Brind'Amour wins Jack Adams Award, but claims he's unworthy

In case you missed the news earlier today, Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind'Amour has won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL's top coach for the 2021 season.

Check it out:

Brind'Amour guided the Hurricanes to a fantastic regular season, but failed to advance past the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and, as a result, the former player turned coach feels he's unworthy of the award. In his press availability following the announcement Brind'Amour said, “I feel like they need to change the award to regular season coach of the year...I feel like coach of the year needs to get their team further than I did.”

You know what? Kudos to Rod The Bod for telling it the way he sees it. In his eyes it's a wasted season in 2021 because he wasn't able to get his team over the hump. Do I agree with him? Not necessarily, but that's a big part of the reason why he's a successful NHL coach and I'm not. Brind'Amour is an intense individual and I can only imagine what level of work and sacrifice he demands of his players. He's not the type to gloat in his own self success because his idea of success is so closely linked with team success. It's that drive and that refusal to accept anything but the absolute best that separates Brind'Amour from being just another coach and puts him into the Jack Adams Award conversation.

In any case, Brind'Amour actually does have a lot to be proud of. The Hurricanes were the top team in the Eastern Conference during the regular season and were just one win behind the Colorado Avalanche as the NHL's top regular season team. Brind'Amour is the only head coach in franchise history to lead the team to three consecutive playoff berths, and the Hurricanes have won a postseason series in each of those seasons. The Hurricanes were the only NHL team to rank in the top three on both the power play (25.6%) and penalty kill (85.2%), marking the first time in franchise history that the team finished top-five in both categories.