the discovery of his body.

But what about the curse of the Jack Adams Award? Conversationally, in the modern game, it’s the thrown about frequently. That’s understandable given the unbelievable coaching turnover rate in the sport today. Last season alone, we saw seven firings during the season, and 19 of 32 head coaches turned over in a 16-month span. Not even Coach of the Year winners can feel safe based on the current trends.

The speed at which bench bosses deemed the best in the game lose their jobs breaks the brain. In the past decade alone, two Jack Adams winners, Bob Hartley and Darryl Sutter, were fired the season after they won, while half were axed no more than three seasons after winning the award.

Does that mean the Jack Adams curse is real? If so, why?

First, let’s look at the data to see if there really is a case for a curse or whether it’s overblown. Here’s a list of every Jack Adams winner since NHL broadcasters began handing out the award in 1974 – and what happened to each coach after he won it. Excluded is the reigning winner, Vancouver Canucks coach Rick Tocchet, leaving us with a sample size of 49 winners.

SeasonWinnerPts %Next year %Fired when?
1973-74Fred Shero.718.708No
1974-75Bob Pulford.656.531No
1975-76Don Cherry.706.6633 years
1976-77Scotty Bowman.825.806No
1977-78Bobby Kromm.488.3882 years
1978-79Al Arbour.725.569No
1979-80Pat Quinn.725.6062 years
1980-81Red Berenson.669.4561 year
1981-82Tom Watt.500.4632 years
1982-83Orval Tessier.650.4252 years
1983-84Bryan Murray.631.6316 years
1984-85Mike Keenan.706.6883 years
1985-86Glen Sather.744.681No
1986-87Jacques Demers.488.5813 years
1987-88Jacques Demers.581.5002 years
1988-89Pat Burns.719.581No
1989-90Bob Murdoch.531.3941 year
1990-91Brian Sutter.656.5191 year
1991-92Pat Quinn.600.601No
1992-93Pat Burns.589.5833 years
1993-94Jacques Lemaire.631.542No
1994-95Marc Crawford.677.634No
1995-96Scotty Bowman.799.573No
1996-97Ted Nolan.561N/ANo
1997-98Pat Burns.555.5553 years
1998-99Jacques Martin.628.5795 years
1999-00Joel Quenneville.695.6284 years
2000-01Bill Barber.667.5911 year
2001-02Bob Francis.579.4762 years
2002-03Jacques Lemaire.579.506No
2003-04John Tortorella.646.5613 years
2005-06Lindy Ruff.671.6897 years
2006-07Alain Vigneault.640.5376 years
2007-08Bruce Boudreau.664.6593 years
2008-09Claude Julien.707.5558 years
2009-10Dave Tippett.652.6048 years
2010-11Dan Bylsma.646.6593 years
2011-12Ken Hitchcock.703.6255 years
2012-13Paul MacLean.583.5372 years
2013-14Patrick Roy.683.549No
2014-15Bob Hartley.591.4701 year
2015-16Barry Trotz.732.720No
2016-17John Tortorella.659.591No
2017-18Gerard Gallant.665.5672 years
2018-19Barry Trotz.628.5883 years
2019-20Bruce Cassidy.714.6523 years
2020-21Rod Brind’Amour.714.707No
2021-22Darryl Sutter.677.5671 year
2022-23Jim Montgomery.823.665No

– 42 of the 49 Jack Adams winners, a whopping 85.7 percent, saw a decline in their teams’ points percentages the very next year.

– 24 of 49, or 49.0 percent, were fired from their positions within three or fewer seasons of winning the Jack Adams, and 14, or 28.6 percent, lasted no more than two seasons. So more than a quarter of all Coach of the Year winners have been pink-slipped within two years of winning the award.

– 17 winners, or 34.7 percent, were never fired from the teams with whom they won the Jack Adams, walking away on their own volition or just parting ways without new contracts.

– The control group in the experiment, of course, would be the non-winners. Is it possible there’s no Jack Adams curse and that we’re simply seeing the turnover rate for all coaches applied here? By the end of last season, the average coaching tenure in the NHL was down to 2.28 years. From 2012-13 through 2021-22, the average Jack Adams winner lasted just 2.30 years following his win. So the rate is almost the same – but let it sink in that the best coaches in the league last no longer than the non-winners. So much for earning extra runway. It certainly appears the curse has legs.

But why?

The first and most obvious answer is elevated expectations. Of course 85 percent of Jack Adams Winners regress the season after. If someone is being named the top coach in the game, he obviously had a great year and, particularly in the modern game, parity makes it difficult to string multiple elite campaigns together. Take Gerard Gallant’s Vegas Golden Knights, for example. He took an expansion team to the Stanley Cup Final in 2017-18, boosted by a lineup that was better than anyone imagined after Vegas used the expansion draft to brilliantly extort teams for assets. It was virtually impossible to repeat what will go down as one of the most improbable seasons not just in hockey history but pro team sports history.

As pointed out by 2011-12 winner Ken Hitchcock: the winner of the Jack Adams often carries a newfound pressure that takes a mental toll going forward.

“What I really noticed was that expectations changed dramatically [the season after I won], because it was almost like, we were just so happy we got in the playoffs, so happy we’re relevant again, that was hard, doing it again,” he said. “Because you weren’t sure what your level was going to be. The next year, I felt a lot more pressure right off the bat. I felt that in training camp. I felt it in exhibition games. I felt a lot more pressure to do it a little bit better. That’s a tough burden to carry.”

“It’s all about expectations,” said 2007-08 Jack Adams winner Bruce Boudreau. “I look at, OK, last year’s award winner was Rick Tocchet. Now, I don’t think he’s getting fired anytime soon, but if they don’t do at least what they did last year, they’re going to consider it a failure. Then owners consider it a failure, and they get one more kick at the can the next year, and if they don’t start off good they’re going somewhere else. That’s how that happens. When Hartley won it, the next year he got fired because they didn’t reach the same expectations. It’s difficult to do.”

Another culprit behind the curse: statistical regression. Tracking back to 2007-08, the first year we got full analytical data league wide, here’s a look at where each Jack Adams winner’s franchise ranked in PDO, a stat combining shooting and save percentage to produce a measure of puck luck.

SeasonJack Adams teamPDO rank
2007-08Washington23rd
2008-09Boston1st
2009-10Phoenix9th
2010-11Pittsburgh11th
2011-12St. Louis6th
2012-13Ottawa12th
2013-14Colorado2nd
2014-15Calgary4th
2015-16Washington1st
2016-17Columbus2nd
2017-18Vegas11th
2018-19NY Islanders2nd
2019-20Boston1st
2020-21Carolina10th
2021-22Calgary7th
2022-23Boston1st
2023-24Vancouver1st

Of the 17 teams in that sample, five led the league outright in PDO, eight were top-two in PDO, 12 were top 10 in PDO, and the average rank was sixth. You have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good, naturally, but there’s no denying a lot goes right during a Jack Adams season. You tend to get the saves in your own end and the bounces in the other team’s end. In many cases, the team with the Jack Adams winning coach had struggled the season prior only to overreach, putting itself in an unrealistic situation the following year.

“The Jack Adams Award, when you look at the coach’s record, usually is won by a coach that takes a team from a lower position to a higher position rather than a coach who maintains a high position,” Hitchcock said. “You’re climbing the ladder as you win the award. And sometimes the reality is that your team’s record is really somewhere in the middle.”

“Sometimes they can’t sustain it because they played better than they were supposed to play the year before,” Boudreau said. “And so, instead of being the Golden Boy, you’re out on your ear.”

Lastly, there’s the cycle of the salary-cap era. Perhaps turnover is at such a high rate because contention lifespans are shorter, governed by the windows in which teams have their top players still on reasonable AAVs and some upcoming young talents producing on entry-level cap hits. You only get so many seasons in a row on top now. There have been 11 playoff streaks in NHL history of more than 15 years, and only one of them began this millennium. Only seven teams league-wide have active playoff streaks of five years or longer. Coaches thus get used up faster than ever – even those crowned as the league’s best.

“There’s no room for growth in coaching now,” Hitchcock said. “It’s win now or have success now. So because of the cap, we’re all at the same level now. There’s maybe two or three teams in the whole league in the rebuild stage where there’s time for a coach. But the other 25 or so teams, there’s no time. That’s why you’re seeing such a massive turnover. Expectations are high, everybody’s spending to the cap, and you’re expected to do well right off the bat, so if you don’t do well, you’re gonna get replaced. We look like the English Premiership now.”

So maybe “curse” is the wrong word. “Effect” may be more appropriate. It’s accurate to say something often does go wonky for Jack Adams winners, but it’s more of an explainable phenomenon than a paranormal one.

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