Just three days after the Winnipeg Jets were bounced from the playoffs and a day after he spoke coyly about his future with the team, Rick Bowness was named one of three finalists for the NHL’s coach of the year award.
Bowness, Andrew Brunette of the Nashville Predators and Rick Tocchet of the Vancouver Canucks were named as finalists for the Jack Adams Award on Friday.
Bowness, the 69-year-old who resides in Grand Lake, led the Jets to a 52-24-6 record and 110 points during the regular season, at times flirting with first place overall in the NHL. The Jets finished second in the Central Division and the Western Conference and were tied for fourth place overall in the entire NHL with the Florida Panthers.
However, the Jets flopped badly in the playoffs, running into a superior Colorado Avalanche team and falling in five games.
The coach of the year voting, conducted by members of the NHL’s Broadcasters Association, was completed before the playoffs began.
Bowness, who has been coaching for 41 years after retiring from the NHL as a player, is a Jack Adams finalist for the first time in his lengthy career. He’s also the first Jack Adams finalist for the Jets franchise, dating back to its birth in Atlanta in 1999.
Bowness just completed his 14th season as a head coach, having made stops with the original Winnipeg Jets in 1988, Boston, Ottawa, New York Islanders, Phoenix and Dallas before returning to Winnipeg at the start of the 2022-23 season.
Despite dealing with health problems — both his own and his wife Judy’s — Bowness has coached the Jets to a 98-57-9 record over two seasons.
Does he want to continue?
“For the last seven years, since my last season in Tampa, every year I sit down and I talk to Judy, talk to the kids,” Bowness said during his season-ending availability with the media on Thursday.
“I will talk to (owner Mark Chipman) and (GM Kevin Cheveldayoff) and I know what I’m going to do. I know what I want to do. That will come out. We will let you know.”
The award nomination may well ring hollow for the Jets after their promising season ended with such disappointment.
However, Bowness still believes his team is on the right track.
“There was growth there,” Bowness said, adding he thought his team played better in the playoffs this year than it did last year in losing in five games to the Vegas Golden Knights.
“But if you compare the two years, Game 5 last year in Vegas was a no-show. This year, we were down a goal, we fought back. Down a goal, we fought back. We kept fighting back.
“There will also be growth knowing that we didn’t play our best, knowing that the things that were our strength during the regular season, we got away from when it counted the most.”
