FanHouse BarryTrotz

There was a curious line this morning in Jack Todd's celebration of Montreal's regular season conference championship: "Claude Julien has every reason to coach for revenge, and he should give Guy Carbonneau a battle for the Jack Adams Trophy." The curiosity doesn't come from Julien's name being associated with coach of the year honors, as he willed an injury-plagued and offensively challenged Bruins team to the postseason. Rather, it comes from the notion that Carbonneau is the prohibitive favorite for the Jack Adams.

Like many others, I was completely wrong on Carbo's abilities as a head coach prior to this season. His system matched the personnel to perfection in Montreal, and his decisions regarding that personnel were uniformly correct. Winning the East when The Hockey News has your team 13th in the conference before the season is no small feat. Carbonneau's peers have acknowledged this: TSN polled 27 of 30 NHL coaches, and 11 of them cast their lots for the Habs bench boss:

Guy Carbonneau, Mon 11
Mike Babcock, Det 7
Bruce Boudreau, Was 2
Claude Julien, Bos 2
Barry Trotz, Nas 2

According to the coaches, the Jack Adams Award appears to be as much a non-competitive slam dunk as we assume the Hart Trophy will be now that Ovechkin's in the postseason. But other cases can be made in this race; and all due respect to Carbonneau, they're pretty damn compelling.

Are we going to ever see some heads roll?

Barry Trotz, the only head coach the Nashville Predators have ever had, looks to be safe from the firing line, despite a third straight first round playoff exit.

The Nashville Predators' third-straight exit in the first round of the playoffs hasn't shaken general manager David Poile's confidence in the only coach his franchise has known.

"Teams and ownership change coaches, and managers, for that matter way, way too much, and really for not a lot of supporting reasons to do it. I chose Barry Trotz," Poile said. "He was a young coach who had never coached in the National Hockey League. Now he's second in seniority. ..."

Trotz has done a pretty good job moulding the Predators through their long-arcing building phase, totalling a 283-276-97 record with the only NHL team he has ever coached.

After such high expectations this season, and the expensive trade for Peter Forsberg, the Predators flopped in the playoffs, losing in just five games to the Sharks. In like a lion, and out like a lamb.

Credit Trotz for getting the Preds with a 51-23-8 recording during the regular season, but, eventually, he'll have to get this team over the hump and win at least ONE playoff series.

Sure, teams change coaches too often, but perhaps the Predators are taking it too far the other way?