New York Islanders: EWB Roundtable – Is Trotz the Coach of the Year?
By Ed Stein
Bruin Belisle, Contributor, FanSided NHL
The easy answer here is to say Barry Trotz will win (and deserves to win) the Jack Adams Trophy this season so I’ll go ahead and say he shouldn’t. The Islanders weren’t supposed to be this good. They lost a franchise player, hired a new GM and a new coach then went on to lead their division for the better part of the year.
They are one of the best 5-on-5 goal-scoring teams in the NHL. They have eight players with double-digit goals and two out of the five best goalies in the league this season. All of this under Trotz, who had only worked with these guys for about three and a half months before the season started.
Trotz took hold of the locker room immediately and turned this mid-level team into a Stanley Cup contender. Any good coach can input a system that works but a great one has the entire time buying into that system. The Islanders went from giving up the most goals per game last season (3.57) to the least this season (2.34). That’s insane, considering they haven’t had any major personnel changes outside of losing their best player.
All that being said, I did start this off by saying I was going against Barry Trotz’ bid for the Jack Adams Trophy, so… What the hell, give it to Bill Peters.