History will not repeat itself for the Vancouver Canucks
By Jim Lynch
Last season, the Vancouver Canucks made a coaching change midway through the season bringing in Bruce Boudreau to replace Travis Green who started the season 8-15-2. A year later, the Canucks are back in a similar situation.
The Canucks have started the 2022-23 NHL season 0-5-2, losing games in a lot of different fashions. The team has blown a handful of leads, been blown out by a team like the Buffalo Sabres and most recently lost a close game to the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2.
Basically everything that could go wrong for the Canucks has gone wrong. Quinn Hughes is now on injured reserve, J.T. Miller has been on the ice for a lot of the goals against for this team, and fans are throwing jerseys on the ice.
Despite all these issues, history cannot repeat itself for the Vancouver Canucks.
The Vancouver Canucks made a coaching change last year letting go Travis Green to bring in Bruce Boudreau. Boudreau finished that season with a 32-15-10 record, pretty good for a mid season hire.
Boudrea has not been here for an entire year yet. When the Canucks moved on from Green it was after 314 games with the club dating back to the start of the 2017-18 season. Moving on from Boudreau now would not have the same affect, in fact it would probably make things worse.
The Canucks do not have an issue coaching wise. Their issue has to do with this group not getting it done, and a coaching change would tell the players that it is someone else’s fault besides the bad play they have shown on the ice.
The Canucks season is far from over. While starting the year 0-5-2 is not ideal, there are still 75 games for this team to turn things around and get into a playoff spot at the end of the season. If they want to start that mission of making the playoffs, getting used to a new coach on the fly is not going to be an ideal situation.
Making a change just to make a change is not a recipe for success, and while a coaching change helped the Canucks in 2021-22, expecting the same result this season could drastically hurt the team’s future.