May 22, 2024, 9:18 p.m. (Eastern Time)
NEW YORK – Rick Tocchet was honored as NHL Coach of the Year on Wednesday after guiding the Pacific Division champion Vancouver Canucks to their second playoff berth in nine years.
Tocchet appeared on 109 of 114 Jack Adams Award ballots submitted by members of the NHL Broadcasters Association and received 82 first-place votes, the NHL announced. He became the third Canucks coach to win the honor, following Pat Quinn in 1992 and Alain Vigneault in 2007.
Andrew Morena of Nashville was second. He appeared on 57 ballots, with eight first-place votes. Winnipeg’s Rick Bowness finished third. He announced his retirement this month.
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“This is truly a team award, and I could not have done any of this without the support of our staff and the complete buy-in of the players,” Tocchet said in a statement. “I am truly honored and humbled by this achievement and look forward to returning to work this summer as we continue to work to improve our hockey team.”
In his first full season in Vancouver, Tocchet took the regular season honor two days after the Canucks were eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of their second-round playoff series.
Tocchet, 60, led a significant turnaround on a Canucks team that finished with a 50-23-9 record (the third-most wins in franchise history) and jumped from 22nd overall on last year to sixth. . Vancouver led the NHL with a plus-38 first-period goal differential and also finished the season 42-1-4 when leading after two periods, a year after going 21-1-4.
Tocchet had the benefit of a head start to start instilling his system and getting a feel for the Canucks by being hired in January 2023 after Bruce Boudreau was fired with Vancouver going 18-25-3. The Canucks closed the season 20-12-4 under Tocchet, who was working as an NHL broadcaster when he was hired by the team.
“Honestly, I don’t know if we would be in this position. Who can say, but the 30 games were huge for me,” Tocchet told The Keynote USA last month when reflecting on the impact he had on the team’s closing season as coach. past. Vancouver’s success this season.
Vancouver is Tocchet’s third stop as head coach after a four-season stint in Arizona, where he went 125-131-34 from 2017 to 2021. He also went 53-69-26 with Tampa Bay, spanning the 2008-10 seasons.
Tocchet won a Stanley Cup as a player for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1992, and then two more as a Penguins assistant coach in 2016 and 2017.
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