Canucks have chance to establish culture during rebuild with new coach
The Vancouver Canucks are doing everything they can to put their disastrous 2025-26 season behind them. After letting go of former general manager Patrik Allvin and bringing in a new management team that includes franchise legends Henrik and Daniel Sedin as co-presidents of hockey operations and Ryan Johnson as general manager, the team announced on Tuesday that they have fired head coach Adam Foote along with three assistant coaches.
Foote had only been Vancouver’s head coach for one season, but it went so poorly that the Canucks’ new management felt they had to move on immediately, even if the team doesn’t figure to be playoff contender next season regardless of who’s behind the bench. Whoever they bring as their next head coach will have to lay the groundwork for a culture and system that will eventually lead to success as the roster improves down the road.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed the rationale behind the Canucks’ decision to let go of Foote after one season.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The reason why I thought maybe they would keep Adam Foote around for another season is because there’s no path to this getting better next year, Hutts. They’re going to be terrible. I kind of thought, would Ryan Johnson and the Sedins want to use a coach hiring, if it’s bringing up Manny Malholtra or it’s bringing in whoever you think could be the next long-term head coach of the Canucks, do you almost want to expose them to a year where it could be bad and toxic and there’s going to be a lot of losing? I guess the counter-point to what I’m saying before I throw it over to you is maybe they’re worried about the culture. You have some young players coming in, you want your new head coach to be establishing whatever he wants the culture to be, as much as that’s just a bit of a buzzword. Do you want the new coach to come in and start establishing his culture in the room, or do you want to protect your future head coach, the coach who you hope gets you out of the rebuild, do you want to protect him from a year of losing? They’re obviously going more with the culture side.
Carter Hutton: I agree, I think that is the play. I think it wouldn’t be to Ryan Johnson’s character and is demeanor to not make this change immediately. It would’ve been easier in self-preservation as the new general manager to be like “Well, we’ll see how Adam Foote goes,” and it kind of buys you a little bit of time to get the team better and then it still falls on Foote if it doesn’t go well. I think structurally, this team was a mess defensively, and I think that’s a big, important factor with the way they defended down the stretch. I think getting someone in who’s more relatable to younger guys, and Adam Foote, I don’t know him from a hole in the ground, but he played the game a certain way in a certain era where it was very hard-nosed. It’s a little different now in how you deal with players. It wouldn’t be surprising if Manny Malholtra’s the guy that comes in. He knows how to talk to younger players. He knows how to develop them, and you slowly start getting things turning in the right direction.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Wednesday’s episode here…