Rumours that Rick Tocchet will be the next head coach of the Vancouver Canucks heating up

It sure sounds like Rick Tocchet will be the next head coach of the Vancouver Canucks.

Tocchet has been connected to the Canucks for some time now, but industry chatter has seemingly skyrocketed in the past week, and appears to have reached a boiling point this evening.

In a TSN 1200 appearance earlier today, TSN insider Darren Dreger suggested that a change in Canucks coach could happen in “four-to-six weeks.”

Additionally, on tonight’s 32 Thoughts segment of Hockey Night in Canada, Elliotte Friedman said of the Canucks’ coaching situation: “When and if the coaching change comes, I do believe it’s going to be Rick Tocchet.”

Tocchet most recently coached the Arizona Coyotes from 2017-18 to 2020-21 before taking a job as an analyst on the TNT. Tocchet has a career coaching record of 178-200-60.

This week, Rick Dhaliwal of Donnie and Dhali — The Team reported that Rick Tocchet’s broadcasting deal with TNT requires that he give four weeks’ notice before leaving his spot on the panel.

Patrick Johnston of The Province also reported the following when it comes to Tocchet and the Canucks:

“As previously reported by Postmedia, sources spotted president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford in Las Vegas about 10 days ago. It’s now understood he was there with team owner Francesco Aquilini.

Tocchet, notably, lives in Las Vegas.

If they reached a deal then, four weeks from there takes us to the end of the month.

The Canucks are off for a week at the end of the month and then it’s the All-Star break.”

It’s been known for some time now that Boudreau wouldn’t be back beyond this year in Vancouver — the team president took his position thinking Boudreau’s contract was for one year instead of two and made that fact known publicly — but there was no guarantee he’d be fired before the end of the season.

It certainly appears as though that will be the case now.

More to come.