It’s no secret that the Vancouver Canucks’ 2024-25 season was tumultuous and disappointing. Entering a new chapter after Rick Tocchet’s departure, stability and calm should be the team’s watchwords.
To that end, the Canucks elected to promote assistant coach Adam Foote to take Tocchet’s place. That sits well with right winger Conor Garland.
“I’m really excited about it,” Garland said last week, shortly after earning gold with Team USA at the 2025 World Championship. “I loved having him as an assistant. It’s obviously going to be a little different now. I’m assuming as the head, we won’t be able to talk and hang out as much at the rink. But he was a lot of fun, and he’s a very smart guy.”
When former Canucks bench boss Bruce Boudreau guested on The Hockey News’ Big Show earlier this week, he warned that the transition from fun-loving assistant to hard-nosed head man can be tough.
“The head coach is like the father, the disciplinarian,” Boudreau said. “The assistant coach is the guy that the players all come to and ask questions… Now, all of a sudden, you change the role. You’ve got to be the a——, and you’ve got to be the guy that comes down with the hammer.”
Boudreau was a head man for almost his entire coaching career, which spans more than three decades. While it’s not especially common to see assistants step into head jobs on the same NHL team, Foote is following three others who have recently made the same jump in the Pacific Division: Ryan Huska in Calgary, Jim Hiller in Los Angeles and Ryan Warsofsky in San Jose.
While Garland is disappointed that Foote’s new position will cut into their 1-on-1 time, he is confident in his new coach’s abilities.
“When I get older, I’d love to coach,” Garland said. “A lot of the stuff he’d say, I’d make mental notes of – the techniques he talks about and how to win a playoff series, and what plays are important. I think he is one of the smarter guys when it comes to defensive hockey and winning games.”
The stats seem to bear that out.
During Boudreau’s 103 games in Vancouver, the Canucks logged an expected goals share of 47.83 percent at 5-on-5, according to naturalstattrick.com. In 200 games under Tocchet and Foote, they improved to 50.58 percent.
Over the same time frames, Boudreau’s penalty kill ranked 31st with a success rate of 73.7 percent. Under Tocchet and Foote, the Canucks improved to 80.3 percent over the full 200 games and 82.6 percent in 2024-25 – third-best in the NHL.
One of the key cogs in that penalty-killing machine was veteran defenseman Derek Forbort. A new arrival last season on a one-year deal at a $1.5-million cap hit, the 33-year-old elected to bypass free agency and return to Vancouver. On Tuesday, he signed a new one-year contract worth $2 million.
As someone who has only known the Canucks through their challenging ’24-25 season, Forbort’s decision to return can be seen as a vote of confidence for Foote, who he worked with closely as part of the blueline.
It’s also one UFA back in the fold in Vancouver. It’s unclear whether forwards Pius Suter or Brock Boeser will follow suit or if they’ll test the open market on July 1.
Of course, Canucks GM Patrik Allvin and hockey ops president Jim Rutherford must scrutinize each one of their roster decisions in terms of how it will impact Quinn Hughes’ desire to stay with the Canucks beyond the two-year term remaining on his contract.
“If you’re going to trade Quinn Hughes, you’d better get a whole team back,” Boudreau said. “He’s that good.”
Meanwhile, Foote filled out his coaching staff.
He replaced himself as Vancouver’s defensive assistant with Kevin Dean – another bruising defenseman in his playing days, who is of similar vintage.
As a player, Dean won the Stanley Cup as a rookie with the New Jersey Devils in 1995. Recently an assistant with the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks, he coached Forbort in Boston and just worked with Garland as part of Warsofsky’s U.S. staff at worlds.
Brett McLean and Scott Young also became assistant coaches.
McLean coached AHL’s Iowa Wild for the past two seasons and was an assistant coach on Minnesota before that. He played 385 career NHL games and recorded 162 points.
Young was the Canucks’ director of player personnel for the past three seasons and was the Pittsburgh Penguins’ director of player development for five years beforehand. He won the Stanley Cup with the Penguins in 1991 and the Colorado Avalanche in 1996 during his 1,181-game career.
Canucks assistant Yogi Svejkovsky, who handled the special teams duties in Vancouver last season, joined Tocchet in Philadelphia. Defensive development coach Sergei Gonchar and video coach Dylan Crawford also won’t return to the Canucks next season, but Henrik and Daniel Sedin will remain player development coaches, with Marko Torenius keeping the goalie coach role.
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