Canucks: Could the assistant coaching staff look different next year?

As expected, the organization has kept these contract negotiations under wrap, amplifying the growing speculation amongst the fanbase.

And on Friday morning, insider Rick Dhaliwal added more fuel to the fire, hinting that the organization could be adding another person to Green’s staff.

Now, who exactly is Kirk Muller?

The 55-year-old is a former NHL centre, who recorded 959 points in 1349 games with the New Jersey Devils, Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders, Toronto Maple Leafs, Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers.

He also has an impressive coaching resume, starting his coaching career with the Canadiens in 2006. He landed his first head coaching gig in the AHL with the Milwaukee Admirals in 2011, but he was eventually able to return to the big leagues, serving as the head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes from 2011-2014, as well as an assistant coach for the St. Louis Blues from 2014-2016. Muller posted a 80-80-27 record in Carolina, and failed to qualify for the playoffs in all three years.

Most recently, Muller returned to the Canadiens as an assistant coach in 2016, exactly 10 years after his first gig with the club. During his second stint in Montreal, Muller was responsible for the team’s powerplay, and even served as the temporary head coach during the 2020 playoffs after Claude Julien was hospitalized with chest pains.

Both Muller and Julien were relieved of their duties halfway through the 2020-21 season.

Although Dhaliwal didn’t openly say what role Muller would take on if he was brought in by the organization, it still makes for an interesting conversation.

NHL teams usually have two to three assistant coaches on their staff, and the Canucks currently have that quota filled with Baumgartner, Brown and Jason King, who was hired as the third assistant coach prior to the 2020-21 campaign.

As we know, Baumgartner focuses primarily on defencemen and the penalty kill, and King has yet to actually make an appearance behind the bench during a regular season game, which puts the spotlight on Brown.

Brown has been responsible for the team’s forwards and powerplay units since 2017, much like Muller’s duties in Montreal. Of course, Brown has 10 more years of coaching experience compared to Muller, but that shouldn’t factor in too much, especially when you dive deeper into the analytics for both clubs.

Over the past four seasons, Vancouver’s powerplay has been wildly inconsistent. The Canucks finished with the ninth-best man advantage in Brown’s first season, posting a success rate of 21.5%, and were even able to improve upon that in 2019-20, finishing fourth in the league with 24.2%. However, they were also 22nd in the league in 2018-19 and, just this past season, they plummeted even further, finishing with the seventh-worst powerplay success rate. Since 2017, the team also sits 22nd in goals for with 809.

Of course, it’s not like Montreal fared much better. They finished 30th in the league at 13.3%, and their powerplay has never made cracked the top 10 over the past five years. However, they appeared to find more consistency in their man advantage compared to Vancouver, also finishing at 12th, 13th, and 17th respectively during that span, and did so without offensively-gifted players like Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser.

Montreal also has 10 more goals for between 2017 and now, sitting one spot ahead of Vancouver.