Vancouver Canucks

Willie Desjardins fired after Vancouver Canucks finish with loss to Oilers
April 10, 2017, 2:53 PM ET [224 Comments]
Carol Schram
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The stage is set for another dramatic offseason. The Vancouver Canucks announced the firing of head coach Willie Desjardins and his assistants Perry Pearn and Doug Lidster on Monday morning, barely 12 hours after their season ended with a 5-2 loss to the Oilers in Edmonton.

It appears that assistant coach Doug Jarvis, goaltending coach Dan Cloutier and development coach Manny Malhotra will remain with the team going forward.

First things first. Here's the highlight package from Sunday's game:



Structurally, the game encapsulated much of the Canucks' season. The Oilers came in waves, ultimately outshooting Vancouver 44-17. That was the seventh time this year that the team gave up 44 shots or more, and the fifth time they managed 17 or less of their own.

The Canucks were generous visitors to Rogers Place, teeing up Jordan Eberle's second-career hat trick on the eve of his first-ever trip to the playoffs and gifting Connor McDavid with the two points he needed to put an exclamation point on his first career Art Ross Trophy as the only player to reach the 100-point mark this season.

But even McDavid messes up sometimes—did you see this brash attempt to shoot from between his legs in the first period?




The Vancouver scoreboard was an all-Russian affair. After Eberle opened the scoring for the Oilers late in the first period, Nikolay Goldobin gave #TeamTank heart palpitations early in the second when he converted a feed from Daniel Sedin to tie the game 1-1.




The goal was Goldy's third in 12 games with the Canucks. For all the drama that has surrounded him since his late-February acquisition, Goldobin's scoring rate of 0.25 goals per game ties him with Bo Horvat for fourth on the Canucks in that category this year. The prodigy, Brock Boeser, leads the way at 0.44 goals per game, with Markus Granlund at 0.28 and Sven Baertschi at 0.26.

Henrik Sedin drew an assist on Goldobin's goal, which we believed moved him into a tie with Horvat for the team scoring lead and made Nikita Tryamkin's third-period goal crucial—Horvat drew the only assist for the faceoff win on Vancouver's very last goal of the season.



In fact, Horvat won the scoring title by two points. The first assist on Alex Edler's extra-man goal with 40 seconds left in Saturday's game was changed after the fact from Henrik to Reid Boucher, which means the captain finished out the year with an even 50 points, two behind Horvat.

The strangest moment of Sunday's game came midway through the second period. After Anton Slepyshev appeared to put the Oilers up 3-1, likely erasing any chance for a Vancouver win, the Canucks successfully challenged the goal as offside.




The Canucks came into Sunday's game clinging precariously to 29th place in the NHL standings, just a single point behind both Arizona and New Jersey, and leading both in the regulation-overtime-win tiebreaker. Even one point against the Edmonton would have moved the Canucks three spots down the draft lottery rankings from second to fifth—behind the Coyotes, Devils and the Vegas Golden Knights.

The challenge seemed like a weirdly defiant gesture from Willie Desjardins—and perhaps from Eye in the Sky Perry Pearn as well.




Perhaps they were determined to go out today with guns blazing.

As it turned out, there was no need to worry. The Oilers had plenty of goals left in them and blew the game open with two quick ones early in the third period. Once McDavid got his 100th point, an assist on Leon Draisaitl's 29th of the year, they shut it down for the night.

Normally all business, Connor did seem to enjoy his moment.




So—mission accomplished. The Canucks beat that 65 point projection from the beginning of the season—by four. Even if they lose the draft lottery, they won't pick lower than fifth in the first round, and will pick second in each subsequent round where they still have their picks.




It's likely that they'll also get that second-round pick from Columbus this year, their compensation for the Blue Jackets hiring John Tortorella. Columbus finished out the year in fourth place in the NHL standings (!), so the pick would be the 59th overall.

As for Willie—he dodged a few bullets over the last couple of years, but couldn't escape after dropping six points below last year's results. The final 30-43-9 record for 69 points is Vancouver's worst since the introduction of the loser point in 1999-2000.

Now, for the third time in five seasons, the Canucks will be back in the offseason coaching hunt. I wonder if they'll try to move quickly to give themselves more time to plan for next season, or wait to see which coaches become available after the playoffs.

It has been widely believed that Travis Green could be the heir apparent after four seasons with the Utica Comets. If Vancouver chooses to go with someone experienced, names like Gerard Gallant, Ken Hitchcock and Marc Crawford have been bandied about.

The Dallas Stars announced on Sunday that they won't be bringing back Lindy Ruff, whose contract is expiring at the end of this year. He and Jim Benning have a relationship that dates back to their days in Buffalo together, so he could be a new name to add to the mix.

Willie could also garner some consideration in Dallas.




He spent two seasons as an associate coach with the Stars under Marc Crawford before moving to the head coaching job in the AHL and guiding the Texas Stars to the Calder Cup in 2013-14.

As much as Willie had some confounding moments in Vancouver, I do believe that he did a good job of bringing along young players like Bo Horvat and Markus Granlund and getting his group to play hard, right till the end.

If Willie and his dismissed assistants follow the trends set by their predecessors, their futures are bright.

Alain Vigneault has guided his New York Rangers to a third-straight 100-plus point season and a fourth straight playoff berth. His four-year tenure on Broadway has included a Presidents' Trophy and a trip to the Stanley Cup Final. Now, John Tortorella is in the conversation for the Jack Adams award after a record-setting season in Columbus.

In addition, former Canucks assistant Mike Sullivan won a Stanley Cup last year with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Glen Gulutzan has taken the Calgary Flames back to the postseason.

Change was inevitable, but the Canucks' problems run deeper than coaching tactics.

Management is holding a press conference at 1 p.m. today, then the players will take to the podium for the final time this season on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.