On Tuesday’s episode of Canucks Conversation, David Quadrelli and Harman Dayal discussed what a head coach’s role looks like during a rebuild, and how difficult it is to balance development, structure, and culture without derailing young players.

After the opening, Quads framed the discussion around a key tension rebuilding teams face every night.

“They’re not trying to lose games, obviously – you’re trying to win games and instill a strong culture – but you’re also trying to make sure young players develop,” Quads said.

That balance, Harm argued, is where coaching staffs often get it wrong. For him, development has to be the clear priority, but how it’s handled matters just as much as the intent.

“When I look at some of the specific challenges and tasks that come with properly developing young talent in the NHL, which should be the number one priority for a head coach during a rebuilding phase, one of them is teaching these young players NHL habits without limiting their offensive creativity and growth,” Harm said.

Harm pointed to a recent example of a coach who leaned too hard in one direction.

“I look at Greg Cronin, the former head coach of the Ducks, as an example of a head coach that went too far,” he said. “Yes, I understand you need to teach some of these guys responsible two-way hockey — you can look at Team Canada at the World Juniors, so much offensive talent but they had no idea how to defend. For those guys to become trustworthy, reliable NHL players and be the types of contributors who can have success come playoff time, you need to understand defensive positioning, how to manage the puck, how to manage the game in different scenarios, backchecking, forechecking — all these different details that matter.”

The problem, Harm explained, is when that structure overwhelms everything else.

“But how do you do that without stunting their creativity and growth?” he said. “Cronin was an example of harping too much on those details with this excessive focus on structure to the point where he robbed the creativity of Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Trevor Zegras. Look at how all those guys have thrived since the coaching change, obviously with Zegras’ breakout happening in Philly; Cronin just went too far.”

At the same time, Harm cautioned against swinging too far in the opposite direction and giving young players complete freedom.

“But you also can’t go too far in the direction of letting the young guys do whatever they want, because that’s when they’re going to pick up bad habits,” Harm said. “When it comes time to winning games and taking the next step, you’re going to be the type of team that blows leads and has no defensive structure.”

That middle ground – teaching habits without suppressing skill – is what separates effective rebuild coaches from the rest. It’s also where Harm sees an instructive example in the Canucks’ own recent history.

“I actually look at Travis Green’s time in Vancouver, and he did a pretty reasonable job of managing both things,” Harm said. “Teaching some of the core guys responsible two-way hockey without sacrificing their ability to produce offensively – Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Nils Hoglander are good examples of players who developed a solid two-way game. I’m not holding Green up as the gold standard in the business – Marty St. Louis would fit that – but Green is an in-house example of a coach in Vancouver who found a pretty decent balance,” he said.

The guys agreed that balance is the real test for whoever is behind the bench during a rebuild. Winning every night isn’t realistic, but losing structure entirely is just as damaging. The job isn’t to chase the standings – it’s to make sure that when the team is ready to compete again, the young core has the right mix of NHL habits and creativity intact to actually take that step.

You can watch the full replay of the show below!