The Case Against Travis Green

[AK_19]

I have been incredibly surprised at the amount of support Travis Green is getting from fans as someone who would be a good coach to replace WD. I am absolutely opposed to Green becoming the next head coach of the Canucks for the following reasons:

 

WD's resume before joining the Canucks:

9 years experience as WHL Head Coach

2 years experience as a AHL Head Coach
2 years experience as an Associate Coach with Dallas Stars

WHL Championship

CHl/WHL Coach of the Year
2010 World Junior Head Coach (Canada)
AHL Championship

Green's resume currently:

1/2 season experience as a WHL Head Coach

4 seasons as an AHL Head Coach

WHL Championship

 

I have some major red flags with Green which include:

 

1) Not getting hired as a coach last year when there were a number of openings. Of note, he was in the running for Colorado and lost out to whatever bozo is running that team.

2) His unwillingness to be an assistant coach. This one bothers me because it makes him seem pretty arrogant especially considering his lack of experience compared to many of his peers who made the jump to the NHL as a head coach.

3) Like Willie, he appears to also not promote players unless forced to by injuries. Of note, Demko has played significantly less games than I would've hoped this year. It wasn't until call-ups/injuries that he started getting longer strings of games and getting a much improved groove for the game. The players that seem to be getting the most minutes are fringe-NHLers or not Canuck property. 

4) Green's teams have been as offensively choked as the Canucks team. In general, the Comets play quite a similar game to WD.

5) There are so many more accomplished and skilled coaches available right now with better track records including: Sutter, Maclean, Gallant, Ruff, and Crawford. 

There were a number of comments others have made about Green that I would like to dispel:

1. Travis Green has done a great job developing our players.

I would challenge this position greatly. The players that have developed the best in the last few years spent little to no time in the AHL. This list includes Horvat, Tryamkin, Hutton, Stetcher, and to a lesser degree Boeser.

Sven Baertschi spent a total of only 15 games with the Comets. Sven did not adjust very well when he joined the Canucks the next season full time and took a significant amount of games to adjust and score points at the NHL.

The Canuck players Green has had the most involvement with include Subban, Cassels, Gaunce, Pedan, and Virtanen. Thus far, Subban has regularly been one of the first cuts at training camp. After coming out of the OHL scoring roughly at a 2.0 ppg rate, Cassels is currently trending to not become an NHL player IMO. Pedan has regressed from his earlier seasons. Gaunce has not produced very well in the AHL and has been only 4th line material thus far in the NHL despite already being 23 years old. Virtanen is currently one of the worst performing 1st rounders of his draft year. Although one could still point to improvements in everyone's game, they have, IMO, been only incremental. 

I would not credit a head coach for the development of Markstrom and Demko which has been the duty of the goalie coach, Rollie Melanson. Rollie has been the one constant with our goalies for at least the last half decade and transformed Vancouver from a goalie graveyard to a goalie factory. He has had a significant hand in developing the games of Luongo, Schneider, Lack, Markstrom, and now Demko. 

One could argue that the Canucks have not given much to Green to work with but it still doesn't give us much positive evidence that he has done a great job developing players.

2. Travis Green is like AV when he was our farm team coach. He deserves a promotion + similar to the situation that AV was in many years ago. 

Giving someone a promotion because they are next in line is silly. Our next head coach should be selected because he is the best person for the job. Period. If we went by this logic we would never bring in people outside of our system. Also, this would have been a terrible line of thought considering after Nonis was fired, Steve Tambellini was next in line. 

Another similarity brought up is that AV "grew up" with a number of our important prospects with the Moose and that let to an overall positive development of these players when they reached the NHL with AV. I have heard AV credited for developing on the Moose Burrows, Kesler, Bieksa, and Raymond. The only player that was a regular roster player when AV coached the Moose was Burrows. That's it. Furthermore, there isn't a single player that Green has developed better for the Canucks over 4 seasons as a Comets coach than AV did with just Burrows that one Moose season. 

Also, Green's situation is nothing like AV's before he was promoted. AV was already a Jack Adams runner-up and coached the Montreal Canadiens for a couple years. 
 

3)Travis Green was a former player.

I've seen this a few times and I find this reasoning silly. I genuinely have not seen any sort of correlation to how many NHL games an NHL coach has played and their ability to coach. Scotty Bowman is generally regarded as one of, if not the best coach in NHL history and he never played as a player. In current times, Mike Babcock is generally ranked as the best coach and he also was never an NHL player. On the flip side, Wayne Gretzky is considered one of the worst coaches in modern NHL history. 

With all that being said, I fully suspect he will become our head coach due to having a cheaper contract than other coaches and the Canuck owner rumoured to be trying to sell the team (less overhead cost). 

[Where'd Luongo?]

[Rush17]

points taken.  green is still my guy though.  that's just me though.  would take way to long to break down my opinions which may opposite. you make some valid claims but the one stand out thing for me.

 

Willie didnt earn an nhl shot until what he was 60? greener is like what 45?  too me that shows green has a better natural ability if he can climb the ranks 15 or so years faster.  wish I could put up some counter points but am at work at the moment. :/ 

 

you make some fair points but I think context could explain a fair bit of those away.

[Rush17]

Just now, Rush17 said:

points taken.  green is still my guy though.  that's just me though.  would take way to long to break down my opinions which may opposite. you make some valid claims but the one stand out thing for me.

 

Willie didnt earn an nhl shot until what he was 60? greener is like what 45?  too me that shows green has a better natural ability if he can climb the ranks 15 or so years faster.  wish I could put up some counter points but am at work at the moment. :/ 

 

you make some fair points but I think context could explain a fair bit of those away.

he is 46 years old.

[Honky Cat]

I think the fact that he was an NHL player definitely holds some weight with younger players.....The Canucks are really not going to be seriously competing for the next couple of years anyway,and they cannot get any worse than that are now...I admire the fact that he refuses to be an assistant,he wants to be his own boss... 

 

Part of me suspects that Green has known for quite some time that he was going to land the Canucks head coach gig...It feels like you could almost book it.

[coastal.view]

i think travis is their guy

he is a coach in their system who they will lose if they do not promote him

he is green.. . pun intended

he will work for cheap.. the nucks are already paying 2 former coaches to not coach . they are unlikely to pony up any large amount of money for any body to coach this team that will lose often next season

i think the nucks are open to a place holder coach for the next 2 seasons

and if that coach ends up being a good coach that is a bonus and he can be resigned

enter green . who fits the profile the canucks are seeking

 

but of course they will dress it up a lot

he is young.. and the av comparison helps (i don't think it is accurate though)

he knows the players

he certainly could have some upside

every good, great or average nhl coach had to start somewhere

[Smiley2051]

I also chose Green, but damn I would agree that the best thing for him, especially if he has his sights on Vancouver or any other major market, is to take an assistant position. It would be one thing to become a first time NHL head coach, but to do it in Vancouver is.. well I think we all observed how Willie was being treated by most at the end. 

 

I chose Green but the sound of a Marc Crawford HC (knows the market, seems to have the style a lot of people like) and Green as an assistant is sounding more appealing. Seems unlikely though, and who knows how Crow would feel knowing his successor is right beside him.

 

*In any case I would hope, for those fearing that Green would be too much like Willie, that management would notice that is really not what the team needs and quickly move on, but who knows with this group. 

[6string]

Excellent article, I strongly oppose his candidacy and have often posted here by mentioning we are going down the Dallas Eakin road of Edmonton with a decision like this.

 

Sutter is the obvious choice ( If he is interested ) as a proven champion with popularity and respect from players anywhere he has played and coached

[48MPHSlapShot]

31 minutes ago, AK_19 said:

His unwillingness to be an assistant coach. This one bothers me because it makes him seem pretty arrogant especially considering his lack of experience compared to many of his peers who made the jump to the NHL as a head coach.

This is probably the biggest red flag for me, although admittedly one of quite a few.

 

Is someone who's not willing to go through the process really the right guy for the job? 

 

At the end of the day, Gallant would be my guy.

[Shirotashi]

Yeah these things need to be considered, lets not go rushing in to anything here. I don't agree with people and their views on coaches

a lot of people think that a coach that's good with a young team, is a younger coach. That could actually be disastrous for us, like show

me where it has worked all of CDC I beg you. Dallas Ekins lasted one year and he was supposed to be huge for the Oilers. I think we need

experience, I love the idea of Sutter coaching here, I know people don't like that but the guy just won 2 Stanley cups. Babcock has tons of

experience. What about Joel Quenville? You wouldn't take Quenville? If they were available I mean. Its seems as though we like Green

simply because he is young.

[Coconuts]

Dang it man, you're writing the Vancouver media's articles for them

 

They snoop on here after all

[milk and honey]

13 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

Dang it man, you're writing the Vancouver media's articles for them

 

They snoop on here after all

 

he might be botchford or don taylor

 

[HerrDrFunk]

2 minutes ago, milk and honey said:

he might be botchford or don taylor

 

Would anybody really be surprised if they had accounts on here and regularly posted inflammatory things to see what gets the most response?

 

Though I agree with @AK_19. I don't think Green is our man. I would much rather have Gallant.

[billabong]

I think most people are okay with green because hes used to this system, should be more willing to let the kids play through mistakes and I mean you know he knows what we hated about willy so I think he would be smart to hangs those things. 

 

I mean gallant is my first choice cause he did real well in Florida and then playing a pretty tight structure last year.

 

Crawford would play high tempo but I can't see how that would be a happy ending in the end, he hasn't done anything at the NHL level in years. The guy to me would be simply a buffer till the next guy, not a guy to grow this into something. 

[oldnews]

AV point taken.

 

Love AV,.

 

Let's do it again.

 

Green is our guy.

[THERETOOL]

really interesting read man . you gave me a lot to think about there and you make some very valid points 

[VIC_CITY]

As someone that voted for Green in the other thread on here, I will say that you do make some good points. However, I wouldn't use the fact that he lost out in Colorado as a negative. To me, the fact that he's even knocking on the door with such little experience shows just how well thought of he is in the hockey ranks. I think he has a bit of an "it" factor going. Sure, he has a ton of growing to do as a coach, but from listening to what other highly respected people in the hockey community say about him, I get the feeling that he has "it"...that natural coaching ability. He really seems to get it. Whether or not that will translate into NHL success, who knows? But he's left a pretty impressive impression on some very impressive people. Add that to the fact that he's cheap and we're probably 2-3 years away from a real shot at the playoffs, he seems like the perfect fit. 

[THERETOOL]

5 minutes ago, HerrDrFunk said:

Would anybody really be surprised if they had accounts on here and regularly posted inflammatory things to see what gets the most response?

 

Though I agree with @AK_19. I don't think Green is our man. I would much rather have Gallant.

lol .. honestly think we would be shocked to see who actually posts here .

[Stelar]

12 minutes ago, milk and honey said:

he might be botchford or don taylor

 

Let's not put Botch and Donnie in the same sentence. 

[Fanuck]

In the modern history of this franchise the most successful coaches have arguably been Quinn,  Crow and AV - all had previous NHL head coaching experience before arriving here.  Is this a prerequisite for success - no, but imo it shouldn't be a criteria taken lightly.