Washington Capitals' Spencer Carbery wins Jack Adams Award as NHL's best coach

New York Times

07-06-2025

Spencer Carbery, who led the Washington Capitals to the highest points total in the Eastern Conference while navigating Alex Ovechkin's pursuit of the all-time goals record, has won the Jack Adams Award for the 2024-25 season, the NHL announced Saturday.
The award, which goes to 'the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success,' is voted upon by the NHL Broadcasters' Association. Scott Arniel of the Winnipeg Jets and Martin St. Louis of the Montreal Canadiens were the other two finalists.
Spencer Carbery got quite the surprise from his family after winning the Jack Adams Award. 🥹
Watch the #NHLAwards on June 12 at 6p ET on @NHL_On_TNT and @Sportsnet before Game 4 of the #StanleyCup Final! pic.twitter.com/gLKxCO00C5
— NHL (@NHL) June 7, 2025
Washington went 51-22-9 with 111 points and eliminated St. Louis' Canadiens in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Carolina Hurricanes, in turn, knocked out Washington in the second round.
While the timing of his team's exit was something of a disappointment, Carbery's second season on the job was an unquestioned success — as was his first, when he took a roster that scored the fifth-fewest goals in the NHL and helped coax it into the postseason despite a minus-37 goal differential.
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In 2024-25, the situation was a bit different. The Capitals added brand-name players like Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jakob Chychrun and Andrew Mangiapane while gearing up for Ovechkin's record chase to enter its final stages. Carbery got the best out of the additions; effectively folded in younger players like Aliaksei Protas and Connor McMichael; and, of course, found a way to optimize Ovechkin. That was no simple task: Ovechkin, even in his twilight, is a remarkable goal-scorer, but accounting for his age and limitations at five-on-five would seem a challenge.
Carbery threaded that needle on the ice while also handling the drama, chaos and pageantry that mounted as Ovechkin closed in on Wayne Gretzky's record 895 career goals. Making sure that the chase came in a winning environment was an organizational priority, and Carbery played a huge part in bringing that to pass.
'For us, especially as coaches, we go to the hundreds and hundreds of hours that we've been trying to figure out ways to get him the next goal. And that's behind the scenes — that's frustration, that's happiness, that's long hours of like, 'Oh my gosh, we've got to figure this power play out,' Carbery said after Ovechkin broke the record on April 6.
'So there's just so much behind the scenes that goes into this game and trying to help set players and your team up for success. So as a staff, when this happens and you've been working 80-hour weeks for the last two years to try to help get the next goal, it's a pretty special moment for us to celebrate. Obviously, it's an individual achievement, but for us to help him get there and see it actually come to fruition, you can't describe the feeling of when that puck goes in. And I will tell this story for the rest of my life, standing on the bench.'
Carbery, 43, is the youngest coach to win the award since Dan Bylsma, then 41, with the 2010-11 Pittsburgh Penguins. He coached Washington's AHL affiliate in Hershey, Pa., for three seasons (2018-21) before working on Sheldon Keefe's staff with the Toronto Maple Leafs from 2021-23. Carbery took over as the Capitals' head coach ahead of the 2023-24 season, replacing Peter Laviolette.