Chapter 1: What are the recent changes in the Canucks' front office?
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We're going to be chatting with our friend Kevin Woodley coming up in a few moments. We were talking about alignment, and now we've seen Adam Foote get moved out.
And we spoke quite a bit last season, and even last year going back to the beginning parts of the season, about all the problems the Canucks had on ice and executing their systems and how porous they were defensively and how hard a time they had as a group through all the turmoil to play proper hockey.
And we spoke with Woodley quite a bit over the course of the year about what he saw in that environment. And the word environment and how bad it was is something we spoke about quite a bit.
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Chapter 2: How did the coaching structure impact the Canucks' performance?
So none of us are surprised that Adam Foote has been let go as the Canucks head coach.
Yeah, it makes it very challenging for goalies, especially those that, you know, have to read often. I think it's something that...
said Kevin but Woodley always so weird saying Kevin that he's always detailed so well is you know goalies having to track the defensive lanes and how the play is developing rather than just kind of eyes on the puck and so when it's chaotic it's like think of how much information you're trying to process when there's so much going on around you and does that allow you to play as fast and as quick as you need to
Let's go to the Able Auctions hotline and welcome in Kevin Woodley in Goal Magazine and NHL.com. And Woodley has a presentation of White Rock Hyundai. What's happening, Woodley? How you doing, man?
I'm good. I'm good. I was a little confused there too, Beck. So you caught me off guard as well.
Honestly, you have a full name name where it's like you have to say the full thing. But you also have a great like quick name and just saying Woodley. So it feels weird to say Kevin Woodley when you're just in conversation.
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Chapter 3: What were the challenges faced by goalies in the Canucks' system?
Yeah, it's, you know, my kids started calling me Kevin at an early age. Didn't love it as a parent, but it was, I actually deserved it because I was spending a little too much time on my phone and it was their way of getting my attention. Great, yeah, that's awesome. And then it quickly turned, I think she was 14 the first time she turned around in anger and dropped an F you, Kevin.
And that was, yeah, that was... that's when I knew I had full teenage girls. So, um, yeah, yeah. You caught me off guard there, Beck. At least you didn't drop an expletive in front of it. I appreciate that.
Anytime I hear Kevin, I just think of a home alone. That's it. That's all I can think about. Uh, let's just say Woodley is more prominent.
Uh, I just got a brand new mask with, and Woody is the nickname on the chin and it is, uh, It is Woody from Toy Story on both sides. So I'll have to show that off on the social scene and a nice John Garrett tribute on the back plate. Shout out to Basil from Custom Cages for taking care of it.
Oh, I can't wait to see it whenever you post that photo. I love goalie masks. You've always had some really cool ones that you've shared over the years. You know, right before you joined us, we were talking about... The coaching change and Adam Foote being let go.
And we spoke quite a bit over the course of the season, Woodley, about how many problems the Canucks had with their defensive environment, trying to generate more scoring chances. And from a strict X's and O's and execution standpoint, I don't think there is much of an argument against firing Adam Foote for how things went this season.
Of course, there are a lot of other factors out of his control, which made the situation a lot more different and a lot more challenging, I should say. But in terms of this move being made and in terms of the justifications for it, based on the things we saw this past season, it does seem very well justified.
Yeah, no, and as much as Ryan Johnson, and you believe him when he said this is about a reset and having a new group moving forward. Listen, absolutely. Did Adam Foote get dealt a terrible hand last year?
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Chapter 4: Why was Adam Foote let go as head coach?
Nobody's arguing that. But there's a line about how you play the cards you are dealt, and I think there's criticism that is warranted there. A lot of us, eyes popped wide open as far back as training camp when they
described some of the changes they were going to make in the defensive zone um you know some of the aggression uh some of the more you know things that put a greater emphasis on defensemen making individual reads reading off of each other and you know knowing the personnel and knowing how we'd seen some of them uh some of them who are no longer here
Struggle in that environment in the past like we all kind of like grace an eyebrow at that and it and it didn't work And the defensive environment was really difficult for the goaltenders. It was difficult for everyone to read off. I talked to players and
uh defensemen who were up and down a little bit this this season towards the end of the year about the differences in the system and and they didn't like they weren't complaining about the system up here but they admitted there were a lot more there was a lot more of a read element and it wasn't as simple and that in those those moments where you're caught thinking
rather than just reacting you know that's what made it difficult and allowed four checkers to get on top of you and led to mistakes and that's that's end of the season right so um you know the other part that i think gets glossed over a little bit like you empowered the wrong people from a leadership perspective that's i mean that's borne out and how this is how this all played out and all the talk about you know what this looked like at the
And I understood the decision-making at the time, but we also questioned it openly at the time, and it didn't work. So absolutely a brutal circumstance for your first year as an NHL head coach, but I think if you're fair, there were mistakes within that as well.
They made changes as well to the coaching staff, but some were retained. Do you have a sense of how the entire goaltending department is going to shake out? No, I don't. I don't.
I don't. I obviously asked the question. And I saw the eye rolls from my peers. And girls, I saw the eye rolls as I asked the question about... But you had to, man.
You had to ask the question. Honestly, I'm glad you did.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of the goaltending department's structure?
You know, we hear a lot of head coaches talk about, oh, like, I don't know anything about goal setting. I leave that to the goalie coach. And I think... you know, unless you've invested yourself in educating yourself on that position and how it interacts and some of the nuances of it, you're better to have other people making those decisions.
And so the fact that there seems to be some separation between coaching staff and goalie coaching staff is a good thing. And truthfully, the reason I asked the director question and I didn't ask about Ian specifically, although obviously that's, you know, that was the underlying question. And I believed and Ryan confirmed it, that there's a pretty strong relationship there.
That was always my impression, but you never know, so you ask.
But one of the reasons I asked it, and I didn't know when it was going to become official or when it was going to break, and it actually broke probably within five minutes of us finishing our question and answer with Ryan Johnson yesterday, and that's that there were some other moves coming around the league, in particular in New Jersey. And listen, like, again... I know it's not a priority.
You have to take care of your head coach first. Like this is down the list of things to do for Daniel and Henrik Sedin and Ryan Johnson. But at the same time, just as there was a lot of speculation about, and Ryan said that Toronto, nobody had reached out for permission to talk to Manny.
When I see a goalie coaching change in New Jersey, and by the way, the reaction to it by the fans, the Devils fans, is about the most unhinged thing I've ever seen, if you go check out the release on X. But it's not hard to draw lines there. Jacob Markstrom, Ian Clark, Sonny Mehta, work closely with Roberto Luongo in Florida.
If he's calling Roberto to ask for him advice on goaltending, I know what name's coming out of Roberto's mouth. I can, I can promise you that. And so does that mean they're going to call and ask for permission? I have no idea. There were a number of teams that I thought would last year. Some just decided they didn't want to spend the money. It wasn't worth it to spend the money on that position.
You know, There's been ties between Igor Shesterkin's camp and Ian Clark in the past. And the New York Rangers goalie coach, or sorry, director of goaltending, Benoit Allaire, retired just this past week. So that's where the question came from. I understand fully there's no urgency to this. There are other decisions that need to be made ahead of it.
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Chapter 6: How do coaching changes affect team dynamics?
Ian's under Clark for another year. Or sorry, Ian Clark is under contract for another year. But that contract no longer contains a director title, which... in itself provides an opportunity for the same type of mobility we were talking about in terms of Manny being an American Hockey League coach, and are there other teams interested?
Who knows if any of it transpires, maybe it all gets settled here, but I don't know which way it goes, and so because of some of those other factors, I think... I think it warranted asking.
I think it's a fabulous question. And I think especially if there is an opportunity now to get Ian back in the fold to a greater degree and him running the department and he works closely with Terranious and you can create that alignment, which is a word that we've been focusing in on a little bit here on the show and something that Trevor brought up yesterday.
And, you know, you've spoken about on the goalie side of things that sometimes the messages from players goalie coaches on different levels have not been the same and that creates a little bit of inconsistency.
Given that Ryan Johnson has seen that in action and if you're willing to bring these people back in the fold and have them work together, does it give you more confidence that they can ensure that that alignment would exist this time around through the organization and the goalie department?
Yeah, of course it would because you'd actually have a director of goal timing. Yeah. That's the job of a director is to ensure that that's what's happening. top to bottom, right? Like that's so, so yeah. Um, like I said, like the, the thing that changed is, is listen, like it was initiated by Ian, right? Like body couldn't do the job, like that, that, that part of it is true.
Um, and their response was to take away the director title and which is fair because that was part of his job before. And, um, and you know, the, the impression left was we, we had Jim Rutherford, so we didn't need somebody in the role of director of goaltending, but like, it's a very real thing.
And yeah, I know there are some organizations where it's just a title and there's a little bit of scouting, a little bit of development, but the good organizations, like it's a job, it's a full-time job. There's a, like making sure that everybody is on the same page, top to bottom, um, finding goalies, whether it's,
uh, minor pro Europe or on the scouting side, like there's a lot that can go into it to do it. Well, look at Calgary, look at the success they have with Jordan Siglet at the top, Jason LaBarbera and the national hockey league and the job that McKenzie Skapsky has done in the American hockey league. Like there are great examples out there of why a department can work really well.
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Chapter 7: What is the role of alignment in the Canucks' coaching approach?
He doesn't work cheap. And, you know, you're talking about a lot of these things he did with the goalie coaching title. So you got it all rolled into one. I've seen other organizations that add a director title, like quite literally, including with another goalie coach who should... probably be in the hall of fame already.
They added a director title, but what people didn't realize is they said, okay, used to be an NHL goalie coach and American league goalie coach. Now you're the director and you have to hire an NHL goalie coach at an American hockey league goalie coach. But the total salary that we used to pay for two, we're now paying for all three.
So like not all teams, more and more teams are willing to invest in the position of by adding it title-wise, but not all teams are willing to invest financially in it. And that's fair. Not everybody regards it in the same way. Not everybody does the job in the same way. But I think there are a lot of examples where having a cohesive department can net you a lot of value.
And when I look at what's happened to the goaltending in the last couple of years, it's not hard to point to examples where where mistakes have been made and things have fallen short because of the lack of that leadership.
And it's only six days. And it's kind of the easiest six days because you're cleaning house and kind of building the framework of what the culture and everything is supposed to be. But what would be your impressions through six days of the twins and Ryan Johnson being on the job? Because we haven't spoken to you since the announcement.
I mean, the things that jump out to me are why they're doing it. Um, and you guys have borne the brunt of more than one of my emotional rants, um, over the past, but probably largely over the past, what, two or three months? Sure. Yeah. Um, you know, Yeah. Right.
Like Woodley's lost it a couple of times in the last couple of months, you know, the kind where you hang up the phone and you're like, oh crap, am I getting a call here? Um, because, and, and what was the root of a lot of them guys? I talked about culture, talked about how you treated people.
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Chapter 8: How will the Canucks' decisions shape their future success?
I taught how many times have I talked about the loss of community presence about what it means to be a Vancouver Canuck, all the things that Stan Smeal delivered so passionately to the group and to the media. in that brief window where he was in charge. Like those are things that, Again, I've been around this for 26 years. Those are things that used to mean something.
I think they're going to mean something again. And because they're such good people, because they care so deeply about this franchise and what it can and should be, I'm really optimistic. The moves and the work required, there's a lot of heavy lifting here. But all three of them, such hard workers.
You talk to people that have been around them over the years about the intelligence, the passion they bring. the connectivity that they talk about from top to bottom. One of the things that I don't think I've heard brought up much is
I think decision-making when you're talking about Ryan Johnson and you talk about the twins and the way they're going to make decisions and we can make jokes about who's really in charge, Henrik or Daniel. It's funny.
I've talked to some teammates from way back in like, you know, the late two thousands and when they first came in and who picked who up and who put, you know, like I've written those stories for, you know, more than a decade at the hockey news and various outlets where I used to work, uh, where we got into the feature stuff, but it's going to be thoughtful and,
the thing that's going to go missing in a positive way in my mind from the decision-making process is ego. There will be a process to this and it won't involve. I'll show you who's boss old school decision-making. And I think when you talk to both sides of some of the decisions that have haunted this franchise in the last couple of years, the most,
There was undoubtedly an element of that at the highest levels. And that's a problem. That's not how you should operate. You should have enough process in place to be able to remove the emotion and the ego from those decisions.
And I think that's what's going to happen with these guys on top of all the things we talked about in terms of what it means to be a Canuck, to be involved and active in the community. Hey, and listen... I know a lot of the focus in terms of active players has gone to Elias Patterson, and I understand that. He's the highest paid player, and the performance hasn't been there, the production.
But Ryan Johnson has reiterated multiple times, 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., same thing, right? Like how you come to the rink. there are guys here that are going to have to, it'll be interesting. Do they have to change their approach, the mentality, the mindset, the attitude they bring to the rink on a daily basis?
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