By Thomas Williams -
The Minnesota Wild is just a team full of winners, apparently.
On Friday, the NHL announced the three finalists for the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year, and Dean Evason is among the three.
The other two finalists are Carolina Hurricanes’ coach Rod Brind’Amour and Florida Panthers bench boss Joel Quenneville.
Evason was asked last Thursday by The Athletic’s Michael Russo, what being a Jack Adams finalist would mean to him.
“It would mean that our coaching staff did a really good job.” Evason said. “The Jack Adams is for one guy. It’s not one guy. It’s management allowing you to have the players to work with and then it’s the coaches working as a team to try to get the best out of the players. I think our coaching staff — I know our coaching staff — is as good as any coaching staff I’ve ever seen or been with as far as our communication, as far as our teaching and as far as our coaching. I’m very proud of what we did this year, but it has to continue to go forward.”
If he wins, Evason will be just the second Minnesota coach to have won the award after Jacques Lemaire earned it after his 2002-03 season.
Seen as a surprise overachievers this season, the Wild were destined to get some recognition for their surge into playoff contention. Good goaltending and more offensive punch certainly helps that, but Evason no doubt had some effect trusting youngsters like Kirill Kaprizov and (sometimes) Joel Eriksson Ek with more minutes.
No matter if he wins or not, it’s nice to see some Wild personnel up for awards.
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