It may be the long weekend, but the Vancouver Canucks are still at work.
On Sunday, the organization officially announced a number of changes to its coaching staff.
Assistant coaches Brad Shaw and Jason King are staying on with Vancouver, while assistants Scott Walker and Kyle Gustafson and video coach Darryl Seward won't be returning.
Bruce Boudreau let the cat out of the bag regarding Walker's status during an appearance on Bob McCown's podcast late last week.
Walker came in as Boudreau's right-hand man when he was hired in December, but missed about two months of the season after he was struck in the head by a puck during a game in January.
David Quadrelli of Canucks Army tweeted on Sunday that Walker's decision not to return was his own, and was made based on family considerations.
Walker was born in Cambridge, Ontario and now has roots about half an hour away in Guelph. He became part-owner of the OHL's Guelph Storm in 2015 after spending several years as the team's head coach. Last season, he held the title of president of hockey operations.
McCown's co-host, John Shannon, tweeted that Boudreau and the Canucks are looking for a coach who will replace Walker.
For now, we know that Brad Shaw and Jason King are staying on.
Shaw was hired as an assistant last season, after he was ruled out for the head job with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Focused on the defensive side of the puck, Shaw oversaw the evolution of the Canucks' penalty kill, which had a league-worst 64.6% success rate under Travis Green this season. After Boudreau took over, it improved to 80.5% for the last 57 games of the year, good for 11th-best in the NHL.
It's easy to see how that transformation came about:
click here to see players' ice time while the Canucks were shorthanded.
Before December 5, Vancouver's top five penalty killers by total minutes were, in order, Tyler Myers, J.T. Miller, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Tucker Poolman and Jason Dickinson. If you sort by time on ice, Tyler Motte, Travis Hamonic and Madison Bowey all work their way into the mix, each with a limited number of games.
After December 5, the top five in total minutes changes to Myers, Miller, Luke Schenn, OEL and Quinn Hughes. Per game, OEL moves up to second spot and Travis Hamonic slides into fourth.
Hughes got his shot on the kill almost as soon as Boudreau took over. For Elias Pettersson, the critical date was March 21, after Tyler Motte was traded to the New York Rangers. From there till the end of the season, he averaged 1:31 of shorthanded time per game, behind only Miller and Bo Horvat among the forwards. And due to Horvat's late-season injury, Pettersson's 27:09 of total penalty killing time after the trade deadline was second-most among forwards on the team, slightly ahead of deadline waiver pickup Brad Richardson — a defensive specialist.
And yes — Vancouver's penalty kill did improve after the trade deadline. It was at 77.1% from Dec. 5 to March 21, and rose to 86.8% over the last 18 games of the season — fourth-best in the league.
That's a heckuva feather in the cap of the coaching staff, and Pettersson's great anticipation and hockey smarts quickly made it clear that he's an asset on the kill.
Jason King also returns for his third season behind the Canucks' bench, after having spent four years with Utica before that. The power play was his domain last season, following the departure of Newell Brown. It was clicking at 17.4% during Travis Green's tenure, ranking 22nd in the league. From December 5 to the trade deadline, it jumped to 24.6%, good for seventh spot. And from March 21 till the end of the year, it went up again, to 31.9% — second only to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Also a heckuva feather in the cap of the coaching staff. It's almost unfathomable how much Vancouver's special teams improved over the course of the year, especially while working with essentially the same roster.
As for the other departures — Gustafson was an old associate of Travis Green's from the Portland Winter Hawks, who was added last season as an assistant and 'special assignment coach.'
Earlier last week,
Patrick Johnston from The Province pointed out that Gustafson's name was in the mix for the head job with the WHL's Spokane Chiefs.
As for video coach Darryl Seward, he has spent the last five seasons with the Canucks — starting at the same time as Travis Green, at the beginning of the 2017-18 season.
Coach's Challenges represent only one facet of a video coach's job — and even then, a team's success record only tells part of the story. We'll never know if there were other opportunities to challenge successfully that were passed up. But for what it's worth, the Canucks had a solid record on team-requested challenges this season, overturning four of five goals on offside challenges and going 1-for-1 on goaltender interference.
Last season, they were 2-for-3 in the 56-game season, also missing on one offside challenge. In the 2019-20 season, the first year where minor penalties were issued for incorrect challenges, they went 5-for-7, with two incorrect offside challenges.
The Canucks' challenge record in Seward's first two seasons with the team was a bit more up-and-down, with 4-of-7 challenges successful in both the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. But the stakes were different then, too. When they were only losing their timeout if they were wrong, coaches were more willing to challenge goals to change momentum or on the slightest possibility that they could get a goal wiped off the board.
You can
click here to see a breakdown of coach's challenge results, by coach. This chart doesn't distinguish challenges initiated by team from those that come from the situation room. But broadly speaking, it seems like the Canucks have done pretty well in this department in recent years — challenging relatively often, and usually successful.
It is interesting that Pittsburgh's Mike Sullivan has a terrific record — 8-for-8 this season, 1-for-1 in 2020-21 and 3-for-4 in 2019-20. That gives me confidence that Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin know exactly what makes for a successful video coach.
Perusing the
Penguins' website, I found it interesting that Pittsburgh actually has a two-person department: video coach Andy Saucier and assistant Madison Nikkel. Both got their starts with AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, and have been with the Penguins organization for a number of years.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»