Thumbs down to perception of Jack Adams Award TSN's Dave Hodge gives a thumbs down to those who think winning the Jack Adams Award says anything about being "coach of the year," and also gives a thumbs down to the NHL's schedlue-makers.

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Not that it should happen again following a 4-3 loss in Florida, but you couldn't follow the early-season struggles of the Calgary Flames without being reminded that coach Bob Hartley received the Jack Adams Award mere months ago and surely didn't deserve the "hot seat" talk.

Here's the thing about "coach of the year" - it says nothing about anything, so "thumbs down" to those who think it does.

Joel Quenneville has won three Stanley Cups with Chicago - his Adams Award came in St. Louis.

Darryl Sutter has won two Stanley Cups, Zero Adams.

Glen Sather coached four Stanley Cup winning teams in Edmonton in a five-year stretch. He was coach of the year once during that time, in the year the Oilers didn't win the Stanley Cup.

Claude Julien has one Stanley Cup, one Adams - not in the same year.

Mike Babcock has never won the Jack Adams Award.

Bruce Boudreau, Alain Vigneault, John Tortorella and Lindy Ruff are past Adams recipients, having achieved success with teams that later fired them.

Ruff could easily win again if the Dallas Stars can make their great start last a full season. Perhaps he'd like to cast a vote … for somebody else. Babcock, perhaps, after another Dallas loss to Toronto.

Planning Ahead

Last night, the Tampa Bay Lightning lost 4-1 at home to the Buffalo Sabres, so you can imagine that last season's Eastern Conference champs are looking forward to their next meeting with last season's 30th-place team to make amends. Well, they're not looking and you can stop imagining, because the Sabres and the Lightning have already met four times and that's it for the season.

I will do some imagining and guess that the schedule-maker and computer ally must have a tough task, but still, it's "thumbs down" when two members of the same division play each other four times in the first month and not again, unless in the playoffs.

Still with the schedule, late-season games between arch-rivals make sense, so the NHL makes sure that Calgary and Edmonton meet in April. Same for Rangers and Islanders, Kings and Ducks, Flyers and Penguins. How about Bruins and Canadiens? No, they don't play in April, or in March or in February. The last Boston-Montreal meeting is at the Bell Centre on January 19.

Philadelphia has a California trip next month that sees the Flyers play the Ducks in Anaheim on Sunday, Dec. 27, and the Kings in Los Angeles on the following Saturday, January 2. What do they do in between? They go north to play the Sharks in San Jose on Wednesday, December 30. Were you thinking that teams usually visit the Ducks and Kings back-to-back, so maybe five straight days on the beach for the Flyers? At least the NHL schedule doesn't require them to leave the state.