Vancouver Canucks: Travis Green Hiring a Questionable Call
By Alex Hoegler
The Vancouver Canucks’ hiring of Travis Green as their new head coach wasn’t surprising, but the move comes with plenty of uncertainty.
For the third time in just under four years, the Vancouver Canucks’ front office introduced a new head coach. This time, former Utica Comets head coach Travis Green will sit behind the Canucks bench and try to lead this lost franchise into the right direction.
Nobody should be surprised that the Canucks hired Green, the head coach of their AHL team. This isn’t the first time Vancouver’s new head coach was found within the organization. Alain Vigneault, the greatest head coach in franchise history, was bench boss of the Manitoba Moose, the Canucks’ AHL affiliate at the time, until Vancouver hired him in 2006.
Willie Desjardins was head coach of the Texas Stars — AHL affiliate of the Dallas Stars. The Canucks thought they’d give Willie D a chance three years ago (though he had zero NHL head-coaching experience), and now they’re starting from scratch again.
But how should Canucks fans feel about the hiring of Travis Green?
There is obviously a lot to be excited about — he knows the young players in the Canucks’ system. But given how he’s had zero experience as an NHL head coach, Green’s hiring doesn’t come without questions and concerns.
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Jason Botchford from The Province explained why Green’s tenure in Vancouver could be “a bust”:
"Just because a coach is young, doesn’t always mean the coach can connect with younger players. Both [Dallas] Eakins and Scott Arniel recently were young(ish) head coaches and neither made it through two full seasons before being fired."
Green isn’t going to find a transition into the NHL very easy, and the player personnel is one reason why.
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In Utica, he was working with younger and faster players. Assuming the Canucks’ roster doesn’t undergo a major turnover in the summer, Green is now going to be stuck with past-their-prime veterans like Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Loui Eriksson and Alexander Edler. He has to combine that with youngsters like Bo Horvat, Troy Stecher, Brock Boeser and, hopefully, a revived Jake Virtanen.
Green is going to have to find a way to gel the fading vets and young studs together. That usually doesn’t work in today’s NHL, but it’s not in Green’s hands to make up the roster. His job is to work with what he’s given.
This isn’t a knock against Green, whose impressive track record in the AHL is hard to ignore. But if Desjardins wasn’t able to gel the Sedins, Edler and the young players together, then it’s easy to figure that Green will have some difficulties doing it.
Vancouver would have been better off hiring a head coach with plenty of NHL experience. I even wrote about why Darryl Sutter would have been a great fit for this team (you can read all about it here). Just look at teams like the Edmonton Oilers with Todd McLellan, the Calgary Flames with Glen Gulutzan and the Toronto Maple Leafs with Mike Babcock. Those teams quickly turned it around under head coaches with plenty of NHL experience.
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If Vancouver is truly ready to dedicate three to five years to rebuilding, then perhaps hiring Green is the right call. But if they’re trying to rise out of the Western Conference basement as soon as possible, they would have been better off hiring a veteran NHL head coach.
Right now, the hiring of Green looks iffy. But time will tell if the Vancouver Canucks made the right decision in making Green their new bench boss.