Vancouver Canucks

Should Travis Green be the next coach of the Vancouver Canucks?
March 30, 2017, 1:26 PM ET [231 Comments]
Carol Schram
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT
With every passing game, it looks more and more likely that Willie Desjardins' tenure behind the bench the Vancouver Canucks will finish at the end of this season.

Hired at the beginning of the 2014-15 season as a players' coach who would help erase the memories left behind by John Tortorella, Willie's results have trended in the wrong direction.

The Canucks earned 101 points in Desjardins' first season before being upset by the Calgary Flames in the first round of the playoffs. Last year, that number dropped to 75 points and a 28th-place finish in the league. Right now, Vancouver's sitting in 27th place with 69 points—that's a pace of 74.4 points for the year.

I don't know if there's much point in criticizing the team for its play since the trade deadline. When Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen were dealt, the strategic message came down loud and clear—it's all about the future.

Last season, Mike Sullivan took over the Pittsburgh Penguins midway through the year, after starting out as coach of the team's AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre Scranton. A key part of his successful run to the Stanley Cup was his ability to get the most out of the minor-leaguers that he had worked with in the AHL. Sullivan had started working with players like Matt Murray, Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust and Tom Kuhnhackl in the AHL, then was able to integrate them into a talented Penguins lineup.

Since last season, there has been talk that Vancouver might go in a similar direction when choosing its next coach—promoting Travis Green after four seasons with the Utica Comets, which included a run to the Calder Cup final in 2014-15.

This year, the Comets are in a dogfight to reach the postseason, which is impressive when you consider the cobbled-together lineup that Green has been using for much of the year. The Canucks' injury situation has led to lengthy call-ups all year long, and the Comets have been battling their way through this stretch run without their veteran goaltender Richard Bachman, who has now been up with Vancouver for a month since Jacob Markstrom's injury.

Willie Desjardins' lack of NHL head coaching experience before he joined Vancouver seems like it's something that has been an issue during his time with the Canucks. He has often been outmatched by more skilled counterparts and has seemed reluctant to make strategic adjustments when something's not working on the ice.

Willie did have two years of experience as an NHL assistant in Dallas. Green doesn't even have that. He spent two years as an assistant and one year as head coach of the Portland Winterhawks in the WHL before he joined the Comets.

On the other hand, Green does have 970 games of NHL experience as a player. That's a void on Willie's resume.

Though the Canucks' prospect pool is getting deeper and Green has done a good job in Utica, so far we haven't seen the Canucks benefit from players that have been successfully developed with the Comets. Jacob Markstrom originally looked like the big success story, evolving into an All-Star at the AHL level after he was acquired from the Florida Panthers, then graduating successfully to the role of NHL backup last season.

But Markstrom's development has stalled this year, and it seems like the organization had lost confidence in him, even before his injury at SuperSkills.

Elsewhere, most of the Canucks' young players that have moved into key roles have spent little or no time in Utica: Bo Horvat (five games), Sven Baertschi (36 games), Troy Stecher (four games), Ben Hutton (four games), Nikita Tryamkin (zero games).

Brendan Gaunce is the exception to the rule, spending a season and a half with the Comets before getting called up by the Canucks, but when he was healthy, the former first-round draft pick hasn't been able to elevate himself beyond a fourth-line role.

Players like Alex Grenier have improved under Green but haven't been able to show the same promise at the NHL level, while the development of other prospects like Cole Cassels and Jordan Subban seems to have hit a ceiling while they've been in Utica.

The big questions now are whether or not Jake Virtanen's time in the minors will help him deliver on the promise that earned him the sixth-overall selection in his draft year, and whether Thatcher Demko will eventually become and NHL starter.

Short term, though, I don't think Green's familiarity with the bottom part of the Canucks' depth chart would be especially helpful if he does get promoted to the Canucks.

I'm not ruling out the possibility that he could be Vancouver's next coach, but I hope the organization looks long and hard