With the Sedins and Roberto Luongo now fully inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, many in the hockey world are expecting the Vancouver Canucks to make a change at the head coaching position.
Yes, it seems like the days of “Bruce there it is” chants ringing off the walls of Rogers Arena are coming to a close.
According to multiple reports, it’s not a matter of if the Canucks will let go of Boudreau, but a matter of when.
“I think we all see the direction that this is going,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on the Monday morning episode of the 32 Thoughts Podcast. “The other thing is I can really get a sense that everyone around the organization sees it coming this way too, and it’s an inevitability. I think the question is when.”
“It’s just impossible to look at this and think that everybody doesn’t see what’s going on here, and everybody’s just waiting for something to happen. I do have to say, I really got the impression that some of the players are kind of wondering about the Horvat situation and where it’s going.
“Like to me, there’s there’s a lot of people around the Vancouver Canucks just waiting for something to happen, and they’re not playing together. They had the one game in Ottawa, where they stood up for their coach and they won that game the day after Rutherford’s last radio interview. But the thing is, if you’re not a good team, and you’re not playing well, you can do that once, but overall, you’re just not good enough to win those games. And I see a group here that kind of sees, okay, something’s going to happen, and we’ll just wait to see what it is or when it happens.”
Adding to the reports — among others around the league — was Rick Dhaliwal of Donnie and Dhali, who added that he too believes the Canucks will make a coaching change at some point with the losses continuing to mount.
During his interview on Sportsnet 650 prior to the road trip, Rutherford spoke about — amount other things, most of which were about the team’s structure under Boudreau — the importance of making his players more accountable.
“We’re at a point now, and certainly will be at this point even more so at the end of this road trip, where we have to make players more accountable,” Rutherford said. “We’ll have to take the necessary steps to get players’ attention. We tried to make changes in the offseason – a priority of ours is the right side of our defence. We need to make it younger.”
The question now becomes what exactly the Canucks feel is the best course of action, because a coaching change alone certainly isn’t going to solve the deep issues this team has.
It didn’t work when they did it last year, and it’s not likely to work this time around either — beyond a potential new coach bump, similar to the one they experienced last year when Boudreau first took over.
The Canucks will wrap up their road trip in Buffalo tonight. There, they will attempt to avoid losing their fourth straight game before returning home for a matchup against the Kings on Friday.
