Capitals Coach Spencer Carbery Wins Jack Adams Award, But NHL Should Stop Announcing Award Winners Early

A disappointing second-round playoff exit notwithstanding, the Washington Capitals were one of the surprise teams of the 2024-25 NHL season, and that's why second-year head coach Spencer Carbery is taking home the Jack Adams Award, given to the league's top bench boss.

It's easy to forget, given how good the Caps were this year, and how much fanfare there was surrounding Alex Ovechkin's chase for the NHL goal-scoring record, that last season's Capitals limped into the playoffs and were widely regarded as one of the worst teams to make it into the postseason ever.

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What a difference a year makes, because after this year, it looks like the Ovie Era Caps' Stanley Cup window may still be open just a crack, and Carbery is largely to thank for that. 

The Caps' bench boss received more votes than the two other finalists, Winnipeg's Scott Arniel and Montreal's Martin St. Louis.

Carbery led the Capitals to a 20-point improvement this season, and with his Jack Adams win, becomes the first coach to win similar honors in the NHL, AHL, and ECHL having won the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award with the AHL's Hershey Bears in 2020-21 and the John Brophy Coach of The Year Award with the AHL's South Carolina Stingrays (both of those minor league clubs make up the Capitals farm system).

There was a cool moment when Carbery's family surprised him with the award, but there's one thing I don't like about this, which we will get to in a second.

Well-deserved, very cool moment for all involved.

I don't think I like the way the NHL does its awards now. The league used to announce them at the awards show, like the Oscars or Emmys. Now? They just tweet out the winner of an award on a random Saturday in June around lunchtime with little to no heads up.

My guess is that those who lost out on the award were sick of flying to awards ceremonies and wanted to fly up to their lake cottages, fire up the Margaritaville-brand margarita machine, and get the offseason started.

These viral videos are neat, but I kind of liked the build-up to the big reveal more than I like checking my phone after lunch and being like, "Holy hell, they just gave out an award."

But anyway, congratulations!