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Canucks to introduce Travis Green as next head coach Wednesday |
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That didn't take long at all!
The folks in the know say that, as expected, the new coach will be Utica Comets bench boss Travis Green. He'll bring assistant coach Nolan Baumgartner with him.
Let's start with the good stuff—Green's a B.C. boy, born in Castlegar. But don't worry—he has that Medicine Hat connection. After spending three and a half seasons of his junior career close to home with the Spokane Chiefs, he played his last 25 games in the WHL with the Tigers in 1989-90—two years after Trevor Linden reached the NHL.
Green was drafted 23rd overall by the New York Islanders in 1989, in what was the second round back in the days of the 21-team NHL. He spent two and a half seasons in the minors before making the jump to the big club, then went on to play 970 NHL games over 14 seasons with five teams—the Islanders, Anaheim, Phoenix, Boston and Toronto.
Only 11 players from his draft class played more NHL games. The most notable names who logged more games are Nick Lidstrom (drafted 53rd, played 1,564 games), Mats Sundin (drafted first, played 1,346 games) and Sergei Fedorov (drafted 74th, played 1,248 games).
Green's 193-262-455 also rank him 12th in career points from his draft class—not bad for a guy who peaked out at 25 goals (twice).
The Canucks chose Jason Herter eighth overall in 1989—and he played a grand total of one NHL game. But they redeemed themselves in the fifth round with their selection of The Russian Rocket, Pavel Bure.
Green finished out his playing career in Switzlerland with Zug in 2007-08—where he racked up a career-high 129 penalty minutes in 29 games! After his retirement, he immediately signed on with the Portland Winterhawks, where he worked as an assistant coach and assistant general manager. In 2012-13, he moved up to head coach after incumbent Mike Johnston was suspended for player benefit violations, and took the Portland team all the way to a WHL championship and Memorial Cup berth—where they ultimately lost out to Nathan MacKinnon, Jonathan Drouin and the Halifax Mooseheads.
As an aside, Bo Horvat was named Most Sportsmanlike player in that tournament!
Interestingly, the Winterhawks' all-stars from that tournament have had a tough time breaking through to the NHL. Defenseman Derrick Pouliot has played 67 NHL games over parts of three seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins and is currently starring for Wilkes-Barre Scranton in the AHL playoffs, while forward Ty Rattie has logged just 35 NHL games and was put on waivers twice during the 2016-17 season.
Seth Jones has proven to be the biggest star on that roster: he was chosen fourth overall in 2013 after his run with Green and is now established as a top-level NHL defenseman at age 22.
After his successful run with Portland, Green was hired to be the first-ever coach of the Utica Comets for their inaugural 2013-14 season.
In his four years with Utica, Green amassed a 155-110-29 record in 304 games. The Canucks' prospect pool was shallow from the day he took the job. Here's the list of leading scorers from each of his four seasons:
2013-14: Pascal Pelletier 22-40-62
2014-15: Cal O'Reilly: 10-51-61
2015-16: Alex Grenier: 16-32-48
2016-17: Darren Archibald: 23-24-47
The high-water mark of Green's time in Utica was the team's run to the Calder Cup Final in 2014-15—fuelled in large part by the All-Star play of Jacob Markstrom, whose 1.88 goals-against average and .934 save percentage during the regular season was second only to Matt Murray, now of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
I wonder if that pre-existing relationship will give Markstrom more traction as the potential No. 1 next season? Would Green be interested in carrying on with the tandem he knows, of Markstrom and Richard Bachman?
Other members of the Canucks' current main roster that spent significant time in Utica with Green include Sven Baertschi, Brendan Gaunce, Jake Virtanen and Alex Biega. Of course, with all the call-ups the Canucks made this year, most of the Comets opening-night roster saw time in Vancouver at some point this season.
Here's another indicator I like for this hiring: the last time the Canucks promoted their AHL coach, Alain Vigneault took the reins at the beginning of the 2006-07 season. Not only did that usher in the best prolonged period of success in team history, it also saw some unheralded minor-leaguers move up to play key roles in Vancouver. Alex Burrows, Kevin Bieksa and Rick Rypien all played with the Moose under AV in 2005-06.
Perhaps Green's familiarity with what's on the farm will also help unearth some nuggets to go along with the young talent that the Canucks are starting to collect?
Another good sign—Vigneault was 45 years old when he joined the Canucks in the summer of 2006. Green is 46—so hopefully he's at the right point in his career to make this jump.
I know there's concern about his lack of NHL coaching experience. I'm hopeful that his 970 games of playing experience will make up for that.
I look forward to Wednesday's press conference, which will start to set the tone for what we can expect to hear from the coach going forward.
One other note before I wrap up today—we'll have a new source for sports radio in the market this fall!
This announcement has also been expected, ever since we heard that Rogers had acquired the radio rights for Canucks games to start in 2017-18. Vancouver's Sportsnet Radio will be broadcasting on the AM650 frequency, formerly the home of oldies station CISL.
This move also means we'll get Blue Jays baseball and MLB playoffs on radio in this market.
It'll be fun to see how the hiring process shakes out and hopefully get some fresh voices into the Canucks broadcasting mix next season!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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