Vancouver Canucks fire Bruce Boudreau; Rick Tocchet new coach

The Vancouver Canucks have fired Bruce Boudreau and hired Rick Tocchet as their next head coach.

Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin made the announcement Sunday after much speculation that Boudreau’s time with the Canucks was coming to an end, assistant coach Trent Cull was let go as well.

“We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Bruce and Trent for their contributions to this organization,” said Allvin. “We appreciate their dedication and wish them nothing but the best moving forward. This was not an easy decision to make, but one that we felt was necessary for this franchise.”

(Left to right) Rick Tocchet, Patrik Allvin, Jim Rutherford. (Image Credit: NHL / Sportsnet)

Tocchet most recently coached for the Arizona Coyotes, spending four seasons with the team. Prior to his time in Arizona, Tocchet was an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins, helping the team win two Stanley Cups along the way.

Brendan Batchelor, play-by-play broadcaster for the Vancouver Canucks on Sportsnet 650, says Tocchet will bring a new style to the team.

“He has a reputation for asking a lot of his players requiring high standards and expecting that his players meet them and, you know, I think he’ll likely come in here and try to clean up some of the team’s systems in terms of their structure and their defensive play,” Batchelor explained.

Adam Foote and Sergei Gonchar will also be joining the team’s coaching staff.

President Jim Rutherford says the process for hiring Tocchet started “about a month ago” in a meeting with Boudreau and general manager Patrick Alvin. The Canucks management told Boudreau they would “like to see some progress,”, especially from younger players.

Weeks later, Rutherford says that “it got to the point where Patrick started to zero in on it and felt at that point we had to make a change.”

Rutherford apologized for his handling of the situation during the press conference.

“Now part of this process, and I will apologize to Bruce for this, is probably in my interviews over the course of the season,” Rutherford said. “When people ask me a question, I’m probably too direct and too honest and so that goes back to my comment about team playing with structure, more structure and things like that.”

“I’ve done that my whole career. I’ve tried to be honest, I’ve tried to answer the best I can. And sometimes that affects certain people and in this case, it probably did affect him. And, and I’m sorry I did that. And I’ve learned from it,” Rutherford said.

Tocchet is scheduled to be introduced to the media in Vancouver Sunday at 1 p.m.