Travis Green Contract Extension

[Wolfgang Durst]

Brendan Batchelor is putting some pressure on Jim Benning to get Travis's extension done.

 

When will Travis Green get an extension from the Canucks?

Sportsnet 960: Brendan Batchelor when asked about Vancouver Canucks head coach Travis Green‘s contract status. He’s in the final year of his deal. When will he get a contract extension?

** NHLRumors.com transcription

“I’m personally shocked that we are talking about a Travis Green contract extension that still needs to be done after the start of the season. This is an organization that absolutely has to get him signed. He’s been nothing but a great head coach and great player developer for this organization and to me it’s unbelievable that you’ve gone into the last season of his deal without having him extended.

Now, certainly the pandemic and the economics around that are impacting the conversation there I’m sure but the potential risk of Travis Green walking out the door at end of the season and heading down the I-5 highway to Seattle to be the head coach of your new closest rival geographically in the Seattle Kraken is so terrifying to me, that to me they have to get him signed.

It should have been done yesterday and I would hope from a Canuck prespective that they can get that sewn up as soon as possible because it is a storyline around this team too, and it’s going to continue to be something that Jim Benning gets asked about, Travis Green asked about it. It’s sort of hanging over this season for the Canucks until they get him locked in. Preferably sooner rather than later just because of the fact that he’s a well thought of young coach around the league that would have no lack of opportunities on top of Seattle potentially if he did indeed go to market at the end of the year.”

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Wolfgang Durst

[Gurn]

Meh, another "it bleeds it leads story".

OMG, Travis could end up a Kraken coach !!!                         So what, Travis will coach many teams before he is done.

Travis has been nothing but a great coach !!!                         Scotty Bowman was a great coach, Travis might end up being a great coach.

"is so terrifying to me"                                                                Axe murderers are terrifying, hockey stuff can be worrying

 

 

Relax Brendan, life will go on, and some one will coach the Canucks, be it Travis or other.

[VanIsleNuckFan]

I’ll have to wait until the preseason is over to have an opinion here, but if we drop another 3 in a row he may not have a job anymore in this shortened season format.

 

I don’t see us working as a unit buuut in the playoffs they did, buuut we all know Green sucks at adjustment, and can’t read players that well. I think sometimes we win despite TG. (Well that’s a lot to unpack there) there are a lot of positives he brings but I can never think of any during a losing streak.. what have you done for me lately right?!

[UFCanuck]

58 minutes ago, VanIsleNuckFan said:

I’ll have to wait until the preseason is over to have an opinion here, but if we drop another 3 in a row he may not have a job anymore in this shortened season format.

 

I don’t see us working as a unit buuut in the playoffs they did, buuut we all know Green sucks at adjustment, and can’t read players that well. I think sometimes we win despite TG. (Well that’s a lot to unpack there) there are a lot of positives he brings but I can never think of any during a losing streak.. what have you done for me lately right?!

Greens not going anywhere.

[JayDangles]

12 hours ago, Got the Babych said:

Are we still doing this? Can we agree that Marky saved a lot of peoples' jobs in the last couple of years? The players keep getting better but the same product on the ice. What's missing? Our team "identity" is to give up shots and scoring chances and rely on individual performances, and otherworldly goaltending. Not a long-term strategy, and results in the mysterious injuries we are somehow plagued with every year. 4games in sure, but is any of this new? Buying high, selling for zero is probably for another thread.

This... Well said and worth reposting for you!

[Nuxfanabroad]

Lose a few more, & JB will start thinking about Babcock.

[DS4quality]

I worry more about Seattle getting Gallant, he seems to have our number. If gallant is hired and Seattle gets to the finals in their first season. I will puke. 

[Primal Optimist]

On 11/12/2020 at 6:52 AM, goalie13 said:

Three years.  No more, no less.

I do think he deserves another contract, I voted 4 or less, but I think 3 is the magic number. 

 

You can fire him any time, but lets assume you don't in the first year of a renewal, then if your going to fire him its either with one season left or no seasons left. Shrug. I like 3 too. Seems the best option and fit. The coach is Aquilini's problem though, as a fan all i care about is the cap and we are about to free up Lou money, then Loui money and the covid flat cap will go up in each year from here on out too: canucks are young and about to have a great 3 or 4 years cap wise. 

 

IMO for that reason I keep the GM and for the thrill of the games I have watched under Coach Green, I would love to see him stay on too.

 

Where the club is in the 23-24 season will be a big focus for me as a long term fan. If they aren't competing for the cup a few times up to and including that year, I may get worried. All signs point to awesome though. THis covid season is a scrub no matter what, but I do hope we make the post season. If we don't I like that we can draft a young gun to come in earlier than usual with a good pick. This is the year to expect to be entertained. THe coming three years after this are the years to expect to be blown away. 

[kanucks25]

Green will need to turn this around quick.

 

I don't know if he'll last more than 5 games at this rate.

 

Losing is one thing but playing the way we are? Doubt that'll fly with Aquaman. Considering Green has no contract past this year, it'll be much easier for management/ownership to pull the trigger.

[Ronaldoescobar]

Are we thinking Gruden money and term?

[*Buzzsaw*]

Signing Green to an extension would be throwing good money after bad.

[RU SERIOUS]

The way the Team is falling apart, I'd give green 3-5 more loses until he's finally dumped.   No matter- he'll NEVER take us to the Cup and we all know that.  He's an AHL coach.  No more - No less!     We've seen him outcoached so many times now that I'm starting to wonder how he's actually survived this long.  We all know MARKY's miracle saves last year when our team was being shell shocked - saved his a$$ at least a dozen times,  Now that's Marky's gone, we can see what a dismal mess we've actually been left with. The Special teams coaches are going to get turfed too.   Mark my words! 

[grandmaster]

It’s now apparent that the Canucks were a team that relied too much on goaltending that would steal the show (Marky in the regular season/earlier playoff round and Demko in the later playoff round). 
 

The team doesn’t know how to play defence and they take stupid penalties. 
 

Green’s coaching abilities were masked by the goaltending and now that masks has come completely off. Time to say good bye

Edited January 22, 2021 by grandmaster

[the harry]

Right now the best option is not extension yes or not, it's wait and see.

 

I know it was just a short camp, but so it was for every team. Unfortunately the Canucks don't look ready, and this was job of the coach.

Edited January 22, 2021 by the harry

[IBatch]

Still doubt we see a coaching change unless we lose most of the season and/or he loses the room.    Went through losing streaks last year too, given the added personal and that goaltending hasn’t been up to par (yet), player slumps etc.   We’ve had one great period so far - the team has shown it’s capable.    Not going to help with a rookie D... nothing lasts forever, but it’s not like this is a veteran core underperforming, it’s a very young core going through a tough time.   

[Got the Babych]

On 1/20/2021 at 10:43 AM, JayDangles said:

This... Well said and worth reposting for you!

Thanks, missed this! I was pretty angry and maybe a little drunk, so I've been AFK for awhile.

[EternalCanuckFan]

I'm not against keeping Green.  The team played well under him in last year's playoffs.  Yes, they have had some pretty terrible games to start this season which certainly added fuel to the fire of potentially letting Green go, but the team has improved over the years that he has been head coach.  The terrible play we were seeing in the Montreal series was also not something where the systems felt like the problem.  The execution of the systems was terrible.  I don't think we can blame coaching for Pettersson deciding to try to force a pass through two Habs players at the offensive blue.  Ottawa is obviously not the toughest opponent but they have talent in their line-up and overall the game last night showed that when players are playing within the system, the Canucks can still be pretty solid.  Of course, this is more of a baby step than anything after that Montreal series, but I'm also viewing it within the context of last year's playoffs where the Canucks system had problems sure but weren't necessarily the problem that ultimately led to the loss to VGK.

 

If I were to be critical of Green, then I think the most fair criticism are choices in deployment by him and his staff.

 

For example, I could never understand a strong argument for why coaching did not try playing Benn on his offside.  Yes, he's a LHD and yes, there are advantages for having players play on the same side as their handedness.  However, it clearly seemed like Benn enjoyed most of his success on his offside.  Forcing a player to play outside a zone where they have proven to be effective just seemed counterproductive.  I know Benn did not play all that well last year, but I also felt like maybe he was not put in a good position to succeed.  This does seem to be changing with Green's use of Hoglander on the RW, but 

 

We have also all seen Green's reluctance to play young players and frequent heavy reliance on the "bottom 6" players.  While I think there's a reasonable argument to be made about not over exposing young players, it also seemed like there was an impossible gauge as to when young players would be considered trust worthy enough to warrant more responsibility.  It's led to some bizarre minute allocations that the press has already talked a lot about.

[kanucks25]

43 minutes ago, EternalCanuckFan said:

I'm not against keeping Green.  The team played well under him in last year's playoffs.  Yes, they have had some pretty terrible games to start this season which certainly added fuel to the fire of potentially letting Green go, but the team has improved over the years that he has been head coach.  The terrible play we were seeing in the Montreal series was also not something where the systems felt like the problem.  The execution of the systems was terrible.  I don't think we can blame coaching for Pettersson deciding to try to force a pass through two Habs players at the offensive blue.  Ottawa is obviously not the toughest opponent but they have talent in their line-up and overall the game last night showed that when players are playing within the system, the Canucks can still be pretty solid.  Of course, this is more of a baby step than anything after that Montreal series, but I'm also viewing it within the context of last year's playoffs where the Canucks system had problems sure but weren't necessarily the problem that ultimately led to the loss to VGK.

 

If I were to be critical of Green, then I think the most fair criticism are choices in deployment by him and his staff.

 

For example, I could never understand a strong argument for why coaching did not try playing Benn on his offside.  Yes, he's a LHD and yes, there are advantages for having players play on the same side as their handedness.  However, it clearly seemed like Benn enjoyed most of his success on his offside.  Forcing a player to play outside a zone where they have proven to be effective just seemed counterproductive.  I know Benn did not play all that well last year, but I also felt like maybe he was not put in a good position to succeed.  This does seem to be changing with Green's use of Hoglander on the RW, but 

 

We have also all seen Green's reluctance to play young players and frequent heavy reliance on the "bottom 6" players.  While I think there's a reasonable argument to be made about not over exposing young players, it also seemed like there was an impossible gauge as to when young players would be considered trust worthy enough to warrant more responsibility.  It's led to some bizarre minute allocations that the press has already talked a lot about.

I think this is a pretty fair and balanced take.

 

A lot of the mistakes and poor play we've seen have been more due to mental mistakes and poor execution by the players than anything else - out of Green's control. I would make the argument that he should be doing a better job of having the players be prepared but it's really hard to gauge from the outside how well he's doing in that department.

 

The only thing I would have a retort to is the bolded in your post: this team is propelled by their top young players and whatever goaltending we're getting. In other words, how much does Green have to do with 1st round picks producing like we're expecting them to and Markstrom playing out of his mind?

 

Therefore, I think this year should give us a better indication of what Green's worth as a coach. The roster is just "good", not great, and top heavy when it comes to the skaters; the bottom-half of the lineup and the goaltending is a question mark. So we'll see what Green can do when it comes to having a team perform better on the ice than what it is on paper without goaltending masking most of the warts.

 

One thing is for sure, IMO: he's definitely on the hot-seat. He'd have a new contract by now if he wasn't. He's probably the most relieved out of anyone in the organization after the win last night.

[EternalCanuckFan]

1 hour ago, kanucks25 said:

I think this is a pretty fair and balanced take.

 

A lot of the mistakes and poor play we've seen have been more due to mental mistakes and poor execution by the players than anything else - out of Green's control. I would make the argument that he should be doing a better job of having the players be prepared but it's really hard to gauge from the outside how well he's doing in that department.

 

The only thing I would have a retort to is the bolded in your post: this team is propelled by their top young players and whatever goaltending we're getting. In other words, how much does Green have to do with 1st round picks producing like we're expecting them to and Markstrom playing out of his mind?

 

Therefore, I think this year should give us a better indication of what Green's worth as a coach. The roster is just "good", not great, and top heavy when it comes to the skaters; the bottom-half of the lineup and the goaltending is a question mark. So we'll see what Green can do when it comes to having a team perform better on the ice than what it is on paper without goaltending masking most of the warts.

 

One thing is for sure, IMO: he's definitely on the hot-seat. He'd have a new contract by now if he wasn't. He's probably the most relieved out of anyone in the organization after the win last night.

I think that's a fair point about the improved play of the Canucks and I definitely think he's on the hot seat in some fashion.

 

Just to be clear, I don't think Green has necessarily proven that he's able to squeeze the most out of a less than stellar line-up and win regularly (e.g. Barry Trotz).  Still, some coaches/management groups still fail to have consistent success even with high skilled players in their line-up (e.g. Edmonton and Buffalo) although a key factor in those situations is often sub-par goaltending.  In this way, I suppose Markstrom's run of top-tier goaltending over the last 1.5 to 2-years was probably the factor that pushed the Canucks over the top. 

 

To your point, this year will indeed be a year where we might see Green (and the rest of the coaching staff) having a greater impact as it's not clear whether Holtby or Demko will be able to provide the same-level of goaltending that we saw from Markstrom last year.  The wildcard here may be if either Holtby or Demko get hot or start to consistently play at a very high level.  I don't think I would be off base speaking for most Canucks fans in hoping that Demko can get to that level soon (Markstrom had some pretty terrible stretches prior to him finding consistency to his game).

 

Continuing on the topic of goaltending, I think it was Stephen Valiquette who described how Markstrom has developed into a goalie who is much above average at handling high danger situations that arise in play including odd man rushes which just so happened to be (and continues to be) the Canucks weak point of their play style.  He mentioned Corey Crawford as another goalie who may fit well into that play style and actually mentioned Holtby as someone who wouldn't fit well.  The book on Demko might still be a bit too small to write him off so here's hoping that his game can grow in this way (and for the rest of the team to stop giving up so many higher danger chances since that's not a recipe for success no matter how adept your goalie is with facing those chances.  I would think the percentages just will not work out in the team's favor).

[philtbc829]

I am not a TG fan ....nor Brown or Baum...so I am hoping JB...will assess what happens this season before any extensions to any of them