May 14th, 2025
JC Clemas
On Wednesday morning, the Canucks announced Adam Foote as the 22nd head coach in the team’s history.
Foote has been an assistant coach for the Canucks since Rick Tocchet (who signed in Philadelphia earlier today) became bench boss for Vancouver back in 2023. He has worked primarily with the defense of the Canucks, which has seen substantial improvements in his time with the team. His other hockey coaching experience comes from his time between 2018-2020, where he was head coach of the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets before being fired partway into his 2nd season with the club. His coaching resume is not exactly long-winded, but his time with the Canucks is valuable.
Foote himself is a former NHL defenseman, playing 1154 games in the NHL with Quebec, Columbus, and primarily Colorado. Foote won 2 Stanley Cups with the Avalanche, in 1996 and 2001. He took on a defensive defenseman role in his playing days, which can help point you in the direction that the Canucks will be going for the 2025-26 season.
Under Adam Foote, the fans can expect the Canucks to play a similar game that they played under Tocchet. Having an internal hire, and especially one that shaped their playing structure already, doesn’t really give you any reason to think they’ll be switching up their style next season. It’s especially funny that the Canucks ALREADY had a shutdown defensive style under a guy who was a high-scoring forward in his time in the NHL, and now they’re transitioning to a coach who was a defensive defenseman.
The Canucks’ issue is not with the defense, though. It’s the offense. Their 2.84 goals-per-game mark ranked in the bottom 10 of all NHL teams this past season. Their top-scoring forward only managed 50 points. It was a struggle for the team to produce, and promoting a defensive specialist to the head coaching position is not exactly a move that seeks to solve this problem. One of the main ideas that they needed to look at while hiring a coach is how to get Elias Pettersson back to form. Hiring a coach who’s similar to Tocchet doesn’t really address this issue. It will be interesting to see how Foote attempts to revitalize the offense.
The Canucks have a ton of young defensemen coming up right now who will look for an NHL role next season. It is highly likely that Foote will be crucial for their proper development. This will be particularly interesting for defenseman Elias Pettersson. Pettersson is just 21 and played some meaningful minutes with Vancouver last season in his 28 games with the team. He seems to have carved out a role for himself on the team next season. Projected to be a physical, defensive defenseman, Foote’s knowledge will be huge for setting D-Petey on the right path.
But we all know there’s one specific player whose opinion on the new Vancouver coach matters more than anyone else’s on the planet: Drew O’Connor.
I’m kidding.
Quinn Hughes is seemingly starting to become agitated with the team. He was a big fan of Tocchet, endorsing the coach in his end-of-year press conference. When Tocchet announced that he would not be returning as head coach of the Canucks, Hughes failed to return Jim Rutherford’s call. It’s pretty obvious right now that the odds of Hughes leaving to join his brothers in 2027 is more likely than him staying in Vancouver. But, in the universe where there’s still a chance of him being a lifelong Canuck, the team has to do everything in their power to make him happy. He was pretty much the only thing that gave the team a pulse for the majority of last season. They’re a perennial lottery team without him.
So, when it comes to hiring Adam Foote, it’s pretty safe to assume that he was Hughes’ runner-up preference to Tocchet. Hughes is a big fan of Foote, and his game has grown tremendously under the new head coach’s eye. This move was the best possible one to keep Quinn Hughes happy, which is the most valuable thing to the team right now.
An internal hire stands to benefit the team for another reason as well. It’s no secret there have been locker room issues with the Canucks as of late. Making an outside hire and shaking things up could have been beneficial, but hiring someone on the inside who’s already familiar with the issues and is comfortable with the organization is likely to make it a more fluid transition for the team.
Was Foote the best choice? You can come to your own conclusions on that, probably based on how much you already liked the Canucks’ playing style. Tocchet’s game plan may not have worked at all this past season, but it led the Canucks to one of their best seasons ever in 2023-24. The team still has a lot of work to do in the offseason, and with a good amount of money to accomplish it. If they can address their issues on offense, and Foote can work on balancing the team’s strong defensive game with a game that actually scores goals, there’s no doubt that the Canucks can be back to the playoffs next season.
Manny Malhotra was definitely a great candidate for this job, so it’s sad that he was overlooked this time around. In front of Malhotra, the Abbotsford Canucks are currently rolling through the playoffs right now. Assuming he remains in Abbotsford for a while, Malhotra will be huge for the Canucks’ development in the coming years. He works well with the young guys and has been turning them into the best versions of themselves. Maybe Malhotra is next in line for Vancouver? Maybe he can get a head coaching job with another NHL team at some point? Either way, I hope to see him behind an NHL bench soon enough.
The hiring of Foote means that Canuck fans are going to have to accept that this team is defense-first. Hopefully they end up as a Carolina Hurricanes-type team, and not a New York Islanders one.