New Vancouver Canucks coach Foote is implementing a more 'simplified' system
The Vancouver Canucks appear to be breathing easier coming into a new season.
Given what happened last season, that’s no surprise.
But Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford appears especially optimistic after what he’s seen from his group in training camp and the first four preseason games.
“The team is much calmer and in a much better place,” Rutherford told John Shannon and Daren Millard on the 100% Hockey podcast. “This group appears to be really together and wants to succeed together and support each other. It’s just a total different feel from where we were a year ago.
“We come off winning our division a year ago, I believe that there was a little bit of anxiousness and nervousness of what’s to come for a team that won the division. And a lot of things went wrong.”
J.T. Miller is gone of course, and so is Rick Tocchet.
Those were moves that management didn’t want to make, but perhaps there is a silver lining in Tocchet’s departure.
Foote appears to have a good relationship with star centre Elias Pettersson.
It appears the new Canucks head coach will also have his team playing a different style than they did under Tocchet, too. Rutherford described it as a more “simplified” way of playing.
“I like what Adam Foote’s done to prepare this team,” Rutherford said. “He’s simplified our system for our players. They bought into it.”
The Canucks struggled to generate offence last season, finishing 31st out of 32 teams in shots on goal and 23rd in goals-for. Despite winning the Jack Adams Trophy in 2024, many fans blamed Tocchet’s system for contributing to Vancouver’s inept offence.
Goal-scoring is expected to be a struggle this season too, which makes coaching all that more important.
“I would say that we’re going to have a skating team with a lot of puck pressure,” Rutherford said. “It’ll be more of a team that’s going all the time. More the style of play that teams win with now.”
When asked about Foote’s inexperience as a first-year head coach at the NHL level, Rutherford compared him to Rod Brind’Amour. The Campbell River native became an assistant coach with the Carolina Hurricanes when Rutherford was the team’s general manager. Brind’Amour went on to become one of the most respected head coaches in the game.
“Adam Foote is the same. Character. Leadership. Played the game hard. Played to win every game. Won championships. And he knows how to win,” said Rutherford. “He’s going to be able to take that behind the bench the same way as Brind’Amour did, and be a very successful head coach. Can he learn some things? Sure he can, but so can we all.”
Foote isn’t the only change behind the bench, as the Canucks have three new assistant coaches, in Kevin Dean, Brett McLean, and Scott Young.
Rutherford couldn’t say enough good things about them.
“I think we are very fortunate that we were able to hire the people that we did. These guys are very very good. I’ve watched them here over the last month. They’re so prepared, [they] simply things, explain things very quickly in a simple way that the players get it real quick. We have great drills in practice, we have great tempo practices.
“I really believe a lot in our coaching staff.”