So can we assume A V wasn't the problem?

[Fozzy]

That ship has sailed, but, he doesn't look like much of a problem in NY, does he?

That team moves the puck very well, plays an entertaining, up tempo style of hockey, and has moved into the top half dozen of puck possession teams in the NHL.

Sound familiar?

The Rags leap-frogged the Nucks this year, becoming a better puck possession team (using CorsiFor% as the indicator).

The Canucks have slipped to 9th while the Rags moved up to 6th.

Under these coaches tenures, the trend is, well, it' a definite trend.

2011/12 - Canucks 7th, Rangers 19th.

2010/11 - Canucks 4th, Rangers 21st.

2009/10 - Canucks 5th, Rangers 13th.

2008/9 - Canucks 12th, Rangers 20th.

Last year in a half season, the Rags were closer - and interestingly, the Canucks this season were pretty good for a half season as well.

Sather however couldn't help but notice how "the Tortorella system" was grinding his players into the ground as the season progressed....

Sound familiar?

Add an Olympic condensed schedule and the West coast travel reality into the picture, and it's a recipe for.... exactly what happened this year? Certainly looks that way.

Let's not pretend the difference is a "trending" core. The Rangers core was "trending" last year.

This year: Richards is 33, St Louis is 38, Nash is 29, Girardi and Boyle are 29, Moore is 33.

The Rangers' average age is 27.3 years whereas the Canucks 27.5.

I'm not a fan of the idea that a coaches' job is to 'expose' his players, the roster, the core, the depth, or his GM.

Bring in someone who makes the most of what he has to work with.

Fortunately for AV his star players are showing up.

St Louis is 38 playing 22 minutes a night on average this season.

Nice when your top players can play big minutes eh.

[Honky Cat]

Fortunately for AV his star players are showing up.

St Louis is 38 playing 22 minutes a night on average this season.

Nice when your top players can play big minutes eh.

It sure is.....they're obviously paying dividends for AV....Didn't work for JT there ( core players vetoed him out during exit interviews...Lundquist was considering not re-signing)....and it's never going to work here either....

[Fozzy]

It sure is.....they're obviously paying dividends for AV....Didn't work for JT there ( core players vetoed him out during exit interviews...Lundquist was considering not re-signing)....and it's never going to work here either....

Yea new coach and all that. Pity our top players decided not to show

Daniel Sedin 1 goal in 25 games. 7 mil.

[Honky Cat]

Yea new coach and all that. Pity our top players decided not to show

Daniel Sedin 1 goal in 25 games. 7 mil.

Not just Daniel....Pretty much the entire squad...there's no positives to hang your hat on....

[Benchsplinters]

Flyers rangers series is best of 7 its not even over lol remember when av had 3-2 games lead in cup final...

My sentiments exactly. It was AVs time to go as it was Gillis' time to leave.

I am awaiting the chances Trevor will make and wish him luck. He has some tough choices to make in the next few weeks.

[Canada Hockey Place]

Uhhhh... series isn't over. VAN also held 3-2 series leads in the playoffs when Vigneault was here. Uh... maybe some people here may remember that?

[Monteeun]

Uhhhh... series isn't over. VAN also held 3-2 series leads in the playoffs when Vigneault was here. Uh... maybe some people here may remember that?

Don't remind me...

[BureisBest]

AV wasn't the sole problem, but he was part of it for sure. He mismanaged players and failed to make adjustments in games and playoff series'. I don't believe you can say because Tortorella did one of the worst coaching jobs in league history that AV did a better job in hindsight. The only guy who wasn't better than Torts, and it's arguable, was Keenan.

[oldnews]

Fortunately for AV his star players are showing up.

Interesting but you should check your facts.

First of all, both Sedins outscored Nash this year, who also doesn't have a goal in the playoffs.

Richards was one of those trending has-beens under Tortorella....Is it a mere coincidence that he's showing up under AV and a ppg guy in 5 playoff games?

Mats Zuccarello was their leading scorer this year - 59 of his career 93 points.

If AV's best players are showing up - as they did when he was in Vancouver - it would suggest that he knows how to get the best of his players...put them in situations to be successful....and get contributions from the rest of his lineup.

[VanGnome]

What would you have done if you were GM and your ass was on the line?

Not have put myself in the position to have my ass on the line? Sorry but Gillis dug his own grave without the foresight to drop a ladder before he was done digging.

We all know AV was a scapegoat, in the end firing AV was too little too late. Terrible handling of many personnel decisions, not least of which was handing the Sedins a contract that could potentially cripple this franchise short term as yet another example of how he tried to save his ass from the fire.

Sedins should have been re-upped a year at a time, not given a 4 year contract without a plan in place to better compliment them with players capable of supporting them as they age.

Here's to the new GM (hopefully Benning) and hoping he has the wherewithal to properly compliment this core as we move into the youth movement age.

[BCRenegade]

Not have put myself in the position to have my ass on the line? Sorry but Gillis dug his own grave without the foresight to drop a ladder before he was done digging.

We all know AV was a scapegoat, in the end firing AV was too little too late. Terrible handling of many personnel decisions, not least of which was handing the Sedins a contract that could potentially cripple this franchise short term as yet another example of how he tried to save his ass from the fire.

Sedins should have been re-upped a year at a time, not given a 4 year contract without a plan in place to better compliment them with players capable of supporting them as they age.

Here's to the new GM (hopefully Benning) and hoping he has the wherewithal to properly compliment this core as we move into the youth movement age.

Soooo your saying having a different contract for the Sedins would have saved his job? What if next year they are back to the 100 point players? I don't understand how their contracts would be crippling or have anything to do with why AV got fired.

I believe AV and GMMG were both done after the 2012 season, just a matter of time. History has the coach always going first and if the team does not respond bye bye GM. Sh!t rolls downhill.

I just didn't see any other option. Same core that made the finals get swept in first round the following year. Made sense to try a quick change to get them back into contention. Rather than re-building when the core were still young enough to compete for the cup.

[CANUCKS FTW!]

I honesty don't care but AV had to go IMO. The team this year was bad but Torts did wonders for Kassian. If AV stayed, Kassian would no doubt bust. We need to give more credit to Torts because Kassian will be a huge part of our franchise for years to come.

[Canucklehead73]

Biggest issue I had when AV was coaching was the lack of gameplan, you could see it when under pressure, we only had one play... off the glass and out, or dump and change... the entire team seemed to have no clue what to do with the puck when losing. Seemed like they were being told to do that safe play no?

Was Torts the answer? maybe not, he is pretty consistent with alot of NHL coaches structures.

Did Gillis need to do more on the trade front? hard to say, might have gotten a bit gunshy...

[PhillipBlunt]

Interesting but you should check your facts.

First of all, both Sedins outscored Nash this year, who also doesn't have a goal in the playoffs.

Richards was one of those trending has-beens under Tortorella....Is it a mere coincidence that he's showing up under AV and a ppg guy in 5 playoff games?

Mats Zuccarello was their leading scorer this year - 59 of his career 93 points.

If AV's best players are showing up - as they did when he was in Vancouver - it would suggest that he knows how to get the best of his players...put them in situations to be successful....and get contributions from the rest of his lineup.

AV was a great regular season coach. That's for sure.

He has lucked out going to NY with a great young defensive core, an all star goalie, and a pretty decent forward corps.

Alain came close in 2011. Very close. However he ran out of ideas by the time the Finals came around. It was quite obvious the team was grasping for straws halfway through the series. And leaving Luongo in to get ventilated was a deplorable idea. AV didn't really have a grasp on how to stir morale when it was low.

Of course having Gillis as a GM didn't help matters either.

[BanTSN]

When Torts started playing the twins 30mins a night, you knew the good times were coming to an end.

[Honky Cat]

AV was a great regular season coach. That's for sure.

He has lucked out going to NY with a great young defensive core, an all star goalie, and a pretty decent forward corps.

Alain came close in 2011. Very close. However he ran out of ideas by the time the Finals came around. It was quite obvious the team was grasping for straws halfway through the series. And leaving Luongo in to get ventilated was a deplorable idea. AV didn't really have a grasp on how to stir morale when it was low.

Of course having Gillis as a GM didn't help matters either.

So what you're really trying to say is that AV is just lucky and not very smart...typical CDC..

[oldnews]

AV was a great regular season coach. That's for sure.

He has lucked out going to NY with a great young defensive core, an all star goalie, and a pretty decent forward corps.

Alain came close in 2011. Very close. However he ran out of ideas by the time the Finals came around. It was quite obvious the team was grasping for straws halfway through the series. And leaving Luongo in to get ventilated was a deplorable idea. AV didn't really have a grasp on how to stir morale when it was low.

Of course having Gillis as a GM didn't help matters either.

I don't know what ideas could have made up for the loss of Hamhuis, and then Rome.

Game 7 - Bieksa plays over 28 minutes, Edler 26, Ehrhoff is wounded and plays almost 21, Tanev was a 21 year old who'd played 29 games in the NHL playing 14 minutes, with Alberts, who has improved considerably since then, but imo you're just not going to beat an elite team at that point without your best defenseman and another top 6 out. Competition is too tight.f They needed more than 8 minutes out of their best defenseman in that series.

I'm not so sure how lucky AV has been landing in NY. The word on how good the Rangers roster is wasn't quite as flattering at the end of last season. I think he has his share of responsibility for the perception that the team in now stacked - they weren't quite perceived that way after being ground down to the state they were in.

["Bull" Horvat]

my conclusion was that after a very successful season and unfortunately a run to a game 7 SCF loss was that all the other teams figured our system out and since then we've been having lots of problems scoring or generating chances especially with the Sedins' cycling plays being broken all the time

[Ronalds.Kenins41]

AV didn't make adjustments. Also, not giving Luongo mercy hooks and leaving him twisting in the wind re-enforced his shaky confidence for future games.

This has to be the biggest misconception about AV.

Making adjustments is his best asset not his greatest weakness, he developed systems and roles according to the players he was given. Everyone remember when we played chicago the first two times? we tried to play defense and play low scoring games but they were just too much to contain and then in later parts of the second series we tried to play their uptempo game and it didn't work either (we lost 7-5 and got eliminated). Then the following year we got Hamhuis and Malhotra who were key defensive specialists. And then AV could properly develop his system of defense that he he couldn't earlier. When Malhotra went down with injury Kesler replaced him and he did a great job shutting down Toews and fit perfectly into AV's defensive system.

The result was amazing the third time we played them we basically shut down chicagos offense(having a lot of their players leave helped a bit here too) in the first two games something we struggled to do previously.

However what happened to Chicago after they won the cup happened to us too. We lost our key players that the sedins needed Salo(2012), Ehrhoff (2011, 2010) and other teams like the Sharks and Kings gained players and when they met us in the playoffs our offense was no where near where it was when we met them earlier. That coupled with the reffing cost AV his job.

AV adjusts to the players he has but I agree leaving Lu out to dry in blowout games was not a wise choice.

[Vansicle]

That ship has sailed, but, he doesn't look like much of a problem in NY, does he?

That team moves the puck very well, plays an entertaining, up tempo style of hockey, and has moved into the top half dozen of puck possession teams in the NHL.

Sound familiar?

The Rags leap-frogged the Nucks this year, becoming a better puck possession team (using CorsiFor% as the indicator).

The Canucks have slipped to 9th while the Rags moved up to 6th.

Under these coaches tenures, the trend is, well, it' a definite trend.

2011/12 - Canucks 7th, Rangers 19th.

2010/11 - Canucks 4th, Rangers 21st.

2009/10 - Canucks 5th, Rangers 13th.

2008/9 - Canucks 12th, Rangers 20th.

Last year in a half season, the Rags were closer - and interestingly, the Canucks this season were pretty good for a half season as well.

Sather however couldn't help but notice how "the Tortorella system" was grinding his players into the ground as the season progressed....

Sound familiar?

Add an Olympic condensed schedule and the West coast travel reality into the picture, and it's a recipe for.... exactly what happened this year? Certainly looks that way.

Let's not pretend the difference is a "trending" core. The Rangers core was "trending" last year.

This year: Richards is 33, St Louis is 38, Nash is 29, Girardi and Boyle are 29, Moore is 33.

The Rangers' average age is 27.3 years whereas the Canucks 27.5.

I'm not a fan of the idea that a coaches' job is to 'expose' his players, the roster, the core, the depth, or his GM.

Bring in someone who makes the most of what he has to work with.

As opposed to last season where the Rags . . . went . . . to the . . . Conference Finals with Torts.

If Torts weren't fired, the Rags would be exactly where they are and the Canucks would be exactly where they are.

I'm not going to defend Torts, 'cause I don't really give two shirts about him, but AV was a huge reason for the Canucks being in the state they are in - Unnecessary goalie controversy, complacent stars, et al - just as Torts is a huge reason for the state that team is in.