Rick Tocchet’s unyielding honesty has resurrected Canucks franchise

VANCOUVER – For a guy who amassed nearly 3,000 penalty minutes and was ferociously combative as a National Hockey League player, the toughest thing about Rick Tocchet is his honesty.

In this way, he is as unyielding and unrelenting as a coach as he was as a player.

Tocchet would trade in a heartbeat his Jack Adams Award, and probably the more superfluous parts of his anatomy, for one more win this season — for the chance to open the Western Conference Final Thursday in Dallas with the Vancouver Canucks instead of conducting exit meetings three days after his team lost Game 7 to the Edmonton Oilers.

But his coach-of-the-year honour reflects Tocchet’s paramount role in the Canucks’ dramatic ascendancy this season, the franchise’s resurrection and the culture he has built for players.

“Anybody that has a problem with honesty, then we really don’t want them to be part of the Canucks,” president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford told Sportsnet on Wednesday. “The thing about Rick Tocchet, the things that he preaches are all things that he has experienced himself.

“On one hand, he’s going to push them to the limit, and he’s going to be honest and tell people how he feels about them. But within five minutes, he’s going to be right there working with that player to make the player better. You’re not going to find anybody that will go to bat more for players than Rick Tocchet.”

Just last week, after a dismal 5-1 loss in Game 4 allowed the Oilers to even their Stanley Cup quarterfinal series at 2-2, Tocchet dropped a truth bomb in his post-game press conference, talking about the “passengers” on the Canucks and wondering, “Some guys, I don’t know if they thought it was the playoffs. We can’t play with 12 guys.”

Whether healthy-scratching and then building up players like Nils Hoglander, Dakota Joshua and Nikita Zadorov or making critical comments about top players like Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller, Tocchet has been unwavering in his honesty and beliefs about standards and accountability.

“The authenticity thing, you just know he’s for real,” Canucks winger Conor Garland, who also played for Tocchet with the Arizona Coyotes, told us in January. “He’s genuine and he wants you to improve and he also wants us to win. It’s easy to get buy-in when you have that.”

“His door is always open to go in and talk about hockey,” veteran Ian Cole said. “But just personally… he’ll talk to you like a person. I think sometimes coaches miss that. It’s almost like a two-caste system, but he’s able to kind of blend that. Now, he’s also the coach and he’ll call you out and he’ll say, ‘That was s—.’ He’ll do all that. But he’s also really good at hearing what you say, taking it in and having a conversation.”

This is exactly how general manager Patrik Allvin envisioned it working when he hired Tocchet just 16 months ago, taking a chance on a coach blemished by a career record of just 178-200-60 from untenable head-coaching stints amid upheaval in Tampa and Arizona.

Battered by those tumultuous experiences, Tocchet turned down three senior assistant coaching positions and two opportunities to pursue head coaching jobs in the NHL after leaving the Coyotes in 2021.

“We needed to establish accountability,” Allvin said Wednesday. “And I think that’s the biggest strength of Rick Tocchet — his ability to communicate with the players in ways they understand that he has their back and he wants them to be successful. He forms that partnership with the players to demand more out of them.

rick tocchet’s unyielding honesty has resurrected canucks franchise

Watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Sportsnet

It all comes down to this: 16 teams, one trophy. Watch every game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs live on Sportsnet+.

Broadcast schedule

“In assessing where the team was when I took over and Jim was here… it became pretty clear to me what we were missing. We had a lot of individual, skilled, good hockey players, but we didn’t play as a team. I felt for the communication and the credibility for players, they needed somebody that has done it in the past. That’s where (adding assistant coaches) Adam Foote and Sergei Gonchar was the best fit for our group, too. But going through it here made me even more sure that Toc was the right guy because of his values. And on top of that, we needed to have a structure in place and Rick and his staff were able to implement that, so I’m really happy with Toc and the coaching staff.”

Allvin and Rutherford knew Tocchet from their years together in Pittsburgh, where Tocchet was an assistant coach on Mike Sullivan’s staff during the Penguins’ runs to the Stanley Cup in 2016 and 2017.

“I felt very strong about our organization and the culture that we were building, and the strength and support that we give each other,” Rutherford said of convincing Tocchet to leave his television studio job with TNT to take over the Canucks. “I don’t want to get into comparing those other organizations (he worked for), but certainly he knew and we knew that we were all in this together. And if we ever get a guy that starts going in a different direction, he doesn’t stay here long. We all have different ideas here, but at the end of the day we’re going in the same direction and we believe in each other.

“That was important not only for us to go get him and believe in him, but for him to make the decision to come here. He had some chances to go other places and decided not to do that.”

Universally projected before this season to be on the outer fringes of the playoff race, the Canucks instead went 50-23-9 and won the Pacific Division ahead of the Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights and the Cup-favourites from Edmonton.

The Canucks brought playoff hockey to Vancouver for the first time since 2015, won a non-pandemic series for the first time since 2011 by beating the Nashville Predators in Round 1, then not only proved to be a far more credible opponent for the Oilers than most people expected, but actually led Connor McDavid’s team three times in the series before Edmonton found something close to its A-game in the final two contests.

Under Tocchet, players like Miller (103 points) and Brock Boeser (40 goals), Garland and Tyler Myers were transformed far beyond their statistics. Goalie Thatcher Demko is a Vezina Trophy finalist, Quinn Hughes the Norris Trophy favourite. All in a little more than a year.

“It’s not about Toc, it’s not about individual success,” Allvin said. “It’s all about the team’s success. It’s all about the crest that he’s been talking about. I think that’s where the players understand. We’ve become a team, which was important. (Players) understand that the next level it’s about winning as a team, the team structure. That’s something that Rick and his staff have stressed over and over, and the players are starting to get it.”

“I’m in the stage now, can this be a special team?” Tocchet said before going to the All-Star Game in January. “I’ve heard that word ‘special.’ To be a special team, you’ve got to do special things. And that means, you know, discipline and your staples and all that, we have to do those things consistently to be special. You have to do extraordinary things to be a special team. So we’re trying to strive for that.”

More from Sportsnet

rick tocchet’s unyielding honesty has resurrected canucks franchise

Can the Vancouver Canucks re-sign Elias Lindholm?

rick tocchet’s unyielding honesty has resurrected canucks franchise

Canucks’ uplifting season comes to crushing end in Game 7 loss to Oilers

OTHER NEWS

24 minutes ago

Colin Montgomerie explains why Rory McIlroy will be doubly hurt by US Open failure

24 minutes ago

'This is a disaster for Macron': Will the French president's gamble on elections pay off?

24 minutes ago

Croatia vs. Italy expected lineups, starting 11, team news: Modric and Barella to start Euro 2024 match

24 minutes ago

Kevin McGarry Reflects On ‘When Calls The Heart’ Season 11’s Big Moments And Just What Makes This Show So Special

24 minutes ago

Blue Jays claim RHP Jose Cuas off waivers from Cubs

24 minutes ago

Death toll at Hajj pilgrimage rises to 1,300 amid scorching temperatures

24 minutes ago

‘Gone nuclear’: The energy debate’s ‘fallout’ between Coalition and Labor

24 minutes ago

Only 20 percent of top 50 making way to 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic

24 minutes ago

Maro Itoje has finally grown into a leader for England – and Steve Borthwick is delighted

24 minutes ago

Blue Jays call up Steward Berroa, place Orelvis Martinez on restricted list

24 minutes ago

The Sharks acquire Egor Afanasyev from the Predators for Ozzy Wiesblatt

24 minutes ago

Veteran Republican strategist tells Fox News that Trump is falling in polls since his conviction

24 minutes ago

USA vs ENG Live Score, T20 World Cup 2024: Tricky USA stand in way of England's semi-final berth at Barbados

24 minutes ago

Chilling new video captures suspected Saudi spy filming US Capitol, National Monument before 9/11

24 minutes ago

Watch as Ryan Garcia tries his hand at STAND-UP COMEDY with excruciating routine following his doping ban

24 minutes ago

Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark arrive for hotly-anticipated WNBA showdown with Sky rookie rocking eye-catching ensemble

28 minutes ago

Biden campaign lays out debate week strategy in new memo

31 minutes ago

Video: Former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo says Trump's hush money case should have 'never been brought'

31 minutes ago

Toronto Blue Jays infielder gets 80-game drug suspension 2 days after major league debut

31 minutes ago

Illinois may soon return land the U.S. stole from a Prairie Band Potawatomi chief 175 years ago

31 minutes ago

'We are dreaming' - brave Albania not just playing for pride against Spain

31 minutes ago

Basketball ties aside, Macklin Celebrini focused on hockey as NHL draft's presumptive No. 1 pick

31 minutes ago

Taylor Swift's surprise songs from Night 2 of the Eras Tour in London, including a Hayley Williams appearance

31 minutes ago

England: Scholes selects new position to start ‘wasted’ Alexander-Arnold in three changes for Slovenia

31 minutes ago

Angela Rayner comments on election date gambling allegations

31 minutes ago

Ukraine vs Belgium: Euro 2024 prediction, kick-off time, TV, live stream, team news, h2h results, odds

31 minutes ago

Barcelona fear Arsenal as race hots up to sign sensational Spain midfielder

31 minutes ago

Matvei Michkov Signing Changes Trajectory Of Flyers Rebuild Timeline

31 minutes ago

Giovanni Pernice cuts dreary figure as he returns to stage with Anton Du Beke amid Strictly probe

31 minutes ago

Harry Kane sends firm warning to Gary Lineker after BBC star's brutal England criticism

31 minutes ago

Holders Dublin get quarter-final tie with Galway after edging clear of Mayo

31 minutes ago

Just one term? There is a strategy that can get Keir Starmer to No 10 – and keep him there

31 minutes ago

Boris Johnson demands Starmer denounce Jeremy Corbyn in latest column

31 minutes ago

'James had been very supportive of me'

31 minutes ago

Labour: Conservatives have utterly let renters down

31 minutes ago

Armagh power past Mayo to reach first All-Ireland minor final since 2009

31 minutes ago

PSL Awards: Sundowns and Pirates stars big winners

31 minutes ago

Tories have 'no leadership from top' as General Election betting scandal deepens

31 minutes ago

WATCH: DJ Maphorisa and Kabza De Small’s dancing video

31 minutes ago

Fired-up New Yorkers protest troublesome migrant tent city: ‘we’re going to keep the pressure on’