Canucks fire head coach Adam Foote, ‘other changes to coaching staff’ coming: report

Foote has been on the Canucks’ bench since 2022-23, when he originally joined as an assistant coach to Rick Tocchet. Foote was well-regarded for his handling of the Canucks’ defencemen and penalty kill, and when Tocchet departed to take a job with the Philadelphia Flyers last offseason, the Canucks tabbed Foote to be their next head coach.

As you know by now, the 2025-26 season was a disastrous one for the Canucks. Now, not all of the Canucks’ struggles this past season can be pinned on Foote, but he certainly wasn’t blameless in the situation, either. Today’s move doesn’t come as much of a surprise, as the Sedin-Johnson era of Canucks management began last week, and it was believed by many that they’d want to bring in their own head coach.

Manny Malhotra has long been tabbed as the next man up for the Canucks’ head coaching job. In fact, there was a considerable amount of speculation that it would be Malhotra who the Canucks promoted last summer instead of Foote, as Malhotra led the AHL Abbotsford Canucks to a Calder Cup Championship in 2024-25.

It will be interesting to see if that’s still the case here, as many people have wondered if the Canucks’ potentially hoping to draft Manny’s son Caleb Malhotra at third overall could complicate things.