Patience running thin with Boudreau from Canucks management: report

Nov 16 2022, 12:14 am

Bruce there it is, Bruce there he goes.

Bruce Boudreau warned us about this during the early days of his tenure with the Vancouver Canucks. That as quickly as you can be the toast of the town, you could be pushed aside.

Such is life as a head coach in the National Hockey League.

But given his success last season, few expected Boudreau to be in the hot seat this quickly.

The heat has been turned way up on the Canucks’ head coach, after a disastrous start to the season. The Canucks’ 4-9-3 record not only puts them third-last in the entire league, it has given them the franchise’s worst 16-game start to a season in 25 years.

Boudreau was hired by ownership last December, prior to the arrival of Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin. The new Canucks management didn’t seem impressed with Boudreau last season, despite the team’s .649 points percentage under his watch. They’re even less enthused about Boudreau’s tactics this season, with Rutherford publicly criticizing his head coach on multiple occasions.

It certainly seems like it’s a matter of if, not when, Boudreau will get fired.

And according to NHL insider Darren Dreger, the decision to move on from Boudreau may come sooner rather than later.

“It’s changing. The preference would be to wait [to fire Boudreau] but there’s also growing concern among the Vancouver Canucks brass that the longer they wait, the bigger the effect is going to be on the players,” Dreger said on today’s edition of Insider Trading on TSN.

“You can see in Vancouver that there’s some players that are struggling, so is that going to become a bigger issue moving forward? Also, we know that Bruce Boudreau likes to lean on a small group of players, which is contrary to a team concept — another problem.”

On Monday, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman described the pending Boudreau firing as an “inevitability.”

Rutherford had a 45-minute one-on-one meeting with Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini in Toronto on Monday night, according to a report from Rob Simpson of VancouverHockeyInsider.com.

The Canucks have two days off following tonight’s game in Buffalo, the final game of a five-game eastern road trip.

If the Canucks do decide to let Boudreau go, many have speculated that Rick Tocchet could be the man to replace him.

Tocchet has ties to both Rutherford and Allvin from their time together in Pittsburgh.

The 58-year-old won two Stanley Cups in three seasons as an assistant coach with the Penguins, before moving on to be the head coach of the Arizona Coyotes for four seasons (2017-2021). The Coyotes job was Tocchet’s second NHL head coaching gig, following parts of two seasons coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning (2008-2010).

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