Many thought that when the Vancouver Canucks finally moved on from Bruce Boudreau and made Rick Tocchet their new head coach, they would get a nice, clean slate and not have any issues going forward, or at least not to the level that they saw in the first half of the season.
But the trouble hasn’t gone away so easily for Vancouver. They’ve gone 3-4-1 since the coaching change, and word is starting to come out that some players aren’t gelling with Tocchet, particularly Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Andrei Kuzmenko.
Tyler Yaremchuk and Mike McKenna talked more about the Canucks struggles on Daily Faceoff Live, and their concerns about this rough start with the new coach.
Mike McKenna: I’m not concerned because I kind of expected this. They’re 3-4-1 under Tocchet, but here’s the thing, he hasn’t really had a chance to dig in and implement structure beyond video work leading up to games. They’ve only had four big practices, like full-on practices, with Tocchet in charge. He talked a whole bunch after yesterday’s game about how important today’s practice is, and going back to basics and teaching the team structure, and even positioning. That’s like me with the Squirts!
But I think that’s the level that the Canucks need to dig down to, is to the basics, the fundamentals. He talked about structure, discipline, and leadership, that’s what gets you through games. They didn’t get through the game, so to me, he’s calling out structure, discipline, and leadership. He said no more smashing sticks on the bench. How many times have seen J.T. Miller smash his stick? There’s even a clip out there where he smashes one, and Kuzmenko goes “Ughhhhhh,” Pettersson rolls his eyes.
There’s a disconnect there and I think Tocchet is trying to flesh it out, he’s trying to get this team to play his way. If that means sitting Kuzmenko for a little while like he did against Detroit two nights ago, that may be what has to happen. So I’m not terribly concerned unless this begins to be a trend over 10-12 games. I think it’s a bit of tough love now, and I think Tocchet knows how to balance it.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, I think it’s maybe a reminder that this is going to be a long, long process in Vancouver. You talked about the J.T. Miller thing, it just feels like there are some deep-rooted issues, and I believe there were some optimistic Canucks fans who were hoping they would get a Boudreau-esque bump from Tocchet and maybe it would snap this team right back onto the right track, and it just really hasn’t seemed to be going that way.
For me, I think some of the mistakes were avoidable though, like if you would have not signed Kuzmenko three weeks ago. Again, signing players when they’re in the middle of a heater is never a great idea. That contract’s not bad, but you maybe could’ve gotten a second-round pick and a prospect for him at the deadline. Then you could have just signed him in the offseason, or you would have had this run where you see how he and Tocchet get along a bit.
It’s a long grind and I don’t think Kuzmenko will now never work in Vancouver, I think it will still get to a point where they learn to co-exist, but you thought the drama was going to go away in Vancouver, and it’s just not going away, which I think is a bit of an issue there.
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