Travis Green on Eriksson, Boeser, and the captaincy
By Cam Lewis
4 years agoCanucks head coach Travis Green joined Sportsnet 590 Friday morning to discuss a variety of topics heading into the 2019-20 season. Among the things discussed were his struggles with Loui Eriksson, the team’s captaincy, and Brock Boeser’s contract.
On Loui Eriksson…
I haven’t talked to Loui yet. I’m sure he’s disappointed with where things are. I’m just surprised it came out publically. I’d rather it not have come out publically. Fine with it, though. But he’s probably frustrated.I try to stick up for all my players and go to bat for them. They don’t always play well and Loui and I don’t see eye to eye on everything, certain things. Not every player plays as much as he wants. I’ve talked to Loui a couple times about his game and where he’s at and that’s okay. Those conversations happen in the NHL. I push my players. You’re supposed to push your players. Just surprised and a little disappointed it came public. I’ll talk to Loui when I see him.
This, of course, is in reference to the news about a rift between the player and coach that came out back in May while Eriksson was playing for Sweden at the World Hockey Championships. Eriksson claimed that he and Green don’t see eye to eye and that there’s a frustration that Green doesn’t trust him as much as other coaches in the past have.
Green is obviously going to be frustrated that Eriksson went public with these comments rather than keeping the feelings in the dressing room. It’s hard to say if this situation is tenable at this point, but we’ll likely have to wait until training camp for the two to talk about it again.
On the captaincy…
We have good leadership. We are not gonna rush into it. If we think we have the right guy and he’s ready for it he’ll be the captain. Unfortunately we’re not gonna announce the new captain on your show this morning. Last season we went with a group of leaders and we’ll discuss it again and see where it goes come training camp.
It seems inevitable that Bo Horvat will be named captain eventually but it isn’t something that’ll happen until training camp. Reading between the lines, they’re rolling into this situation with the plan of seeing whether or not Horvat is ready to wear the “C” or if they’re going to have a leadership group by committee. The Canucks have a different team this year than last with J.T. Miller, Tyler Myers, and Jordie Benn in the picture, so it makes sense to wait for things to fall into place when it comes to the captaincy.
On Brock Boeser…
Nope. Talked to Brock a few weeks ago and he’s excited about the new season. You see young players that are restricted agents going late into the summer. We’re fortunate to have a young player at that level where he hasn’t signed yet. I’m not worried. I definitely want it to get done, don’t get me wrong. But it will get done.
Again, not much to see here. There are a wealth of high-quality RFAs this summer (Mitch Marner, Brayden Point, Matt Tkachuk, and Mikko Rantanen) without contracts and this is a new trend we’re starting to see with post-ELC stars going for their first big payday. Not having a deal heading into training camp isn’t the end of the world and Green seems confident something will be done before the season. The dominoes, which, in this case, are the other RFAs, need to fall.
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