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

There has been a lot of questions surrounding the Vancouver Canucks and their coaching staff this offseason.

For the most part, the focus has heavily been on head coach Travis Green and goaltending coach Ian Clark, both of whom were in the final years of their current deals this past season. At first, all signs were pointing towards general manager Jim Benning running out of time once again, with many expecting both Green and Clark to test out the free agency waters.

Fortunately, he seems to be turning things around as of late.

The Canucks were finally able to lock down Green, inking him to a two-year contract extension a few weeks back.

And although his recent track record has proven otherwise, Benning appears confident that he’ll also be able to keep Clark in Vancouver.

It would be fantastic news if management could lock down Clark on a long-term extension. The veteran goaltending coach, who suited up for his 1500th NHL game this past May, has had a tremendous impact on all of the netminders that he’s worked with during his career, and would undoubtedly be a key piece in this team’s transition moving forward.

But what about the other coaching personnel?

At the time of this article being published, assistant coaches Nolan Baumgartner and Newell Brown are both without new deals, and should be near the top of Benning’s offseason to-do list.

Baumgartner has been with the Canucks coaching organization since 2012, serving as an assistant coach with their AHL affiliates for five years before being promoted to the NHL in June 2017. He also spent time with organization as a NHL defenceman, playing for both the Manitoba Moose and Vancouver Canucks between 2002 and 2006.

Brown has much more coaching experience in the NHL, having worked with the Chicago Blackhawks, Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets and Arizona Coyotes over the past 25 years. Like Baumgartner, he was added to the assistant coaching staff prior to the 2017-18 season, marking his coaching return to Vancouver.

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.