Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet wasn’t hiding the fact that the 2024-25 season was a trying one.
“It’s been a hard year, but it’s also been a year where you can improve by learning these lessons,” Tocchet said at the team’s end-of-season media availability on Friday.
After winning the Pacific Division title in 2023-24, the Canucks missed the playoffs and finished fifth in the division this season.
“We didn’t make the playoffs, so everybody has to look at each other and ask ‘what could’ve been different?’” Tocchet said.
And according to the coach, that’s especially true for Canucks forward Elias Pettersson.
Pettersson, who was playing on the first year of an eight-year, $92-million contract extension he signed in March 2024, struggled to live up to his heavy price tag this season.
The Swedish forward finished with 15 goals and 30 assists in 65 games, far removed from his 34-goal, 55-assist stat line of 2023-24. He also dealt with a couple of injury blows, including what he said was an oblique injury that forced him to miss the final few weeks of the season.
Asked what Pettersson needs to do to bounce back, Tocchet said that the work needs to start in the off-season.
“I think he’ll tell you this, that his preparation has to get better,” Tocchet said of his star forward. “There’s no secret, if you want to be a great player, you have to prepare. Almost an obsessive type of preparation.
“And I think he got behind the 8-ball early, then the expectations come, and there is a little bit of struggle with the team, and then he could never gain traction.”
Tocchet also said Pettersson’s practice habits need to improve.
“You know me, I’m an honest guy, and he’s got to practise better,” Tocchet said. “… Those are things he’s learning. And do I think he will do those things? I do. I really do. I think I can bank on him taking this information, going away for four months, and make sure he has a plan. And the plan has to change, I don’t think he can train the same way.”
Pettersson’s struggles came during a season where a rift between him and J.T. Miller forced the Canucks to trade the latter to the New York Rangers.
Tocchet admitted things got “uncomfortable,” but the team tried everything it could before deciding something had to change.
“I hear people on the sideline, ‘you know they got to go to dinner and fight it out.’ You mean you don’t think we tried all of that stuff?” Tocchet said. “It just didn’t work out. And I know everybody is looking for a bad guy, I don’t know if there is a bad guy in the thing. It just didn’t work out.
“… It’s unfortunate. Because would I not want J.T. Miller in my lineup? One-hundred per cent. But at that time, it just couldn’t work.”
Does Tocchet think he can win with a player like Pettersson as a core piece?
“Ya, I think we can,” Tocchet said.
That’s all assuming Tocchet is back with the Canucks next season, which he said is something that is still to be decided.
The Canucks have a team option on Tocchet’s contract for the 2025-26 season. He wants to return, but said there are still conversations to be had.
“Of course I want to be back here, but there’s a process you have to go through with (team president) Jim (Rutherford) and (GM) Patrik (Allvin), and that’s really where it’s at,” Tocchet said.
