For most of this season, Adam Foote has seemed like a man out of answers.

First, it was a litany of injuries plaguing his already-fragile team in his first season behind the Vancouver Canucks‘ bench. Then it was his captain asking out, plunging the franchise into a rebuild. A rebuild and a tank isn’t what Foote signed up for when he signed up to be the Canucks’ head coach for three seasons last offseason, but that’s what he got.

Most agree that Foote is at least part of the reason the season went so sideways for this team. The Canucks’ systems — particularly when defending in their own end — have been a talking point all season, and while there have certainly been adjustments along the way, there’s no denying that most of the Canucks’ defencemen have looked lost in their own end this season.

For a team with a number of intriguing defence prospects here and more on the way, that’s going to be something the organization takes a long and hard look at when they evaluate Foote’s work and whether or not they want to bring him back next season.

They might give him another shot. They might not. That’s not what we’re tackling today.

Instead, something else caught our attention last night — a coach who certainly wasn’t out of answers. In fact, he seemed pretty confident that he knows exactly what the problem is. We’re of coursing talking about former Canucks head coach and current Columbus Blue Jackets bench boss Rick Bowness.

Following his team’s 2-1 loss to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night, Bowness, who came out of retirement to replace Dean Evason behind the Columbus bench back in January, spoke candidly about his group.

“All you got to do is look at the stat sheet. Three hits, 23 giveaways,” Bowness said. “I don’t know if I’m back, but if I’m back, I’m changing this culture. These guys, they don’t care. Losing is not important enough to them. It doesn’t bother them. How can you go out and play like that? Should have done this about a month ago, but this is why we are where we are. This is why we’re out of the playoffs, that kind of effort. Losing, you have to hate losing. I don’t care if it’s a meaningless game. I don’t care. Show up and compete. Three hits and 23 giveaways!”

Hired on January 12th when Columbus was 19-19-7, the Blue Jackets responded well to start Bowness’s tenure with a 10-1-0 stretch going into the Olympic break before finishing the season 11-9-5 upon his return. After asking reporters “what else do you want to know?” last night, Bowness was asked what changed for his group post Olympic-break.

“Because it got tough. Because it got hard. We talked about after the Olympic break, it’s going to get harder. So everything was good as long as it was going their way, and now it gets tough, and we don’t want to battle back… We’re going to change that. If I’m back, and I don’t know if I’m back… but we’re going to change that. But man oh man, some of those guys are lucky the season’s over, and there’s no practice tomorrow,” Bowness added. “It’s terrible and inexcusable. If they’re not embarrassed by not only tonight, they’re on the wrong team. They got to be embarrassed with that.”

Post game on Tuesday, TSN’s Farhan Lalji asked Foote about Bowness’s comments. More specifically, he asked how his team was able to essentially be the opposite of Columbus — the Canucks have finished the season strong, rattling off three wins against opponents all looking to pick up wins to secure favourable playoff seeding.

Question: We had another NHL coach today really express a lot of frustration with his team. They lost 6 straight to close out the season here and aren’t going to be in the playoffs. You won three straight when you know you’re not going to be in the playoffs. What does it say about the care level of this group and just the fact that they’re still paying attention to the message?

Foote: “It’s a great question because it allows me to answer it. With the Trade Deadline and the names flying around… We’re going to rebuild, we’re getting rid of some older players and some money and guys’ names are flying around. I mean, yeah, they’re paid pros, and they’re supposed to be able to handle it, but they’re human as well.

“To see who we — who’s here and how these leaders now are forming the new culture, I mean, you see Teddy fighting, you see Fil fighting… There’s been so much going on with our captain leaving, the injuries, and it’s not excuses, but it’s just facts. And they’ve been getting torn apart as a group for a very long time. And they decided, ‘hey, you know, this is our team. We know where we’re going. We’re staying here. This is who we’ve got.’

“The way Boeser, Fil, Blueger, Marcus [Pettersson], the way they’re leading allows the youth to grow, and grow faster. It allows them to be more of a free spirit. They’re holding them accountable, but in a different way, which is very positive to see. So it’s not a fluke what happened the last three games. You know, these teams are pushing for — they all wanted to beat us because of their own destinies. And we’re doing things right. We’re playing as a team. They’re sticking to the game plan. And what I like is every game — every game’s got a time where it’s not going to go your way. There’s going to be a swing. And, you know, maybe six weeks ago, probably before the break, you’d see us maybe let two quick ones in. So what happened tonight, where we got up, and then they got a quick one, we didn’t panic or get off our game. That’s a sign of growth.

“They’re grinding. That’s a big, heavy team and they stuck in. As you saw, Z got knocked down twice, and he got up, and he went right back at the guy, and he wasn’t… he had no fear. And that’s got to be a good feeling for the fans to see that. He’s a young guy, he’s going to get stronger, but he’s playing tenacious. It’s a good sign for the future.”

There’s no guarantee that Foote will be here for the future of the Canucks. And whether he’s here or not, it’s hard to question the effort level the Canucks are turning in to close out the season under his watch.

The organization is no doubt hoping that’s something they can carry into next year and beyond as they look to reset the culture with leaders like Boeser, Hronek, Blueger, and Marcus Pettersson — the four players Foote highlighted Tuesday night, and the four players you hear young Canucks speaking the most glowingly about — leading the charge.

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