Tocchet deserves new contract and a big raise from Canucks this summer

Rick Tocchet is going to the NHL All-Star Game and he’s a leading candidate to win the Jack Adams Trophy as coach of the year. In other words, the price is going up on the Vancouver Canucks bench boss.

Tocchet, who will celebrate one year on the job next week, has been a revelation for the Canucks since being hired. Vancouver is first in the overall NHL standings and has a healthy lead on the competition in the Pacific Division.

Dating back to last season, since Tocchet took over the Canucks have the sixth-best points percentage (.663) in the NHL, with a 49-23-8 record (106 points) in 80 games.

The 59-year-old coach successfully got his players to buy into his system, and they now play with the structure and habits he has talked so much about. It’s quite a departure from the fragile and defensively inept squad he took over 12 months ago.

Needless to say, Tocchet will be in a good bargaining position this summer, where conventional wisdom would see the Canucks offer him a contract extension. Tocchet, who reportedly makes $2.75 million annually, is under contract for just one more year after this season. Teams have traditionally extended coaches in that position to show confidence and remove the “lame duck” label.

Unlike player contracts, coaches’ salaries aren’t always made public. Just 13 teams of the NHL’s current 32 head coaches have their salaries listed on CapFriendly, for instance.

Tocchet’s contract ranks seventh among those 13 coaches, and perhaps he would rank lower if we knew the salaries of Stanley Cup-winning coaches like Rod Brind’Amour, Mike Sullivan, and Jon Cooper. Tocchet hadn’t had much success as a head coach in Arizona or Tampa Bay, so that’s expected.

But now? Given his success and communication skills, he may be one of the most marketable head coaches in the league.

LA Kings coach Todd McLellan currently has the highest known annual salary in the NHL, according to CapFriendly, at $5 million. Bruce Boudreau was making $2 million when the Canucks fired him, and Travis Green earned $2.75 million annually in Vancouver.

Tocchet will be in a position to move up the rankings after this season, and his stock will really rise if they make some noise in the playoffs.