Tocchet embracing challenge of turning around Canucks as coach

The 58-year-old stepped into the cooker Sunday by accepting the job as the new coach of the Vancouver Canucks, replacing Bruce Boudreau.

Among the tasks Tocchet immediately faces is simply turning around the Canucks (18-25-3), who have been a disappointment this season. They are currently sixth in the Pacific Division, 14 points behind the Colorado Avalanche for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.

But there’s also the question of their captain, Bo Horvat, who is a pending unrestricted free agent. With contract negotiations going nowhere, Horvat is expected to be moved before the 2023 NHL Trade Deadline on March 3.

As for the rest of the players, they don’t know where they stand with him, and the Vancouver fanbase — one that has never experienced a Stanley Cup championship, is clearly enamored with the man he replaced, having chanted ‘Bruce, there it is,” at the end of Boudreau’s final game, a 4-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.

“It’s a new day tomorrow to get to know the players and just start we always say the process and chip away at it, and then all that other stuff lessens and lessens,” Tocchet said toward the end of his near hour-long introductory press conference. “This is a pressure job. We thrive in it. If you are prepared under pressure you deal with that sort of stuff.

“The group that surrounds me is going to help me too. That’s something I’m excited about. Every day you just deal with what comes to you and you repeat, and you build relationships, keep going and hopefully that pressure lessens and lessens, and you get good results.”

Tocchet, Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin and president Jim Rutherford spoke on Sunday about pursuing a change in how the team plays, specifically its commitment to structure and defending, its practice habits and processes, and the culture of the locker room.

But putting those plans into place will begin in earnest on Monday, when Tocchet and his new staff — which includes holdover assistants Mike Yeo and Jason King, who will be joined by Adam Foote and defensive development coach Sergei Gonchar — meet the players and put them through their first practice.

Allvin said Tocchet asked him in the interview process if this was going to be a quick fix.

Nope.

“For me, it’s not a quick fix,” Allvin said. “It’s a lot of work that needs to be done here and everything starts with how we prepare and how detailed we are in our practice.”

Tocchet plans to start small.

The first step? Build trust.

“You have to have relationships,” Tocchet said. “That’s a big part of what I want to do. I’m a relationship guy. I was talking to Patrik and Jim about this, creating a safe environment. Once you hit that locker room, guys feel safe and trusting. As a head coach, assistant coaches you’ve got to build relationships. You have to be by the coffee machine and ask these guys stuff.

“Coaches have to be partners and you have to give the players a voice. But there are some hard rules to the way you play the game.”

Those rules will be implemented. But Tocchet has to first find out what he has.

He wants to see forward Elias Pettersson and defenseman Quinn Hughes take on bigger roles so their practice and preparation habits are the best around, contagious.

“Those guys like that really have to set the bar,” Tocchet said.

He is hoping to rely on the three Canucks players he formerly coached; defensemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Luke Schenn, and forward Connor Garland were with Tocchet during his time as coach of the Arizona Coyotes (2017-2021).

“I’m going to need their help, especially in the practices,” Tocchet said. “I have a certain way I like the team to practice, and those guys know how I like to practice, so I’ll probably lean on those guys to do what they should be doing anyway, which is leading the drill.”

Tocchet said his job is to find players on the team that can do more than what they have been doing this season. That’s part of the reason the coaching change was made now, to see if Tocchet can get more out of the lineup.

“I think we only used two-thirds of the team here,” Allvin said. “I think there are other players in this locker room that are capable of doing more.”

Can forward Dakota Joshua kill penalties? What about Garland or forward Brock Boeser? Can he get Pettersson, Horvat and J.T. Miller off the penalty kill to save some wear and tear on him to make him an even more effective offensive player?

Vancouver entered Sunday an NHL-worst 65.9 percent on the PK this season and 31st in goals against per game at 3.96. Neither is sustainable if the team wants to reach Tocchet’s stated goal of seeing incremental improvement in all players across the board by the end of the season.

“That’s the big elephant in the room, right, all these different things,” Tocchet said. “I know it’s an old saying, but small bites at a time. We just have to go in every day and take a bit. You can’t swallow that elephant in one bite. Really, slow things down. I have got to evaluate some players too myself to see what’s out there.

“Maybe some other guys can have a little bit more role to get some ice time and contribute. I think that’s something we’ve got to look at. But it’s just really small bites at a time, slow it down. I’m sure the players’ heads are spinning and my job is to get their heads to slow down and just play the game.”

Tocchet’s first chance to do that will be on Tuesday, when the Canucks host the Chicago Blackhawks at Rogers Arena (10 p.m. ET; TVAS, SNP, NBCSCH, ESPN+, SN NOW).

The pressure cooker is on high, obstacles lining his path.

It’s time for Tocchet to get to work.