With 6,235 NHL games played, the Vancouver Canucks’ coaching staff has seen and done a lot in the game of hockey.
Daniel and Henrik Sedin are Hall of Fame players. Rick Tocchet, Sergei Gonchar, Mike Yeo, and Adam Foote have either won a Stanley Cup as a player or a coach, or as both. Then, on the skill-specific side, Ian Clark (Director of Goaltending) and Yogi Svejkovsky (skills coach) are both looked at as some of the top of their field.
With a staff that bolsters so much talent, there could be a challenge for Rick Tocchet to keep the vibe of the staff in check. But because of his open-table style of coaching, all of the staff feels confident that their opinions are being heard and that their thoughts have value to the ultimate goal of this team winning hockey games.
"Toch wants to hear everyone's voice and I think that's a strength of his,” said Assistant Coach Adam Foote. “As funny as it sounds, we get a lot done by just sitting around together. There are days we think we're going be there for two hours and we're there for a full day. It's incredibly fun. It's nice to come to work when it's not toxic. Toxic environments aren't fun, and this group is definitely not that. It's a lot of banter and we enjoy going to work together."
Gonchar and Foote have taken on the challenge of working with the Canucks’ defencemen. Adam Foote handles the in-game adjustments on the bench, and the addition of Foote came easy to Patrik Allvin after a recommendation from Tocchet and a strong first impression during the interview process.
“I didn't really know Adam but Rick wanted us to go through the interview process with him, and for me, it quickly became clear what type of person and how invested Adam was to support Rick,” said General Manager Patrik Allvin. “Adam was also very understanding of what we needed and where we wanted to go as an organization. I'm very happy that we gave him an opportunity to come here because Adam has been great on our staff.”
Foote is in charge of the defence during a game and communicates well with the head coach when either of them sees something on the ice that needs addressing.
"Rick is the head coach and he’s got a real good feel for not being a defenceman,” said Foote with a laugh. “He's put a lot of trust in me and Sergei. Toch is pretty much hands-off off as far as that but he is when he sees things associated with the defencemen that I may not see. He will let me know and we will make a switch. He's paying attention when you think he's not paying attention. Sometimes he will just give me this look during a game and he'll just say, 'I saw that'."
Foote and Gonchar were very different defencemen during their playing days.
Gonchar was the smooth-skating and offensive-minded defenceman who found himself in the top-10 of Norris Trophy voting nine times in his NHL career.
As for Foote, simply put, he was one of the hardest defencemen to play against in his era. His grit and ability to defend the neutral zone was far ahead of defencemen at the time and if you got in the corners with Foote, you were going to feel it.
“We have a lot of experience,” said Gonchar. “Everybody has their own opinion and they see the game differently. I guess that's what makes us unique. We’ve lived through our own experiences and have our own opinions so that's why our discussions usually come up with the best solutions.”
The success of the individuals is one thing but we are seeing success as a group because of how the coaches work alongside each other.
“For me, the biggest thing is to see how those guys interact,” said Allvin of his coaching staff. “You’ve got these potential Hall of Famers in Adam and Sergei. But these guys have no egos. They are constantly learning from each other. They come in and ask questions about solving problems or talking to certain players about something in their game. Someone will speak up and say, ‘Let me take this one, I can get through to him’. Honestly, how they work together is impressive.”
For the players, the ability to get extra work or simply just have an on-ice discussion with a coach has been great.
We’re seeing a one-to-three coach-to-player ratio when the entire staff is on the ice -- basically, every elementary teacher’s dream.
Skills Coach Yogi Svejkovsky is often the first coach out on the ice with a player but also runs his own practices when there’s an optional skate scheduled for the club.
“Yogi has such a knowledge of the game,” said Sam Lafferty. “You can tell he’s a student of the game and studies it every single day. Yogi always has different ideas and stuff for us to work on, especially for us forwards. It’s fun to try his new ideas. It may seem like we’re working on skills but a lot of it comes down to body positioning on the puck.”
Lafferty is often found on the ice before practice starts.
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