VANCOUVER — Adam Foote’s unexpected and overdue blast towards his veteran players Monday should create some significant discomfort in the Vancouver Canucks’ dressing room.
It’s about time.
The head coach’s post-game criticism of the most experienced Canucks, whom he did not name individually, was surprising only because Foote has contorted to protect his players during the team’s epic National Hockey League crash.
At times, he has infuriated an angry market, which has witnessed just four home victories in 21 games this season, with his defence of players and insistence after many losses that “we were right there.”
When Foote used his camera time after Vancouver’s 11th straight loss, a 4-3 defeat by the New York Islanders at Rogers Arena, to criticize veterans for how easily they are “defeated” by abandoning the game plan and exhibiting negative habits, the beleaguered rookie coach’s approval ratings skyrocketed.
“Our veterans are the ones that feel defeated first,” Foote told reporters. “It’s been going on here for a few years. You know, we get off our game, we get frustrated, we overcomplicate it, slamming the gate, things like that. It’s something we’ve got to get out of our culture.
“I’ve been watching this for too long. We’ve got to stop burning ourselves by getting frustrated. We’ve got to stay within the plan. The plan’s working. And it’s our vets … they’ve got to hang in there.”
He explained that this waywardness preceded his arrival in Vancouver with former Canucks coach Rick Tocchet three years ago.
“It’s always been there,” Foote said. “You know, when I came here and watched 10 games before I took the job with Rick, we could see it clear as day. And we worked on it for a long time and we almost got it out completely, but it’s still there. We can not give the other team energy because we get frustrated.
“Even the guys that aren’t here anymore, when it didn’t go their way, they over-created or their frustration came in play. And they had bad changes or they’d slam a gate. And the other teams are pretty bright, and they can see that. You give them the juice, you give them the energy. If you have a bad change, our group has to defend coming on … so it all snowballs. We didn’t do it a lot at the start of the season and it’s lingering back. And we’re going to stop it. We can’t do it to ourselves.”
Amid the franchise’s longest winless streak since 1988, the Canucks did not practise on Tuesday. But a bunch of their veteran players will be asked about Foote’s criticism when they assemble for the morning skate ahead of Wednesday’s home game against the Washington Capitals.
This uneasiness is also overdue.
The Canucks’ collapse is going too smoothly. Too easily, they have plummeted to the bottom of the NHL standings and fallen far behind the pack of merely poor teams.
Foote has talked about key injuries, especially at centre and in goal, for much of the season. And these have been a hugely undermining factor. He has also noted, innumerable times, the inexperience of the Canucks’ defensive prospects.
President Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin have been soberingly clear about the franchise’s shift towards a rebuild, the need to take a step back to accumulate younger players and draft picks.
They traded Quinn Hughes.
It’s like some of the players watched and listened to all this and decided, well, the team is young and depleted and rebuilding, which means moving to the bottom of the standings and the top of the draft, so there’s no way to win.
But losing in professional sports can never be normalized.
That’s what it seems has happened over the last two months.
Was a steep descent unavoidable? Probably.
But it feels like it has come too easily and with little consequence to the group.
Individually, a lot of Canucks are in agony over what is transpiring.
You think this is what Brock Boeser and Conor Garland envisioned when they signed those long-term extensions on July 1, believing they would be part of a playoff team led by Hughes? All winger Jake DeBrusk did with the Boston Bruins was win, and all he has done since choosing the Canucks in free agency two summers ago is lose.
Thirty-four-year-old Evander Kane, who went to the last two Stanley Cup Finals with the Edmonton Oilers, talked Monday about how difficult it is to lose a season at his age, something to which 35-year-old Tyler Myers can relate.
For a lot of Canucks, these past three weeks have been the competitive nadir of their careers.
But they haven’t done enough to fight it collectively by coming together, sticking to the game plan during difficult stretchesand leading their younger teammates by example. They aren’t building the culture the organization needs no matter who is playing — or coaching — in Vancouver next season. This is what Foote was getting at Monday night.
There was a harsh, inescapable reality about what was going to happen to the Canucks when the season began to unravel, and how far they might fall. But no one should surrender to it.
“Every day is a new day, every day is a different day,” Foote said during the press conference that is one of his defining moments as the Canucks’ coach. “You have to feel when the right time is. Sometimes they don’t need a kick. Sometimes they need a little bit of love. Every day is different. If they understand the contract, if they understand what they’ve agreed to, then the accountability becomes more firm.”
