Two seasons ago, the Vancouver Canucks lost seven games in Round 2 to an Edmonton Oilers team that has just made consecutive finals appearances. Now, that Canucks team is considering a rebuild.
Three years ago, the Canucks fired head coach Travis Green due to his lack of success, of not being able to clinch a playoff birth in his five seasons as head coach and an 8-15-2 start to the season, according to HockeyReference.com. So, Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin opted for the more experienced Bruce Boudreau to hopefully lead a young, up-and-coming Canucks team to the post-season.
Though Boudreau became a fan favorite in Vancouver with the “Bruce there it is" chants permeating Rogers Arena during his time as Vancouver's bench boss, the unwavering support from fans didn’t help the team reach the playoffs. The team fell just short of clinching a wild-card spot, and if it wasn’t for Green’s poor start with the Canucks at the beginning of the season, Boudreau might’ve helped clinch a playoff birth in Vancouver for the first time since 2015. His 32-15-10 record from relieving Green suggested so, and with players such as Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller and Quinn Hughes all hitting career highs in points, the “Bruce effect” looked to be in full motion for the following season.
Like the coach he replaced, Boudreau got off to a poor start to the season with an 18-25-3 record and was replaced with former Arizona Coyotes head coach turned TNT NHL analyst Rick Tocchet, who, like Boudreau, wasn’t able to coach the Canucks to the playoffs in his first season, but ended on a positive note with a record of 20-12-4.
After taking over as coach, Tocchet proved instrumental in helping Pettersson reach a career-high 102 points, and Hughes reach a career-high 68 points.
That season ended without long-time captain Bo Horvat, who was shipped out in January to the New York Islanders, but his departure didn’t seem to affect the team, as they still finished the season on a strong note.
Although the Canucks appointed Hughes as their captain a month before the next season, his voice wouldn’t carry the same weight as Horvat, so there was a shift in leadership among the players, which so naturally led to Miller taking the reigns of the dressing room. Which, at that point, worked well with Tocchet’s hard-nosed approach, as the team got off to a 9-2-1 start, with Miller and Pettersson being one of the league’s best 1-2 center duos.
It was one of the driving forces for Vancouver finishing the season 1st in the Pacific Division and for Tocchet to receive his first Jack Adams Award, rewarding the coach for transforming his team from a pretender to a contender. It was a season in which the Canucks ended a lengthy contract negotiation with Pettersson by extending him to an eight-year deal with a $11.6-million AAV, per PuckPedia.com, who was one of three Canucks to finish the season with 30 goals or more. It also led to them finishing the regular season with the 6th-most goals, keeping pace into the postseason and pushing the Oilers, who made the finals that year, to seven games.
What Tocchet did in his first full season as Vancouver’s head coach wasn’t just make his star players elevate their game and bring them to the playoffs; Tocchet instilled a new culture on the West Coast that hadn’t been there in over a decade.
With Tocchet stepping down as head coach last April, Adam Foote, who spent the last two and a half seasons as a Canucks assistant coach, will be Vancouver’s new bench boss. He will have a lot of work to do from now until next October to instill a different culture and brand from Tocchet’s, which will have to start with his best players setting a new precedent. With that in mind, let's look at what went wrong last season for the Canucks, how they can improve, and what their off-season should look like.
Miller Madness
Other than his 200-foot game, goal-scoring ability, and physicality, Miller is known to be uber-competitive and vocal, sometimes inflicting emotional tirades on his teammates. All those traits have made Miller and his teams successful over his 13 seasons in the league, but this past season, it finally ran its course.
“I felt like for a long time that there was a solution here because everybody has worked on it, including the parties involved. But it only gets resolved for a short period of time and then it festers again and so it certainly appears like there’s not a good solution that would keep this group together,” said Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford to Gary Mason of The Globe and Mail last January, who attempted to repair the relationship between Miller and Pettersson.
The sole reason why this situation blew up in Vancouver’s face was that Miller was just outright too hard on Pettersson, but also because they were two entirely different personalities. Miller has a fiery attitude, while Pettersson is quiet and keeps to himself, and the Canucks should’ve recognized that.
“I’ll be super honest with you. I was in that dressing room with those guys. I love J.T., love him. He’s a f***ing animal. But I even told him. I said, ‘Hey, you’re too hard on this kid. You’re too hard on him.’ And I said, ‘I know you’re saying exactly what I think, but he’s a kid that doesn’t take it well when you’re on him.’ When you’re on him, he’s gonna shut it down. I told him, like, ‘Hey, you’re gonna lose this guy if you keep doing it.’” said Brad Richardson on the Missin Curfew podcast, who was on the Canucks for part of the 2021-22 season.
It’s not like the relationship between Miller and Pettersson had just turned sour out of nowhere; there was a history of this, and it wasn’t just Pettersson who caught the brunt of Miller’s outbursts. During his most recent stints with the Canucks between 2021-23, NHL veteran Luke Schenn got into it with Miller.
Something had to change. The feud between Miller and Pettersson was creating a distraction to the team that just didn’t need to be there, and it might’ve been one of the leading causes for them just missing out on a playoff spot this past season.
So while this ordeal was fluctuating throughout media cycles, the Canucks decided to shop both players for trades. The reasoning for Miller was obvious, but with Pettersson already having a down year at that point, further proven by his 15 goals and 45 points in 64 games, his name was also being discussed in trade circles. It’s just a little odd that management considered getting rid of a player in Pettersson who is six years younger than Miller, who just signed an eight-year deal the season prior, and whose season was riddled with injuries, including an undisclosed injury that forced him to miss the final few weeks of the season. At the same time, did management believe that Miller could take Vancouver further due to his competitive and sometimes unruly nature?
Direction
Following their 2023-24 season, many thought the Canucks would be right back in the heart of the playoffs the following year. They were anything but that.
Aside from Vancouver’s locker room debacle that had everyone distracted, including Tocchet, the team’s sense of direction seemed off.
When Vancouver shipped Miller out late last January to the New York Rangers, you would think, considering the team was trading one of their most valuable pieces that helped them go deep into the playoffs the previous season, that they would demand another player of his caliber in return.
Allvin had other plans; in exchange for Miller, Allvin received 25-year-old Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini, and a conditional first-rounder. This deal is a win for Allvin if he’s rebuilding. The move was questionable, and due to Miller’s personality, his value might’ve gone down. But at the same time, none of the assets Allvin got from the Rangers will fill the hole Miller leaves behind.
Chytil is a first-round pick from 2017 who’s still trying to prove himself worthy of his draft stock. Mancini has just 31 NHL games under his belt at 23 years old, and the first-round pick they received ended up being flipped to the Pittsburgh Penguins for defenceman Marcus Pettersson and forward Drew O’Connor.
It almost feels like there was more to be left on the table for Allvin, as the first-round pick carries enough value in and of itself to acquire something more significant than what they got from New York.
This move could’ve helped the Canucks change course for the rest of the season at the halfway point to make a playoff run. Instead, it leaves a sour taste in their mouths.
Off-Season Checklist
If the Canucks want to get back to their 2023-24 season form, they’ll need to make some big decisions both in-house and elsewhere.
Both Brock Boeser and Pius Suter are set to become free agents on July 1st, and barring a trade that could bring back respectable assets, the Canucks don’t have a choice but to re-sign them.
Since his first full season with the Canucks no player has scored more goals than Boeser, who has proven to be his team’s most dangerous goal-scorer. Who, after Pettersson, is Vancouver’s best offensive forward by a long shot, now that Miller is gone.
Boeser does most of his damage on Vancouver’s power play, and with Miller gone, Boeser’s production on the man advantage will be relied upon more than ever. If the Canucks decide to let Boeser walk, they’ll most definitely have to replace him with someone who can score near the same clip. Which isn’t promising, considering this year's free-agent class is weak, with the only respectable option to Boeser hitting the open market being Winnipeg Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers, who had one less goal than Boeser last season — a player who will draw lots of attention league-wide next week.
Another area of business Allvin will have to take care of is whether he’ll resign Suter, and they may not have a choice but to give him whatever he desires.
Suter’s coming off a career-high 25 goals, tied for second most on the team, and points (46), while headmanning the league’s third-best penalty kill last season. Other than his production, the reason why it’s hard to see Vancouver let Suter walk is due to how thin the center market is this year. Unless Allvin offers Toronto Maple Leafs center John Tavares a deal attractive enough to make him leave his hometown or pry Sam Bennett out of Florida, the next best option is a 37-year-old Claude Giroux.
In terms of some names to follow, Buffalo Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram has been eligible for a contract extension for a year now. This will end soon, as the interest in the young defenseman is sky-high especially from the Canucks. According to Yahoo Sports, Vancouver is eager to sign the 24-year-old defenseman, who's coming off a great season, not just with a career-high 38 points but also in the health department. Since being selected 4th overall by the Colorado Avalanche in 2019, the most games Byram has logged in a single season was 55. Now that he's coming off a full 82-game season Byram will have plenty of suitors, including Vancouver, who will try to sign him for his offensive capabilities like any team, but in their case, to keep their number one defenseman happy.
According to Thomas Drance of the Athletic, Boeser’s market value is $5.9 million while Suter’s is $4.8 million, and with Vancouver having $12.1 million in cap space, it’ll be challenging to sign both while addressing other needs. One of those needs has to be replacing Miller’s role as the team’s best two-way centerman, which will be hard to come by and expensive. Considering the weak free-agent class this summer, it seems like Allvin will have to work some cap magic to make his team competitive next season.
