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

And that’s not all.

Dhaliwal also took to Twitter on Saturday, mentioning that the Canucks could be interested in another free agent coach.

Brad Shaw is a former NHL defenceman who posted 159 points in 377 games. After retiring as a player, he served as an assistant coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning, as well as the Islanders, Blues and Blue Jackets. He worked with the Blues for 10 years, and spent the past five years in Columbus.

Based on his NHL history, both as a player and as a coach, it would make the most sense for Shaw to focus on defencemen and the penalty kill if he were to join the Canucks organization, which would put Baumgartner in the spotlight.

Since 2017, the Canucks’ penalty kill ranks 19th overall at 79.9%, six spots behind Columbus during that span. The team has also allowed the sixth-most goals for since 2017 with 908, compared to Columbus’ 824, which is good for 21st in the league.

The Canucks did have the edge this past season, however, with their penalty kill finishing 17th overall at 79.8%, largely in part to the stellar play of Thatcher Demko. Columbus finished 21st.

The Canucks also allowed three more goals than the Blue Jackets over 56 games, with the clubs finishing sixth and seventh-worst in the league for goals against. Both teams didn’t qualify for the playoffs.

With all of this being said, nothing has been officially announced from management or ownership regarding the assistant coaching staff for the upcoming season.

There are no rules indicating how many assistant coaches a team can have on its staff, but most owners, if not all, won’t shell out unnecessary money if they don’t need to, ruling out the possibility of all four aforementioned people having a role with the club next year.

So what next?

Could the Canucks decide to stick with Baumgartner and Brown, keeping the current coaching staff intact moving forward? Definitely. You’d imagine that most head coaches would want consistency in the locker room, so this move might make the most sense from that perspective, especially given that Green is only on contract for two more years.

A few might even want their organization to take care of the entire coaching personnel first. A great example of this would be Rod Brind’amour in Carolina, who has been advocating for his assistant coaches, training staff and equipment staff all season, something that Green easily could’ve also done in his recent negotiations.

On the flip side, if bringing back the assistant coaches wasn’t discussed and agreed upon with Green, or if ownership isn’t happy with Brown and Baumgartner, then we very well might see new faces behind the Canucks’ bench to start the 2021-22 season. Some fans might even lean more towards this scenario, as it could be a clean slate for a team that’s in the middle of their mini-rebuild, both for development of players and overall gameplay improvements on the ice.

Jim Benning and co. still have a few months to iron out these details, but there’s no doubt that this will be one of their biggest decisions this offseason, one that could greatly impact the franchise moving forward.

What are your thoughts, Canucks fans? Make sure to drop a comment below!