Heartbreak News ,The head coach of the Vancouver Canucks has officially announced his retirement due to the coming back of an all-time player.
General manager Patrik Allvin thinks strongly that his Vancouver Canucks needed a coaching change, whether the passionate fan base wanted one or not.
The change came Sunday when the Canucks officially fired head coach Bruce Boudreau and replaced him with Rick Tocchet.
The former coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Arizona Coyotes is the 21st head coach in the franchise’s history.
“Those decisions are never easy,” Allvin said at a press conference. “But at this point I felt there was needed a new voice to see if we can get this group to buy in, to play a different way.”
Talk has long swirled that the beleaguered Canucks (18-25-3) were planning a coaching change, and many criticized the organization’s decision to keep the 68-year-old Boudreau behind the bench amid reports that management was already in talks with his replacement.
Jim Rutherford, the team’s head of hockey operations, said he’s been “too direct and too honest” in interviews, and that affected Boudreau.
“Unfortunately, it’s turned out the way it did. Nobody takes great pleasure in this,” he said. “I’ve known Bruce for a long time. He’s been a friend and I feel very bad about it. And if I’ve insulted anybody in the process, I apologize personally, on behalf of the Canucks.”
WATCH | The National: Canucks fans blast company after Boudreau fired:
Canucks fans blast company after head coach fired 1 year ago
Duration2:02
The firing of Vancouver Canuck’s head coach Bruce Boudreau has caused anger amongst some fans who are blasting the organization’s handling of the process, which was drawn out over weeks of speculation.
Assistant coach Trent Cull was also fired Sunday.
In addition to the 58-year-old Tocchet, the team has added Adam Foote as an assistant coach and Sergei Gonchar as a defense development coach.
Foote and Gonchar were both NHL defencemen, and Tocchet played 18 seasons as a forward.
Defensive risks
While Vancouver regularly found ways to score this season, the team has also given up an average of 3.96 goals per game. The Canucks’ penalty kill has been a liability, working at a league-worst 65.9 per cent.
Fixing the team’s back end will be a focus, Tocchet said.
“You can’t win this game if you’re going to be at the bottom of those categories,” he said. “With that, there is order. There is some hard rules to keep the puck out of your net without losing offence.
“Don’t get me wrong, but that’s one thing we all know that’s got to improve around here, absolutely.”
Three man are seen in a press meeting, against a banner with unfocused Vancouver Canucks and their sponsors logos.
Canucks new head coach Rick Tocchet, left, talks in a press conference along with general manager Patrik Allvin, middle, and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)
Change won’t happen all at once, the new boss said.
“We’ve just got to go in every day and take a bite,” Tocchet said, noting he has work to do in evaluating the roster and finding where he can get more out of players.
“It’s just really small bites at times, slow it down a little bit. I’m sure the players heads are spinning and my job is to get their heads to slow down a little bit and just play the game.”
The changes come after the Edmonton Oilers gave Vancouver a 4-2 defeat Saturday, marking the Canucks’ third loss in a row and their ninth in the last 10 games.
Vancouver has given up multi-goal leads in eight losses this season and sits sixth in the Pacific Division, 14 points out of a playoff spot.
WATCH | Boudreau salutes Vancouver crowd in final game with Canucks:
Emotional end of game for Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau hours before being fired 1 year ago
Duration0:53
Bruce Boudreau looked to stay for a short time on the Canucks bench Saturday night after a 4-2 loss by his team to Edmonton. It would be his last game after being fired by the team hours later.
Boudreau, who holds a 617-342-128 coaching record over 15 NHL seasons, was hired on Dec. 6, 2021, replacing former head coach Travis Green. Under his direction, Vancouver went 32-15-10 to close out last season and missed the playoffs by five points.
The coach took some time after Saturday’s loss to stand on the bench and praise the crowd as they chanted “Bruce, there it is!” to the tune of Tag Team’s “Whoomp! [There it is]”.
“I just wanted to savour looking at the stands because who knows if I’m ever going to get this chance again,” he said. “And just keep that in my mind and the memory, let it burn there forever.”
‘I think that’s on us as players’
Canucks defenceman Luke Schenn said players continued to fight for Boudreau despite an abundance of outside noise and a disappointing string of results.
“Obviously, we feel like we let him down in the room. He deserves better. I think that’s on us as players,” he said after Saturday’s loss. “I’ve played obviously a long time and I’ve gone through, I don’t know, a bunch of coaching changes. And a lot of time you do need a shake up and sometimes teachers do lose the room and I don’t think this was the case here.
“Guys enjoy playing for Bruce and in this room, we feel like we let him down. We wanted to continue to try to do better for him and sadly, just too many losses pile up.”
Boudreau made an impact on both the players and the fan base, Allvin said, but the decision to make a change was based on results, process and where the Canucks sit in the standings.
