The Vancouver Canucks turned the page on weeks of turmoil by unveiling Rick Tocchet as the 21st head coach in franchise history Sunday afternoon
Tocchet’s hiring comes in the wake of emotional back-to-back games at Rogers Arena for the Canucks fanbase and their now-former bench boss Bruce Boudreau.
President Jim Rutherford said that the process started “about a month ago” in a meeting with Boudreau and general manager Patrick Alvin. The Canucks management told Boudreau they would “like to see some progress,” especially from younger players.
Weeks later, Rutherford said that “it got to the point where Patrick started to zero in on it and felt at that point we had to make a change.
Rutherford apologized for his handling of the situation during the press conference.
“Now part of this process, and I will apologize to Bruce for this, is probably in my interviews over the course of the season,” Rutherford said. “When people ask me a question, I’m probably too direct and too honest and so that goes back to my comment about team playing with structure, more structure and things like that.
“I’ve done that my whole career. I’ve tried to be honest, I’ve tried to answer the best I can. And sometimes that affects certain people and in this case, it probably did affect him. And, and I’m sorry I did that. And I’ve learned from it.
As Vancouver capped off consecutive losses on Saturday, “Bruce, there it is!” chants rained from the stands as the crowd anticipated Boudreau’s dismissal. After Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers, Boudreau admitted that the moment was “something that’s going to stick with me for my whole life.”
Tocchet, who joined from American network TNT, will bring in former NHLers Adam Foote and Sergei Gonchar (part-time, remote) to his staff.
The 58-year-old said that the attractiveness of Vancouver drew him to the job but is well aware and on board with the fact that it won’t be rife with success right away.
“The biggest thing with Toch, when we started talking, was he asked me if this was a quick fix,” Alvin said. “For me, it’s not a quick fix. Where we are, a lot of work needs to be done, with everything starting with how we prepared and how detailed we are in our practice.”
Tocchet will have a heavy start to his tenure with three games in four nights starting Tuesday. Tocchet will rely on assistant coach Mike Yao in the very short term and added that the mantra going forward will be that an elephant cannot be eaten in one bite.
“We just gotta go in every day, take a bite,” Tocchet said. “Really slow things down. I gotta evaluate some players too, myself, to see what’s out there. Whereas maybe some other guys can have a little bit more role, to get some more ice time and contribute. I think that’s something we got to look at.
“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.”
Tocchet comes in with six seasons of head coaching experience, two with the Tampa Bay Lightning (2008-09, 2009-10 and four with the Arizona Coyotes (2017-18 to 2020-21). He holds a 178-200-60 head coaching record.
The 58-year-old led his teams to the playoffs once, in 2020-21, when the Coyotes beat the Nashville Predators 3-1 in the qualifying round. The Yotes then fell to the Colorado Avalanche 4-1 in the first round.
Tocchet also had a three-season tenure as an assistant with the Pittsburgh Penguins where he won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2015-16 and 2016-17.
