Canucks News: Willie Desjardins the Coach of the Future
Vancouver Canucks head coach Willie Desjardins has not been too successful with the club so far. But, he’s probably here to stay.
In his first season as Vancouver Canucks head coach, Willie Desjardins led the team to a surprising playoff appearance. The Canucks lost the series 4-2 against the Calgary Flames in Round 1 — but at least they made it.
The two following campaigns were not nearly as successful.
In 2015-16, the Canucks finished 28th in the league despite management’s belief they were still a playoff team. The 2016-17 campaign started a little better, but shortly before the trade deadline, the Canucks found themselves in the same position as last year. Only this time they made the right deadline decisions.
Now, how much of that is Desjardins’ fault, and how much is due to a below-average roster?
Coach of the Future
Ed Willes (The Province) — Is Willie the man to coach the young Canucks?
Their performance, in fact, fits the prevailing narrative for this season; that Desjardins, for all his curious personnel decisions, has gotten as much as could be reasonably expected from this team. The next question is will that buy him another year behind the bench and the answer there seems to be tied up in where the Canucks believe they are as an organization.
Coaching decisions are never easy. Generally, you can say that a coach firing is appropriate when a team is playing below their potential. In other words, losing teams fire their coaches.
But what do you do when the team’s roster is objectively not good enough to compete for the playoffs, and it’s not exactly the coach’s fault?
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Players like Jayson Megna and Michael Chaput have been NHL regulars for most of this season. The problem here is not that the coach or management kept them in the lineup without reason, though. They simply don’t have better alternatives.
Yet, Desjardins can and probably should be criticised when it comes to lineup decisions. Sure, Megna and Chaput had to be in the lineup for most of the year.
But Megna should neither spend significant time on the first line, nor should he be a major part of the power play.
Those are the decisions that made fans question whether Desjardins is the right man for the job.
One can argue in both directions. Desjardins made odd lineup decisions — frequently — but he has also coached this team to some huge comeback wins. Then again, the Canucks frequently had the need to come back from behind, because they often started into games slowly. But, Desjardins’ team also had a few nice, clean wins like last night’s 2-1 victory against the Anaheim Ducks.
As said before, this is not an easy decision.
Desjardins is doing a decent job, but chances are, it could be better.
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With the roster’s current quality, however, there is no real reason to cut Desjardins loose.
He might not be the coach that leads Vancouver back to the Stanley Cup Finals, but he is surely going to stay for another year or two.