Philadelphia Flyers: Alain Vigneault named a Jack Adams finalist

The first year head coach for the Flyers earns the fifth Jack Adams nomination of his coaching career.

Alain Vigneault has been through a lot in the NHL. He has taken two teams to the Stanley Cup Finals. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to make it over that final hump. He has another chance to do that with this group of Flyers.

Bruce Cassidy of the Boston Bruins and John Tortorella of the Columbus Blue Jackets are the other nominees for the award.

Vigneault has been nominated for this award four other times, taking it home after the 2006-07 season. With the Canucks, he led the team to a 105-point finish to capture the Pacific Division title. They had finished four the season before.

He was nominated one other time with Vancouver. He also earned a nod with Montreal and the Rangers. Looking at the Flyers this season, they were much improved in all categories.

They were the hottest team before the season was paused, having won nine of their last 10 games. And since the beginning of January, the Flyers had gone 19-6-1, tied with Boston for the best record in the NHL.

It didn’t look like this could be possible early in the season. The team lost Oskar Lindblom, a budding star, when he was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma in December. He recently finished treatments and skated on the ice with the team. The hope is to have him ready to go next season.

Nolan Patrick was also lost this season. A migraine disorder has kept him out the entire season. Left off the postseason roster, there is also hope he can join the team next season.

Vigneault was able to help guide the Flyers out of their horrific West Coast trip where they dropped four out of five games. Losses to the Sharks, Kings, Knights, and Coyotes has the team limping into the new year.

But they turned it around and put themselves in a great position moving forward. A year after finishing sixth in the Metro, the Flyers were threatening to take over the top spot in the division. They sat just one point behind the Capitals.

Despite having played only 69 games, they already had more points (89) than they did in a full year last season (82). There’s no doubt they could’ve reached, or at least gotten close, to the 100-point mark if the season was finished.

Vigneault deserves a lot of credit for what he has been able to do with this Flyers team. His up tempo pace was immediately noticeable from the start. He expected more out of this team from the get-go. And they proved him right almost the entire season.

He has his work cut out for him taking home the award. Tortorella had a Blue Jackets team that lost star players to free agency and we’re devastated by injuries. And Cassidy always has the Bruins playing like a true contender every season.

But this is a certainly a Flyers team that hasn’t made noise like this in quite some time.