[Report] Pat Quinn open to joining Canucks

[EmployeeoftheMonth]

He was talking about Pat Quinn... lol

I believe TL was making a point.

[SabreFan1]

I believe TL was making a point.

It was funny either way. Gretzky was a horrible coach... It was kinda upsetting to see him do so poorly back then.

[Tearloch7]

He would be an improvement on Torts though, guaranteed. Offensive coach likes offense.

He was talking about Gretzky .. Azzy .. directly above my 'juggernaut' comment

[Azzy Mahmood]

Yeah .. that Coyote team under Gretzky was an offensive juggernaut ..

Compared to this Nucks team me and you together would be an offensive juggernaut, and I can barely skate.

[The_Kuze]

If we get Quinn and Benning and Laviolette Trev has done everything he can do right this ship

[thundernuts]

I wonder what wetcoaster would have to say about that????

[ButcherG]

I have a lot of respect for Pat Quinn. I really felt he did what was necessary to convince ownership at the time, to pay for a real team and gave us that 94 cup run. After watching the 80s Canucks, it was a breath of fresh air.

However, I don't want to see Quinn in anything more then an advisory role. I know he didn't want to coach in Van, preferred to GM and hired lackeys like Rick Ley.

Quinn was best suited as a coach, as he was an intimidating force behind the bench, and motivated players to go above and beyond their skill sets.

Today I feel he is just to old to stand up to the rigors of coaching. However having him behind the scenes to access trades and signings could be a good thing.

[Dogbyte]

Probably. Torts just came to the wrong team to coach his brand of hockey. It seems that he couldn't adjust fast enough once the Canucks players started to falter.

Bowman couldn't have coached this team any better.

[aGENT]

Bowman couldn't have coached this team any better.

Ooooh I don't know about that.....

[Dogbyte]

Ooooh I don't know about that.....

[fagin]

If we get Quinn and Benning and Laviolette Trev has done everything he can do right this ship

He would hardly have scratched the surface,the lacklustre on ice performance should be first and foremost on the list.Until this side of the operation is addressed,the team really hasn't changed and it desperately needs to.

[CrippledCanuck]

This team has been a sinking ship for a couple of years, if the plan is to bring in young blood next season I say keep torts. Canucks didn't fire AV in this second year after missing the playoffs and that was with a group coming into there prime, this group is aging, has been mismanaged on a few levels and was never given the complimentary players we needed once we lost or let walk players that were key in our cup run. The money ball bandaid method gillis employed and that worked to an extent no longer works. Clean house with whatever players we can convince to waive, start with a predominately younger group with a few key veteran players to provide leadership.

[aGENT]

This team has been a sinking ship for a couple of years, if the plan is to bring in young blood next season I say keep torts. Canucks didn't fire AV in this second year after missing the playoffs and that was with a group coming into there prime, this group is aging, has been mismanaged on a few levels and was never given the complimentary players we needed once we lost or let walk players that were key in our cup run. The money ball bandaid method gillis employed and that worked to an extent no longer works. Clean house with whatever players we can convince to waive, start with a predominately younger group with a few key veteran players to provide leadership.

Linden and whoever our new GM will be also won't be saddled by a lockout and shrinking cap that largely prevented MG from making those required moves the last two years.

[Hank Moody]

Linden said something along the lines of "like my gym business partner Chuck, it's always good to have another person who can tell you when you're thinking irrationally and you can assess things with because they bring a different perspective" (I dont have the exact quote but something along those lines)

I'd agree with him. Quinn would be a nice sober second thought

[oldnews]

Bowman couldn't have coached this team any better.

Tortorella made plenty of obvious mistakes this year. People can apologize for them until they are blue in the face and pretend that no one could have done a better job with this roster. I don't buy that for a second. I would not be so critical of him were it not for the fact that he seems to still be under the impression that none of these decisions, aside from attempting to bust into the opposition's locker room and start a fight with Hartley, was in fact not the best of decisions.

1) Edler faced the strongest quality of competition on the blueline and was perceived to be the prime shutdown guy.

2) Hamhuis was in the Tortorella doghouse to start the season.

3) Hansen spent less time killing penalties than the Sedins - and despite being one of the hardest working two way players on the team, was berated publicly by Tortorella, probably the first in a series of outbursts that started him down the path of losing his bench.

4) The Edler/Bieksa pairing - has never worked in the past - and is still trying to be forced by Tortorella down the stretch this season. Headscratcher.

5) Over-utilizing the top players in a gruelling Olympic compacted travel and play schedule which saw the team play 28 back to back games over the first 60 this season. How a three line approach was going to be sustainable was a mystery - and something that was stressed from day one. Nevertheless, Tortorella stubbornly proceeded as he saw fit regardless of the counsel of virtually everyone. He went with the approach from October. He later actually fired the opening shots over the bow in claiming a lack of depth forced his hand - a clear displacement of responsibility onto his GM. Later citing injuries doesn't quite sell when the approach was taken from day 1 of the season. Gillis is credited with throwing his coach under the bus with his comments about departing from a style of play he wanted to see, but that actually came after Tortorella publicly referencing a lack of depth as forcing his hand. Tortorella continued to defend his three line approach in the interview where he doesn't really respond to Gillis gameplanning/style/systems concerns but calls them "internal" issues. Depth, then, should also be considered an issue to discuss internally with your GM.

6) Attempting to bust into the opposition locker room and getting yourself suspended? Enough said - obviously a huge lack of self-control and judgement there. His passion is not the problem most of us have - it's harnessing it in a positive direction that is still an issue.

7) Berating Hansen, Edler, Jensen on the bench - incidents broadcasted for all of us to witness - goes to point 6. We don't expect players to be treated like shrinking violets, but at the same time, there is a reasonable concern with a loss of control and judgement there - and whether the effect on player's confidence and performance is actually productive or counterproductive.

8) A loss of effectiveness where interventions and adjustments are concerned. Before Christmas - used timeouts and line changes very effectively. After new years, lost this tool entirely, and moreover, the line juggling got to the point where it's effectiveness no longer seemed to make the tactical sense it had earlier in the season. The coach seemed strategically and visibly at a loss.

9) The "stiffness" factor, something that Tortorella sold strongly - arguably reached an all time worst - and is not necessarily as surprising and unpredictable as it might appear. A team that was extremely adept at locking down third period leads in the past - became as fragile as it had ever been, seeing some of the worst and regular third period meltdowns in it's history. Instead of a stronger backbone, Tortorella's approach almost appeared to weaken or even break the confidence of the team.

10) Getting the best out of players and putting them in situational contexts to utilize their strengths would appear to be the primary job of a coach. Playing a style of game suitable to the personnel a coach has - pretty much a hallmark of good coaching. Obviously, very few players lived up to their potential this year - Higgins, the youngsters and the bargain UFA signings had good seasons - aside from them, disappointment accross the board, and regardless of how you want to explain it - it is a results oriented business, one that cost AV his job because the team did not live up to expectations in the LA and SJ series.

This year, they did not even make the playoffs.

I don't dislike Tortorealla - as I've said elsewhere, he actually grew on me more than I had expected - but the reality is that if you look at the contexts, it's hard not to give him a fail this year - if you look at the results, it goes without saying that this season was a failure. If we are in fact losing our patience with excuses, then I'm not sure how we come up with enough to excuse the ineffective coaching we all witnessed.

On top of that, it's hard to imagine both ownership backtracking on their comments that Gillis was fired because of Tortorella, or to see how Tortorella is supposed to deal with that fairly high profile indictment of the job he did. I feel kind of bad for Tortorella - on top of his stubborn approach seeming to backfire considerably, conditions also conspired against him somewhat - the injuries were extreme, and in the context of that stubborn approach - he had an extra challenge in a travel and play schedule that was even more compacted and gruelling than normal. However, he apparently didn't only not heed the cautions, even in hindsight he doesn't see his approach as problematic. That does not lend confidence to the possibility of improvement. All in all, I think this just did not and is not likely to work - and the last thing this fanbase has tolerance for is the idea that the Keenan approach of remaking a franchise to suit it's one manager is somehow an acceptable approach. The hiring of Linden, ironically, the person perhaps most disrespected in the Keenan ear, hopefully cements that nothing resembling that will recur.

[alt kilgore]

Amazing how much some personnel change can attract some of the "old boys club."

I supported MG but I'm loving LINDEN as pres!

I thought Quinn looked frail and also a little out of it back when they were retiring Bure's jersey. Age has caught up to him. But if its basically a title role as some kind of consultant then why not?

The more "old boys club" Vancouver can round up (please...Bob Nicholson) the more I'll bet there would be less of the snark from the Eastern media, Ron Maclean etc.. as well the disciplinary branch would be less inclined to always make us the exception, in harsh suspensions, not the rule.

[kmotamed]

OHL Scout, maybe?

[Canorcas]

Would happily take him in an advisory position just like the Steamer.

[CrippledCanuck]

Linden and whoever our new GM will be also won't be saddled by a lockout and shrinking cap that largely prevented MG from making those required moves the last two years.

For me the blame is pretty evenly spread between coach(didn't adapt strat to fit team when fail started) gm(as stated in my posts)and players( regardless of coach players are still accountable to do there job while making millions doing the same thing they have done all their lives - you don't all of a sudden lose the ability to score or play defence when a new coach comes in they all know the basics, we did for quite a while out shoot most opponents but didn't capitalize.Mg did do some good things in his tenure, the lockout and decreased cap did affect his ability to make trades but the cap wasn't exclusive to us it was league wide and plenty of other teams still managed to improve their roster with the same cap, since cap management is a asst gm/gm duty it that falls on gilman and gillis as well. Gmmg basically handcuffed himself handing out NTC after NTC because it would have looked bad on him league wide to players if he then asked players to immediately waive, Linden isn't constrained by that because he didn't make those deals.

[aGENT]

the lockout and decreased cap did affect his ability to make trades but the cap wasn't exclusive to us it was league wide and plenty of other teams still managed to improve their roster with the same cap

Not all teams however were in the same boat. Most of the teams that improved drastically the last two years were not cap spending teams. Most cap spending teams that did improve were only able to do so due to ready prospects on ELC's contributing. Other cap spending teams, including the Canucks, understandably regressed.

As for the not having ready prospects, some of that certainly falls on management. But largely that's due to the previous management regime and the fact that our best contending years 2011/2012 were RIGHT before the lockout and reduced cap. Those are the years that you're supposed to spend youth towards making a run (which we did) but it also hurt us a LOT more when we didn't have those assets to start stepping up the last two years in a reduced cap environment. He was largely a victim of bad timing/circumstance in that regard.