Sabres' Lindy Ruff, Penguins' Dan Muse Headline 2025-26 NHL Jack Adams Award Finalists

The Pittsburgh Penguins' Dan Muse or Buffalo Sabres' Lindy Ruff could be named the NHL's top coach after leading their teams to surprising playoff berths in 2026.

Muse and Ruff joined the Tampa Bay Lightning's Jon Cooper as finalists for the 2025-26 Jack Adams Award, the NHL announced Friday.

The Jack Adams Award is voted on by the NHL Broadcasters' Association and presented to the head coach judged "to have contributed the most to his team's success."

Neither Muse nor Ruff were expected as of last fall to be coaching playoff teams this spring.

Muse, a first-time head coach who previously worked as an assistant for the New York Rangers, arrived in Pittsburgh last fall to coach a team with an aging core and a host of new players on short-term deals.

Multiple players went on to post career-best seasons under Muse, including Anthony Mantha, Bryan Rust and Egor Chinakhov, as the Penguins qualified for the playoffs for the first time in four years.

The Sabres looked like they were on track to extend the NHL's longest playoff drought in Ruff's second season of head coach as of early December.

Buffalo went 11-14-4 to start the season, a record that had the team sitting last in both the Atlantic and the Eastern Conference as of Dec. 8.

Ruff then led the Sabres to a 39-9-5 finish to the season, by far the best record in the NHL over that span, to clinch the top seed in the Atlantic and the team's first playoff berth in 15 years.

Multiple key players recorded career-best seasons under Ruff, including a 74-point campaign from Rasmus Dahlin that could get him in the conversation for a Norris Trophy.

After taking over in Tampa ahead of the 2013-14 season, Cooper has established the Lightning as a perennial playoff contender.

The Lightning have qualified for the playoffs in 13 of Cooper's 14 seasons at the helm, including the franchise's back-to-back Stanley Cup wins in 2019 and 2020.

Cooper led the Lightning back into the 2026 postseason with the team's first 50-win campaign in four years behind two-time reigning Art Ross Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov and Vezina Trophy finalist Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Muse could become the first Penguins coach since Dan Bylsma in 2011 to win the award.

Ruff previously took the trophy home in 2006 with the Sabres, while Cooper is a three-time finalist looking to take home his first award.