Confirmed with Link: Canucks announce HC Rick Tocchet will Not Return

[JT Milker]

The pathway to competitiveness appears to be shrinking. And Hughes walking as a UFA might be the death blow for this moribund franchise.

It’s going to be an extremely difficult task and will require a fantastic offseason to achieve.

 

[December5th]

Source please.

lol and your source is that you are some sort of character witness, and that tocchet could never quit on his team because he has way to high character.

as someone already pointed out , why go through the process of setting up some sort of fake elaborate scheme to make it sound like they were having difficulties coming to an agreement with a contract. they set it up and made it look like he was the greedy one for wanting to be paid 5 mill? why would he agree to this? because hes taking one for the team i guess? its starting to sound like he has no self respect and i dont think that goes with your high character argument. and now after this imaginary scenario where he was forced to quit, they go on record and basically say tocchet strung them along. why would they say this about their fall guy?

 

[Treefingers]

And when have we ever heard the ownership or management of a sports team expressing full support for a coach or manager whom they fire less than a week later? That never happens.

That doesn't seem terribly likely in this case given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Plus I'm pretty sure Rutherford is incapable of keeping something like that to himself given his unrelenting verbal diarrhea.

 

[thecupismine]

TSN panel has Vancouver dead last among desirability of coaching openings (NYR/Boston at the top)
Reasoning:
- Declining team and organization
- Undesirable market
- Ownership won't pay you well

Can't say I disagree.
This franchise is a leaguewide laughing stock and needs a total overhaul - new ownership & management please

Ranking the team last when it has Quinn Hughes and is a year out from a 109 point, division winning season seems like a rage bait take.

I haven't been shy about saying this whole situation reflects poorly on everyone, but I'd bet money that the Canucks end up with the highest or second highest point totals out of all the teams right now that have coaching openings.

Maybe people don't want to be on the west coast, and maybe Aqua doesn't want to pay (that seems to have been denied by Tocchet's agent today), but if I was a coaching looking to win I'd much rather be here than somewhere like Pittsburgh where you're going to be hired to be fired in two years after the NHL inevitably gifts them McKenna.

 

[December5th]

theres a difference between saying platitudes to keep things in order and running some phsyops type shit

 

[Hodgy]

There are situations where specific performance is warranted but we don't really need to go too deep into this. We do know that teams do need permission to talk to head coaches under contract (whether coaching in the AHL or fired). I also can't imagine a scenario where a coach under contract can simply quit the team to immediately become the head coach of another team (granted timing may be important). I would imagine that had Canucks picked up Tocchet's option and Tocchet said no he's not going to honour his contract, the Canucks could hire a new coach while preventing Tocchet from being the head coach of another NHL team (with or without Bettman's involvement). Although not a like for like scenario, another example is Chayka. He quit the Coyotes and was essentially prevented from taking a position with the Devils as it wasn't a promotion.

I think this is the most likely case in terms of what the team option meant (i.e., you could exercise the option, but if he doesn't report, then your only real remedy is not allowing him to be employed with other teams and perhaps suing for breach of contract although proving damages may be a tad bit difficult).

Thinking about it a bit more, and assuming the above is correct, I think the use of the team option only makes sense where you can't agree on salary, for example, but the coach wants to come back. So, perhaps it is true that management may have been willing to exercise the team option, but once they knew that money didn't matter and that Tochett didn't want to come back, they didn't want to exercise the option because they still respected Tochett and didn't want to sue him and/or prevent him from working as a head coach elsewhere.

 

[Orr4Norris]

It seems pretty obvious to me - he was tampered with. No way a Coach leaves a situation in the NHL with a very good offer in front of him in the hopes he’ll land a better gig. Coaching jobs are very competitive.

He almost certainly has already been promised a position and salary. Gross.

 

[Diablo2020]

I dont know if its been posted anywhere yet and I dont wanna snipe the transcribe job from the others who do a great job but I wanna post this here for all.

Tocchet’s departure leaves Canucks and their fans adrift

The organization’s promising future veered off course through a disappointing season

www.theglobeandmail.com

If Gary Mason thinks Huggy's gone, we're beyond ******.

"Rebuilding by default season one of the Mpetey contract"

- Me a whole bunch of times

 

[quat]

If this happens, maybe, JUST MAYBE, it would force Blueberries to sell. To lose a borderline generational talent that this team has never had, would be almost impossible to overcome

I don't think Hughes is borderline, but point well made.

 

[Orr4Norris]

I dont know if its been posted anywhere yet and I dont wanna snipe the transcribe job from the others who do a great job but I wanna post this here for all.

Tocchet’s departure leaves Canucks and their fans adrift

The organization’s promising future veered off course through a disappointing season

www.theglobeandmail.com

If Gary Mason thinks Huggy's gone, we're beyond ******.

"Rebuilding by default season one of the Mpetey contract"

- Me a whole bunch of times

I don’t like the fact that it appears Rutherford may be preparing the fanbase for the reality of a Hughes trade. We know Mason is his mouthpiece. Between Rutherford’s brother comments, didn’t answer the phone comments and now Mason…that’s a lot of breadcrumbs

 

[TruGr1t]

What sort of garbage retroactive reporting is this … Tocchet mentioned family in his own prepared quote for the press release. Rutherford didn’t mention it until after that had been released.

How do you post that and not acknowledge Tocchet brought up family first. I’m assuming reporters in this city don’t actually review press materials, though, since they’re hacks.

 

[bossram]

If this happens, maybe, JUST MAYBE, it would force Blueberries to sell. To lose a borderline generational talent that this team has never had, would be almost impossible to overcome

We would hope, but perhaps not. I think if Aqua were to sell, he'd want to do it while his perceived franchise value was very high. Probably why he wants to always be "competing". Ticket prices, merch, general interest is up. Selling low during a dark age for the Canucks probably isn't appealing to him. His ego couldn't take the hit if his franchise valuation wasn't up to par with recent NHL club sales.

If you want to be realistic, even if this management group wanted to move Quinn, ownership would not give them the green light. Those cheap f***s refuse to rebuild at any cost. It's a whole other discussion that their hand will get forced if (when) Quinn leaves, but it'll be from their cold, dead hands.

Oh I agree. It won't happen anyway. We had a one-year window and now that's kinda gonna be it.

 

[bossram]

It’s going to be an extremely difficult task and will require a fantastic offseason to achieve.

Yes. Which is why I'm extremely pessimistic they can return to even pseudo-contender status in the short-term.

 

[me2]

It seems pretty obvious to me - he was tampered with. No way a Coach leaves a situation in the NHL with a very good offer in front of him in the hopes he’ll land a better gig. Coaching jobs are very competitive.

He almost certainly has already been promised a position and salary. Gross.

He may have been driving that contact. He wasn't poached by teams turning his head with big money. he was already looking around imho. He may never be better regarded than as the reigning jack Adams holder. If the Canucks get worse next year than this year all that Adams hype disappears. if he's not happy here, if he doesn't like the teams future, if there is some place he wants to be... he may never get a better chance.

I think he just decided to move on, he wasn't poached.

 

[Quinton Byfield]

What sort of garbage retroactive reporting is this … Tocchet mentioned family in his own prepared quote for the press release. Rutherford didn’t mention it until after that had been released.

How do you post that and not acknowledge Tocchet brought up family first. I’m assuming reporters in this city don’t actually review press materials, though, since they’re hacks.

Why would it matter who mentioned family stuff first? It's not like the post contradicts that. Unless you want to make it as if front office is covering their ass.

It's most likely true that Tocchet leaving isn't heavily influenced by family. It's not like Tocchet has young kids, his adult son is 25. Tocchet's also been divorced for over 2 decades.

Canucks offered to make him one of the best paid coaches in the league, despite having all of 1 career series win. That's already ridiculous. Maybe either sees Vancouver as a undesirable franchise, wants to return to the States and saw any job opportunity as a stepping stone, or all of the above. Who cares now.

For the record, before he wiped his social media when he was hired, he was a big MAGA, anti-vax guy. Would retweet all kinds of porn/onlyfans shit. For all the shit Miller got, the only "support" for that was the thin blue line hat, which isn't great, but it's also closer to a red herring.

 

[Bad Goalie]

I've often wondered if a lot of NHL coaches are just simply overrated. Let's face it, they're only as good as the personnel they have to work with.

Travis Green wore out his welcome in Vancouver, spent some time behind the bench in Long Island, and then surfaces this year in Ottawa......where he promptly leads the Sens to their first playoff spot in seven years.

And here in Vancouver, Tocchet is the Jack Adams winner a season ago, when everything that could go right, did for the Canucks. This season, almost the exact opposite, and the Canucks plunged out of the top-8 in the West.

Wins and losses are about the players--all the motivation and systems play in the world isn't going to help a team much, if it doesn't have the horses.

The path of least resistance now, would be just to promote Manny Malhotra. Look at what Spencer Carbery accomplished in Washington this season. Before this breakthrough year by the Caps, who'd ever heard of him?

Don't wish this to seem like an attack, but you got Green's resume wrong. He was never on Long Island. He left Vancouver to become an assistant coach for the NJ Devils under Ruff for the '23-24 season.

He became the interim head coach of the New Jersey Devils in the latter part of that same season after Lindy Ruff was fired. He was not hired for the head caching job in NJ after sucking as the interim.

During the off season he was then signed as the head coach of the Ottawa Senators for '24-25 and led them to the Playoffs this season. His first success as an NHL head coach after flopping with the Canucks and Devils..

 

[VanJack]

I stand corrected. For some reason I mixed up the Islanders and the Devils. But Green's tenure in Vancouver wasn't entirely a bust.

He did manage to get the Canucks into the playoffs in the COVID bubble year, and they won a round against the Blues and took Vegas to seven games.

Of course that was about as good as it got for Green in Vancouver. But I blame Benning more than the coaching staff.

 

[TruGr1t]

Why would it matter who mentioned family stuff first? It's not like the post contradicts that. Unless you want to make it as if front office is covering their ass.

It's most likely true that Tocchet leaving isn't heavily influenced by family. It's not like Tocchet has young kids, his adult son is 25. Tocchet's also been divorced for over 2 decades.

Canucks offered to make him one of the best paid coaches in the league, despite having all of 1 career series win. That's already ridiculous. Maybe either sees Vancouver as a undesirable franchise, wants to return to the States and saw any job opportunity as a stepping stone, or all of the above. Who cares now.

For the record, before he wiped his social media when he was hired, he was a big MAGA, anti-vax guy. Would retweet all kinds of porn/onlyfans shit. For all the shit Miller got, the only "support" for that was the thin blue line hat, which isn't great, but it's also closer to a red herring.

The post heavily insinuated, for some reason, Rutherford was driving the narrative around family concerns, when it was actually Tocchet who mentioned family concerns and Rutherford was just repeating it. In fact, "Rutherford" was highlighted in the post. Why Rutherford would have to clarify his comments, when it was Tocchet who mentioned it in the first place, I have no idea.

 

[racerjoe]

tocchet wanted out. if he was forced to quit, you wouldnt hear the things rutherford said because you dont say those type of things in a situation where you forced a guy to quit and take the fall. your theory doesnt pan out

we have seen exactly what it looks like when this management team tries to force a coach out.

 

[Canucks LB]

Let’s hope for a tampa loss today because Cooper would he absolutely the best case scenario if you finally leaves after 12 years.

He’s from BC as well, and he always said an interview interviews that he loves challenges and wants to solve them

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

we have seen exactly what it looks like when this management team tries to force a coach out.

That really never sat right with me at all. Bruce was a mid coach but they publicly humiliated him.

 

[Attack Vector]

Let’s hope for a tampa loss today because Cooper would be absolutely the best case scenario if he finally leaves after 12 years.

He’s from BC as well, and he always said an interview interviews that he loves challenges and wants to solve them

There is 0% chance he will move to BC after living in Tampa for the last decade. He’s going to another US team.

 

[Canucks LB]

There is 0% chance he will move to BC after living in Tampa for the last decade. He’s going to another US team.

I wouldn’t put it at 0%

 

[Oliewud]

lets not forget rick tochett was caught betting on games

the guys a douche that parades around bragging about cups he won with crosby and malkin lol

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

lets not forget rick tochett was caught betting on games

the guys a douche that parades around bragging about cups he won with crosby and malkin lol

He took the fall for Wayne and Janet.