"I sense panic": Jannik Hansen speaks on latest Canucks drama
It’s not Halloween yet, but the nightmares in Vancouver have already begun.
Just four games into the season, the Vancouver Canucks are one of only three NHL teams who have yet to win.
They’ve lost their games in painstaking fashion, blowing multi-goal leads in each contest.
Now, a report has surfaced about potential locker room friction.
Former Canucks winger Jannik Hansen commented on the situation during an interview with Bik Nizzar on Sportsnet 650.
“Right now, I sense panic, sheer panic, to be honest,” Hansen said.
“The fact that they call a players-only meeting two or three games into the season is concerning. That leads me to, like, locker room issues, leadership problems, and all these things I hate to speculate about, but when I see something like that, that early, that’s what it leads me to.
“So, again, you hope that this is, I don’t know, a mental fart if you will, and they’re right back on track, but it doesn’t get any easier.
“You need to sort this out really quickly or we’re going to be right back where we were last year.”
Do teammates have to like each other?
Hansen was asked if teammates need to like each other.
He said no, but that players need to “have respect for each other and get into unison together.”
“Again, this is not the first time we’re hearing these reports out of the dressing room. We’ve heard it before. It’s troubling and again, sometimes when there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
What about dressing room cliques?
“Cliques… that’s a rough term because when you have nationalities, whether it’s Swedes, Russians, or whatever it is in the dressing room, you will have guys hanging out with guys more than others and that’s fine.
“If it becomes where you’re… almost competing with each other if you will, then it becomes an issue.
“But again, I think we mentioned early last year under [Travis Green], you need to nip this in the bud early because if there’s any sort of friction, a lot of these guys now that were mentioned in this friction are signed to longer deals now with the exception of Bo, so they gotta find a way to get along for the foreseeable future.”
How Canucks handled adversity during Hansen’s playing days
Hansen would know a thing or two about locker room culture leading to on-ice success.
The Canucks made the playoffs in each of Hansen’s first five full NHL seasons, including a trip to the Stanley Cup Final.
Of course, even good teams like the early 2010s Canucks had stretches where they weren’t very good.
“We had down stretches where you would lose four, five in a row and bridges are burning and houses are falling down and stuff like this but again, that’s where your leadership group gets you out of it. They take charge of the dressing room in a way that no coaches can do. A coach can only come in and yell so much.
“It boils down to the guys in the room and they’re the ones that step on the ice, those are the ones that can win the game. It’s that simple.
“When we were having issues, it wasn’t one or two people that did that for us. It might have been the Sedins on the ice or whoever it might be but in the dressing room, it was the leadership group… whether it was Burr, Kes, Bieksa, or Luongo, or any of these guys with a bigger voice that would stand up and hold guys accountable.”
Hansen then took the insights from his playing days and related them back to this current Canucks team.
“That’s probably one of the most important parts, holding each other accountable… because when you look at [the current Canucks], you’re missing a little bit here, you’re turning over these pucks, you shouldn’t be taking that chance there and you should be backchecking there.
“Well, if nobody holds you accountable in the dressing room in a way that you’re… I wouldn’t say fearing it but if you’re letting your teammates down, then, well, it might happen again.
“Somebody else might do it because they’re saying hey, this guy can do it, maybe I can do it as well, and then that snowball keeps pummelling down. So you need a dressing room that holds itself to, I would say an even higher standard than the people around and your coaches do if you want to succeed.”