If the Vancouver Canucks try their greatest to make each participant want to depart city, they’re doing a fairly good job. Because this season has been one trainwreck after one other.
It’s the center of January and right here I’m writing one more article about how the Canucks have bungled one thing. And on this case, it’s the therapy of their very own (now former) head coach Bruce Boudreau and his assistant, Trent Cull.
Sometimes I sit down to write this stuff and I believe to myself, “Who’s this going to anger? How might this affect my future in hockey?” And honestly, I’m sick of doing that. I’m executed worrying if my opinion goes to upset somebody in administration or league circles.
So right here it’s.
I can’t think about how any Vancouver participant feels good about being a Canuck right now. From the depressing season on the ice, to the way in which gamers and coaches have been handled by administration, it’s been an absolute joke. And I don’t know the way Vancouver plans on repairing a tarnished picture.
Just a few days in the past when Boudreau was a useless man strolling as coach of the Canucks – and everybody knew it – Vancouver Defenseman Tyler Myers mentioned bluntly that he’d by no means seen something like what was taking place in his profession.
Now, first off, that exhibits Myers by no means performed within the minors. I noticed some wild stuff driving the iron lung round North America over the course of my profession. But Myers is at the moment taking part in in his 14th NHL season. He’s seen powerful occasions in Buffalo. And in Winnipeg. And now in Vancouver.
Yet nothing he skilled in these cities comes shut to what he’s skilled up to now week as a member of the Canucks. And Myers mentioned that every one the surface noise – that Vancouver administration refused to take any blame for throughout Sunday’s press convention – was affecting the group’s play on the ice.
I can inform you first hand, his feedback had been very pointed. To mainly name out your administration for the circus that’s been created isn’t one thing gamers usually have the stones to do.
It jogged my memory of the film Slap Shot, when Charlestown Chiefs goaltender Denis Lemieux known as his agent whereas on a street journey. ‘Trade me right f***ing now,’ he mentioned.
And it wasn’t an remoted incident. Less than two weeks in the past, defenseman Quinn Hughes straight up instructed reporters that Tanner Pearson’s hand damage wasn’t dealt with correctly.
Let’s see: what else?
How in regards to the time Vancouver tried to wholesome scratch ahead Brock Boeser on Hockey Fights Cancer night time, when his father, Duke, handed away from the illness simply six months earlier than?
Then there’s the allegations that Vancouver Assistant General Manager Emilie Castonguay made discriminatory feedback in opposition to then-Canucks analytics division member Rachel Doerrie.
What in regards to the Canucks providing Bo Horvat a lowball contract this offseason, then doubling down on their trash supply with one other gutter bomb in-season? What a message to your group.
Horvat is having a profession yr, he’s the captain of the group, and the Canucks are crying over not having cap house. All this regardless of having signed ahead J.T. Miller to a huge, seven-year, $56 million contract extension a yr prematurely of when he was set to hit free company.
I may go on and on with the missteps and brush fires which have engulfed the Canucks in latest reminiscence. But a lot of these issues are petty in contrast to how Boudreau was handled.
I hated that Vancouver left Boudreau dangling within the breeze for the higher a part of two months. And judging by his feedback Saturday night time, I’m guessing he feels the identical. He mentioned that he thought it was over in November.
Remember November? When Canucks President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford ran the bus over Boudreau, then backed it up over the Vancouver coach a few occasions for good measure?
It was worse than what Arturs Irbe used to do to his pads to break them in. Legend has it that the Latvian goalie used to have the group bus run them over to soften them up.
Well, the Canucks didn’t soften Boudreau, who saved exhibiting up to work like a professional. Only he wasn’t handled like a professional. He was diminished to a placeholder till Rick Tocchet may be employed because the group’s new head coach.
I’m not going to sit right here and act like Vancouver has been good this season and Boudreau shouldn’t have been fired. The Canucks have been horrendous defensively. I perceive the transfer from a enterprise standpoint. But for somebody like Boudreau who got here in final season and jumpstarted the Canucks, it was a sorry sendoff. Cold as may be. And manner in need of what somebody Rutherford considers ‘a friend’ deserves to obtain publicly.
During Sunday’s presser, Rutherford confirmed some regret. “I will apologize to Bruce for this: in my interviews over the year when I was asked a question, I was probably too direct and honest,” Rutherford instructed reporters. “So I’m going to zip it. I’m going to let (GM Patrik Allvin) and Rick talk about the team.”
Too little, too late. The injury was executed regardless of the general public apology. Repeatedly undercutting a coach, then letting him stroll the plank for 2 months was simply incorrect. And I believe it would have ramifications on who desires to play in Vancouver.
Do I believe free brokers view the Canucks in the identical manner they did two years in the past? No likelihood. Vancouver’s at all times been a fascinating vacation spot. It’s a good metropolis. Yeah, the followers can be intense. And the media presence is heavy. But gamers usually communicate fondly of their time there.
This total state of affairs jogs my memory of the place the Ottawa Senators had been throughout the offseason main up to the 2018-19 season. There had been off-ice points. There had been contract squabbles. The group wasn’t excellent. And the proprietor – the late Eugene Melnyk – couldn’t preserve his palms out of the pie. The issues began on the prime and trickled down.
I went into that offseason with the Senators useless final on my record of groups that I needed to play for. 31 out of 31. There was a lot drama off the ice. And I’d already been burned by the group as soon as throughout the 2011-12 season – which is a story for one more day.
Yet when free company got here round, guess who was calling? Ottawa. Only Ottawa. If I needed to play one other yr {of professional} hockey, the Senators had been my greatest wager. They had been providing a contract on the primary day of free company and I didn’t want to threat ready for one more NHL group to come round.
So regardless of all my trepidation, I took the deal. And it was a colossal mess. The 2018-19 NHL season might need been the highwater mark for calamity within the Senators group. It was greater than dysfunction. It was downright ridiculous among the issues that transpired.
I wasn’t alone in wanting to keep away from Ottawa. The Senators went years with out signing a marquee free agent till ahead Claude Giroux determined to play for his hometown group this previous offseason.
The onerous fact is that solely determined free brokers ended up in Ottawa for a very long time, which stalled the development of the franchise. All that negativity surrounding the group was damaging.
I believe Vancouver is going through that very same actuality. Rutherford has already mentioned main surgical procedure is so as, and gamers are going to be traded. Or purchased out if offers can’t be reached.
I inform you what, he higher make good on that. Because I can’t think about there are lots of gamers in that locker room feeling needed right now, save for perhaps Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes.
And even then, these gamers aren’t silly. They’ve seen how Boudreau was handled. How can they really feel assured in Vancouver administration doing the right factor after witnessing the messy, slow-motion dismissal of the group’s head coach?
They can’t. They gained’t neglect. And I believe there’s going to be loads of free brokers that simply crossed Vancouver off their record of desired locales.
New Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet has a venture on his palms. With all of the modifications sure to happen in Vancouver over the following few months, I’ve a onerous time believing the Canucks will problem for the Stanley Cup any time quickly.
But I do assume Tocchet’s hiring will be a collective sigh of aid from contained in the room. Firing Boudreau – as a lot because the gamers felt it was their very own fault – successfully ripped the bandaid off. It had to occur.
And let me be clear. I actually like Rick Tocchet. He was my first head coach within the NHL as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning. I’ve loved each encounter with him since that 2008-09 season. Vancouver has a high quality coach in Tocchet that I do assume will assist stabilize the franchise.
But what transpires subsequent is a powerful guess. Maybe Tocchet will be ready to around the Canucks into defensive kind. But does Rutherford actually want that? The Connor Bedard sweepstakes are nicely underway. And the Canucks have a shot at touchdown the anticipated first general decide within the 2023 NHL entry draft.
The backside line is that the fame of the Canucks has taken a severe beating this season. Players will second guess going to Vancouver. And the worst half? All the trauma was self-inflicted.
Discussion about this post