Spencer Carbery easily deserves Jack Adams Award for Coach of the Year after guiding Capitals through adversity

If someone said back in February when the Washington Capitals got spanked in Detroit that they would still somehow snag the second wild card spot, a lot of folks wouldn't have believed it. But what Spencer Carbery did at the helm in his first season is truly remarkable.

The NHL could annouce the Jack Adams Award nominees at anytime which goes to the head coach of the year at the end of season NHL Awards. Nothing is official as of this writing but here is why Carbery deserves it.

He had to navigate injuries just like last season. He had to navigate two top centers being gone in Nicklas Backstrom stepping away and the notorious Evgeny Kuznetsov trade that might be good or might be bad down the line. But so far it's actually paid dividends as the young bucks stepped up, that comes from tapping into his AHL coaching style when Carbery coached some good Hershey Bears teams.

"Pretty surreal," Carbery told John Walton from Caps Radio 24/7. "I think I actually conceptualized this moment of us being and reaching our goal of getting back to the Stanley Cup playoffs and when you reach it you get taken back."

"I'm really really proud of the group. Today was once again emblamatic of what this group has done all year long on a back to back. You could tell we were completely out of gas and we were just fighting for every shift just to take strides, just to make sure pucks got out and that third period, I thought we had a really good conversation in between periods the second and third about what we were going to need to do and what was required in that third period."

Alex Ovechin had a deflection goal to give the Caps an early lead but the Flyers tied it in the second period. Then the wild scanrio came where the Flyers pulled their goalie to avoid overtime and try to get in the playoffs. It backfired.

"I thought the guys dug in and did an excellent job in that third period and found a way. We found a way to get into the Stanley Cup playoffs," said Carbery.

That way came when T.J. Oshie put the game away with an empty net goal to punch the Caps ticket to the postseason and a weekend matchup with the Rangers at The Garden.

What Carbery did to motivate his players throughout what they dealt with was truly remarkable. This is why we believe Carbery deserves the Jack Adams Award.