Tocchet seen as Jack Adams Award favourite
Fan Appreciate Night in this market is a good idea.
Regular-season tickets aren’t cheap, playoff tickets are pricey, and fan support is large and loud.
To reward the faithful with a 26-point improvement over last season isn’t lost on anybody.
A 4-1 victory over the Calgary Flames on Tuesday at Rogers Arena to clinch the Pacific Division title, hit the 50-win mark for the third time in franchise history, and still have a shot at the Western Conference crown, is marquee material.
As much as players deserve full credit for the buy-in, resiliency and belief, the guy behind the bench deserves credit. Rick Tocchet is a Jack Adams Award favourite for all the right reasons.
He coaches the way he played. He doesn’t stickhandle around problems. He takes them on in a direct and firmbut-fair manner.
Heavy is the head that wears the hockey crown. Since Tocchet supplanted Bruce Boudreau as bench boss of the Canucks in January of 2023, a total of 14 head coaches have been let go. That’s not a typo. That’s reality.
It’s a performance-based business where well-paid players carry too much clout and the blame game is the trickle-down effect of hockey operations job protection.
When Buffalo Sabres bench boss Don Granato was shown the exit door Tuesday — the latest to succumb with a sorry franchise that has gone 13 years without a post-season berth — it wasn’t surprising.
It’s how the dominoes fall and how the finger of blame is pointed.
Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams believed at the outset of this season that his young but inexperienced roster was primed to take the next development step. He’s now searching for the eighth head coach in the last dozen years.