Adam Foote clearly won over his bosses to land the head coaching job with the Vancouver Canucks. That may turn out to be the easy part of the process. Now, the 53-year-old needs to win over a disgruntled fan base. And unlike most first-time National Hockey League head coaches, Foote won’t really get the chance to grow into the job. No, he needs immediate success.
After all, this is a team that finished 23rd in overall offence, 24th in 5-on-5 goals and a calamitous 30th in the league in home ice wins last season. The Canucks were both bad and boring on many nights at Rogers Arena and that’s a combination that simply can not be repeated. New black seats can only provide so much comfort.
The fans here deserve far more for their hard-earned money.
Foote can’t afford a sloppy training camp or any missteps in the preseason, his version of the Canucks needs to be ready from the drop of the puck on opening night. Of course, he needs the help of those above him to have a successful offseason in terms of upgrading the talent the new head coach has to work with.
While the Canucks won’t play a game until October, Foote’s tenure as the man in charge is already underway. And he needs to prove in a hurry that he is more than just Rick Tocchet’s replacement in name only.
That will begin with Thursday’s introductory press conference, where we will hear some thoughts about Foote’s coaching philosophies and how he plans to go about squeezing more offence from the roster he inherits.
Foote is cut from the same cloth as Tocchet. Both ferocious competitors, the two worked together for the past two and a half seasons and seemed to share many of the same beliefs about the importance of structure and board battles and wall work. Foote’s entire playing career was built on the bedrock of being one of the best shutdown defenders of his day. Under Foote running the Canucks defence, Quinn Hughes won a Norris Trophy, Filip Hronek emerged as a stable and reliable top pair defenceman and young Elias Pettersson levelled up quickly. The Canucks also turned their penalty killing from a weakness to a strength.
So, there have been successes that need to be mentioned and that should serve as the foundation for the start of Foote’s time as head coach.
He also appears to have a goaltending tandem that would be the envy of many other teams and coaches around the NHL.
But that brings us back to the matter of offence. And a reminder that the Vancouver Canucks are in the entertainment business.
Foote has to use the strengths of his roster as constructed, but he can’t fall back on defending and goaltending as his path to success. The Canucks showed last season that sitting back and defending wasn’t a sustainable strategy. This is a team that needs some pop in its attack. It needs a better than middle of the road power play. This is a team that needs to feed off the greatness Quinn Hughes brings to the rink on a nightly basis. This is a team that requires bounce-back offensive seasons from so many players. That list starts with Elias Pettersson and continues with Nils Höglander, Dakota Joshua and, fingers crossed, a fully healthy Filip Chytil. The team needs to believe that there is more to give from players like Jake De Brusk and Conor Garland.
Other coaching candidates may have been granted a longer leash to get things sorted out. Adam Foote won’t be afforded that luxury. He is familiar – and popular – with the players he’s got, and he needs to use that to whatever advantage he can.
This fan base is in no mood to sit back and take a wait-and-see approach. The Canucks clearly believe Foote is the right man for the job at this point in time. He needs to prove it with a different-looking style of play than the one that let the team – and its passionate fans – down last season.
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