Former Hershey Head Coach Spencer Carbery Wins Jack Adams Award

June 7, 2025

The National Hockey League has announced that Washington Capitals head coach and former Hershey Bears head coach Spencer Carbery is the recipient of the 2024-25 Jack Adams Award, presented to the head coach "adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success" as voted by members of the NHL Broadcasters' Association.

Carbery, who won the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as the AHL's outstanding coach in 2020-21 with the Bears and the John Brophy Coach of The Year Award in 2013-14 with the South Carolina Stingrays, is the first coach ever to win coach of the year awards in the NHL, AHL and ECHL. 

The 43-year-old Carbery is the third former Hershey coach to win the Jack Adams Award, joining Bryan Murray (1983-84) and Bruce Boudreau (2007-08).

Carbery is the fourth head coach in Capitals franchise history to win the Jack Adams Award, joining Murray, Boudreau, and Barry Trotz (2015-16). He guided the Capitals to a record of 51-22-9 (111 points), as the team finished first in the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference and second in the NHL. The Capitals improved by 20 points in Carbery's second season behind the bench (2023-24: 40-31-11, 91 points), which marked the third-largest point improvement by a team from 2023-24 to 2024-25 (Columbus: +23; Anaheim: +21). Washington's 51 wins and 111 points were the fourth most in a single season in franchise history, behind only the team's Presidents' Trophy campaigns in 2009-10 (54-15-13, 121 points), 2015-16 (56-18-8, 120 points) and 2016-17 (55-19-8, 118 points).

The Capitals, whose opening night lineup featured seven new players, ranked second in the NHL in goals for (286) in 2024-25 after ranking 28th in 2023-24 (216). Washington also ranked tied for eighth in the League in goals against per game this season (2.79), making them one of seven teams to rank in the top 10 in goals for per game (3.49, 2nd) and goals against per game. In addition, the Capitals ranked first in the NHL comeback wins (25), tied for second in road wins (25), tied for third in goal differential (+56) and tied for fourth in penalty-kill percentage (82.0).

The Capitals had nine players establish or tie career highs in points in 2024-25, including three skaters who were in their first season with the team (Pierre-Luc Dubois: 66p; Jakob Chychrun: 47p; Brandon Duhaime: 21p).