The NHL’s Jack Adams Award is presented by the league’s Broadcasters’ Association to the NHL coach who is deemed to have contributed the most to his team’s success. This year’s nominees are Detroit’s Mike Babcock, Colorado’s Patrick Roy, and Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper. The question leading up to the awards show is this: Who will win? Contrary to popular belief, this blogger believes Jon Cooper should take home the trophy.
For what it’s worth, there’s an equally compelling case to be made for Mike Babcock when compared to Roy, but I want to write this blog to highlight the differences between the Lightning’s bench boss and the prohibitive favorite for the award.
It doesn’t take much research to see that most commentators and fans believe that Patrick Roy will run away with this year’s Adams. After all, he took a team that finished dead last in the Western Conference in 2012-13 and turned it into a division champion in 2013-14.
On the surface, that fact alone provides a pretty persuasive case for Roy. However, it’s worth delving in a little bit deeper. How much of Colorado’s success can actually be attributed to Roy? The numbers say very little.
I tend to judge coaching from an analytical perspective. It comes down to systems, and getting players to stick to those systems. One of the best ways to judge a coach’s performance is to gauge his team’s possession numbers. Teams that control the puck generally win games. Coaches in today’s league want the puck on their players’ sticks.
Consider the following: At five-on-five, and with the score close, Roy’s Avalanche were a dreadful bunch in the possession department. Literally dreadful. Their 27th ranked Fenwick-for percentage puts them right in between the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers. That’s not the sort of company you want to be keeping in the NHL these days. The fact of the matter is that Roy’s coaching did little to help his team possess the puck and manufacture shot attempts; in fact, the opposite is true.
What’s perhaps more interesting is that the Avalanche were actually a worse possession team in 2013-14 under Roy than they were in 2012-13 under Joe Sacco. That’s right. Sacco’s 2012-13 team took 47.0% of the shot attempts (Fenwick) at five-on-five close, while Roy’s Avalanche only took 46.8%. The difference is small, but it accurately shows that Roy did little to change the Avalanche’s fortunes.
Roy could be the best motivator in the world, but the reality is that he did little to help his team’s on-ice performance. He benefited from some darn good luck. Logic would suggest that the luck will run out and push Colorado’s record back to where a bad possession team’s record should be, just as it did for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
By this point you’re probably asking yourself how Colorado managed to leap up the standings if they were so horrible all season. The answer is goaltending. Semyon Varlamov, not Patrick Roy, is the reason that Colorado finished at the top of the Central Division.
For evidence, look no further than the team’s save percentage at five-on-five close. Under Sacco in 2012-13, the team’s save percentage was ranked 26th in the league at 90.8%. This past season, it was ranked second in the league at 93.6%, behind only the Boston Bruins. That right there is the difference between being a bottom feeder and being a division champion.
Call me crazy, but I’d have a hard time crediting Patrick Roy for the drastic improvement in Varlamov’s game, especially when you consider all the shot attempts that were fired his way.
Compare all this with the Lightning. Like the 2012-13 Avalanche, the Lightning that year were a dreadful possession team. Their 27th ranked FF% under Guy Boucher (and a small segment under Cooper) was enough to sink them to the bottom of the standings. Under Cooper in 2013-14, however, the Lightning became a top-10 possession club. With a FF% of 51.7%, the Bolts sat in the 10th spot, right between the Stars and Red Wings. That’s playoff company, right there.
Cooper successfully managed to turn a group of very raw rookies into a respectable possession club. That’s good coaching. His system worked. The numbers show it. Cooper improved the Bolts in a measureable way.
Of course, somebody is undoubtedly going to point out that the Lightning’s team save percentage increased in leaps and bounds from 12-13 to 13-14. That’s very true. However, I have an easier time making sense of that increase when I consider that the Bolts did a much better job of controlling shot attempts this year than they did last year. Life was easier on the Tampa tenders under Cooper than it was under Boucher.
For a visual depiction of all this mumbo-jumbo, see here:
To me, there’s a pretty striking contrast there between what Cooper did in his first season as Lightning head coach and what Roy did in his first season as Avalanche head coach. Obviously this blogger is biased, but it’s hard to spin those numbers.
Taking things down a to a reductionist argument, it’s worth noting that, like Roy, Cooper took a team from the bottom of the standings right up to near the top. Oh, and he did this without Steven Stamkos for most of the year.
As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter. 
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