Why isn’t Gerard Gallant slam-dunk coach of the year?

Imagine there’s this hockey team. Perhaps it plays somewhere “non-traditional” by NHL standards, like Florida.

Now, imagine this hockey team, coming into this season, has made the Stanley Cup Playoffs twice since 1997. To put this in another context: Through three STAR WARS Special Editions, three prequels and a sequel, this hockey team has played in 11 playoff games. And won three of them.

Sure, it’s won a division title before, back in 2012, but it’s never broken the 100-point mark until this season. This is after an impressive 91-point season that wasn’t enough to make the playoffs a year ago.

Now, the coach of this team would seem like the perfect candidate for coach of the years honors, what with the team going from 10th place to a division championship and having the best regular season in franchise history.

And yet Gerard Gallant is not only not a slam-dunk for the Jack Adams, he's not even the favorite at this point.

Witness Matthew Coller of ESPN.com on Mike Sullivan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and behold the argument that flips the traditional Jack Adams narrative like an Olympic gymnast: the analytics case. From Coller:

While Sidney Crosby has been at the center of the turnaround, Pittsburgh's dominance when Crosby is off the ice is indicative of Sullivan's coaching prowess. When Crosby is on the bench, the Pens are still taking 53.7 percent of total shots on goal -- a number that would be good enough to rank second in the NHL. To reiterate: The Penguins' second, third and fourth lines are outshooting teams by a wider margin than every team except the Los Angeles Kings.

Coller lists Ken Hitchcock of the St. Louis Blues and Lindy Ruff of the Dallas Stars as primary contenders, with honorable mentions for Barry Trotz of the Washington Capitals, Bruce Boudreau of the Anaheim Ducks and Gallant, of whom he writes: “[Gallant] may get some votes for surprising many around the league by having his team leading the Atlantic Division, given that his team was not thought to be a contender yet.”

Well, yeah, no kidding. The Panthers were seen by many to be on the cusp of contention, but by no means a lock like the Penguins, and by no means a division champion – although one can argue that the Montreal Canadiens swan dive into mediocrity is what fueled the race to that banner.

But that’s the narrative. What Sullivan provides Jack Adams voters are tangible results: Beyond the resuscitation of Pittsburgh’s top players offensively, the Penguins are second to the Los Angeles Kings since Sullivan took over on Dec. 12 in score-adjusted Corsi at even strength (55.7 percent, via War On Ice).

The Panthers? They’re 14th in that span (51 games, 52.6 percent). For the season, they’re 19th and under 50 percent (49.4).

The Panthers have been seen as a team that’s the product of abnormally good goaltending and their high PDO, the stat that loosely defines “luck” in the NHL, and they’re currently second at 102.0. Last season, it was 99.6. Sometimes you get the bounces.

So he’s not going to get the analytics argument – frankly, Bill Peters would be right there with Sullivan on that one, given how the Carolina Hurricanes played this season. What about the more general arguments made for the Jack Adams?

That’s a tough one, too, because Gallant doesn’t have the benefit of taking over from a coach that had made a mess of things and turning a Stanley Cup contender back into one, like Sullivan. (He also didn't have the benefit of an influx of new players to fit his style, like Sullivan. Thanks, Jim Rutherford.) He doesn’t have the benefit of pushing a team over the 100-point mark despite a ridiculous amount of significant injuries, like Hitchcock. He was never in the abyss that Boudreau was in, nor has he piloted the Panthers to the heights that Trotz has.

So what does Gallant have going for him?

Well, as we noted, the Florida Panthers are a 100-point division champion, which has happened exactly never. And while Jaromir Jagr brings the average age up a bit, this is a generally young team that Gallant’s led to that success.

His best bit of coaching this season: Keeping them on track after that incredible 12-game winning streak propelled them to the top. Everyone thought the Panthers would come back to the pack and drop down the stadings at some point. They haven't.

Ask anyone, and it’s Gallant’s ability to coach youth that has been the Panthers’ biggest benefit behind the bench. From the Montreal Gazette on Gallant, who was a Canadiens assistant before leaving for the Panthers:

“He’s one of the best guys I’ve ever met in hockey,” Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty. “Everybody speaks so highly of him. He’s still a guy that you hear his name getting mentioned in this room very often. So to see him have that success (in Florida) is really a good feeling for us. We miss him a lot because we really enjoyed being around him. He’s one of the good guys that you’re really genuinely happy for to have such great success. We just don’t want it to be against us.”

“He’s just a player’s guy,” Nathan Beaulieu said about Gallant. “He’s so approachable. You’re in junior, you’re young, you have problems, and he’s just so easy to talk to. He’s always there for you. You can call him any time of the night. He’s just a good, old East Coast boy (from Summerside, P.E.I.). He’s down to earth and he’s got a big heart.”

While “always there for you” and “has a big heart” makes you an excellent Care Bear, they probably aren’t going to trump the shock and awe of the Penguins’ turnaround, the resiliency of the Blues or the juggernaut that were the Capitals when it comes to coaching accolades – especially when Sullivan, Hitchcock and Trotz all win the analytics argument, too.

The best hope for Gallant is that the broadcasters, who vote on this award, ignore the possession numbers like they did in giving Bob Hartley the Jack last season, and are more blown away by “Florida Panthers, 100-point division champions” than they are “guy who made one of the best teams in hockey good again and helped Sidney Crosby find his smile.”

Could that happen? Sure. But it’s hard not to feel the wind blowing in Sullivan’s general direction for the Jack Adams.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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