It took 49 games, and 11 consecutive games without a win, but Vancouver Canucks head coach Adam Foote finally shared some frustrations with the club’s veteran players. In particular, Foote took aim at the veterans’ lack of composure in the back half of the second period, when the Canucks blew a 2-1 lead in the span of just a few minutes. in what ended up being a 4-3 loss to the New York Islanders.

Here is what Foote said, in response to a question about what kind of positives he and his veteran players are trying to emphasize as they navigate this losing streak.

“Well, there are a lot of positives, and they’ve been doing a great job leading, but getting to the second period again, our veterans are the ones who feel defeated first. It’s been going on here for a few years. We get off our game, we get frustrated and we over complicate it and you know, slamming the gate, things like that, it’s something we gotta get out of our culture.

“Our culture’s not gonna be that anymore. It just gets us off our game, slightly off our game plan, for just a little bit too long. And it allows other teams to get a little bit of energy and come back in the game, and it’s something we’ve got to stop. Like, tonight, the good thing is it lasted about seven minutes, we readjusted it, came out with a great third period, had a kill… I’ve been watching this for too long to say, like, we’ve got to stop burning ourselves by getting frustrated. We’ve got to stay within the plan. The plan’s working, and you know, it’s our vets. They gotta hang in there.”

Foote was then asked a follow up about how he puts an end to the behaviour he’s talking about.

“Tell them not to do it anymore. Tell you guys,” Foote joked. “No, you know what, we talked about it. We talked about it over and over and over. I mean, it’s very simple, the analytics and the results — it’s normal, like when things don’t go your way. We’ve been so resilient all year, and it keeps coming. An injury here, this and that, but even without this season, I really found with the group, even guys that aren’t here anymore, when it didn’t go their way, they over created or their frustration came into play and you know you have bad changes or slam a gate.

“The other teams are pretty bright, and they can see that, and you give them the juice, you give them the energy, and you know, if you have a bad change, our group has to defend coming on and then they don’t have the juice to go on offence, so it all snowballs. We didn’t do it a lot at the start of the season, [but] it’s lingering back, and we’re going to stop it, and we can’t do it to ourselves.”

Foote agreed that frustration makes sense in a season like this one, but expanded further on his point.

“You could say that that’s what it is, maybe this year, where we got it out of them for the most part, but it’s always been there. Now my point is, when I came here and watched 10 games before I took the job with Rick [Tocchet], we could see it clear as day, and we worked on it for a long time, and we almost got it out completely, but it’s still there. I mean, we cannot give the other team energy because we get frustrated and over create or overextend a shift. We have to understand, we have to be logical about this and understand… You know, it’s like gambling. You have to play the odds. There’s lots of hockey left and we just push, or we get pissy, or we get off a little bit, maybe feeling slightly defeated. The frustration comes in, and we can’t do that to ourselves. The league’s too good, and they take advantage of it, and then you’ve got to claw back, and we do a great job, climb back. I give them a lot of credit, but we just got to stop a little bit of it — almost have it all out of us, but we’ve got to get the rest out of us so we can be consistent in our play.”

“I mean, every day is different, and if they understand the contract, if they understand what they’ve agreed to, then the accountability can come more firm. We’re at a point now where I get the frustration when the next injury [comes], Demmer goes down, I get it. It’s frustrating. It’s like, what just happened to us, right? It’s crazy. But now, while we’re going to battle every night, we can’t do it to ourselves. In my opinion, our game plan works so well, and we’re all over them. We had a ton of energy, and we cannot. If a call comes not our way, or we have one bad shift, or they get the first goal or in the second, we cannot go rogue. We cannot get the defeated feeling and get frustrated. That lingers here. And if they want to win and be more consistent, they’ve got to get it out. And it starts with our vets.”