Oilers 4, Canucks 2: Team couldn’t pull off a win for Bruce Boudreau, so fans stepped up

Vancouver hockey fans know a good thing when they see one.

A coach who in the end couldn’t find a lasting answer to a badly constructed roster, but did what he could with what he was given.

On Saturday night at Rogers Arena, fans of the Vancouver Canucks did their utmost to pay tribute and show their support for head coach Bruce Boudreau, who is expected to be let go Sunday after weeks of speculation that he will be fired.

One of the loudest Bruce There It Is chants came after a successful coach’s challenge for goalie interference saving what might have been a fourth Edmonton goal.

The multi-week strangulation of Boudreau’s tenure behind the Canucks bench has been appalling.

The team hasn’t been good enough. No one argues that.

Nor was his status as not-the-guy for this management group.

But the decision to start leaking Rick Tocchet’s name and then openly leave Boudreau to twist in the wind has been unseemly.

There was no need for this. No message to be sent. No desire to crush internal dissent or anything like that.

The fans didn’t quit on Bruce.

“It’s not fair to Bruce,” longtime fan and season ticket holder Dakota Ross, adorned in his signed 2021 St. Patrick’s Day Brandon Sutter warmup sweater, said before the game outside Rogers Arena.

And it has him doubting he’ll renew his season tickets for next year.

“It’s going to be tough to honestly stay with the team.”

Jason Chan said he’ll likely keep his season tickets — he’s part of a group that’s had ticket since 1970 — but isn’t impressed with how Boudreau has been treated either.

“I feel bad for Bruce. But he’s an adult. A pro. He’s taking it like a man,” Chan said. “That said, if I want to play armchair owner or gm, if the message was sent that Bruce wasn’t the guy for (president of Canucks operations Jim) Rutherford, why waste a season? From a business point of view why pay a second person to do the job?”

“Of course I’m frustrated. But it’s a natural state. With our luck we’d tank and we still wouldn’t get the No. 1 pick,” he said.

“What else am I gonna do?”

After Friday’s game, a 4-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche, Boudreau got emotional talking about the support of the fans.

“I’ve only been here a year, but it’ll go down in my memory books out of the 48 years I’ve played and coached the most incredible thing I’ve experienced on a personal level other than winning championships,” he said. “It’s very touching.”

The coach

There was no hiding emotions on this night.

The emotions were evident in how Bo Horvat spoke of his soon-to-be erstwhile coach, his voice wavering as .

Luke Schenn talked about what a remarkable human being Boudreau is.

Boudreau himself fought back tears as he soaked in his last moments on the Canucks bench and then again when he came out to meet the media.

In between those moments, the players came through and shared tears with him in his office and in the Canucks’ dressing room, he revealed.

The whole press conference was surreal

Boudreau essentially confirmed Rick Tocchet’s replacing him. He also said he hadn’t been told anything about his fate, but clearly knew the writing was on the wall.

He stuck up for the hearts of his players, who never quit on him, even as they struggled to find wins over the final weeks of his time in charge.

“They wanted to win. People don’t realize how bad they want to win. And then when they don’t win, I mean they’re so upset with themselves and they came and they worked every day at practice. They didn’t question anything.”

He spoke of the quality of his coach staff, a group he didn’t know a year ago. He advocated for them all to get jobs again — or to be retained by the Canucks.

No one yet knows their fate, he said.

Mike Yeo was a face he knew in passing, but not really at all — essentially revealing that he was the pick of management to join the staff, by the way — Trent Cull he didn’t either, though he’d spoken with him at times last year because Cull was coaching the AHL team. He did work with Jason King last season, who was on the staff when Travis Green was fired.

He didn’t know why it took so long to fire him but noted the change in schedule quality that comes this week, after the most difficult stretch of the season: they face Chicago, Seattle and Columbus next week.

“I don’t know the reasoning why I’m still here, but maybe because the next games are Chicago, Seattle and Columbus,” he said. “With the new group, good luck!”

He thought he was going to get fired in November, “when there was certain things said,” he quipped, referencing president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford’s pointed, public criticism of Boudreau.

And he paid special tribute to the Canucks’ fans, who showered him with love from just about his first game in charge Dec. 6, 2021 vs. Los Angeles.

“When you’ve been in it for almost 50 years, I mean, the majority of your life and it’s the end, it’s just, I had to stay out there and look at the crowd and just try to say, OK, remember this moment,” he said.

“It’ll obviously be something that stays with me for my whole life and I mean I’ve had a couple place ‘like’ me in the past, but not the way the fans have been treated me (here).

And then he choked this out: “The city’s amazing.”

“I just wish we could have won one for them.

And finally:

“I wanted to savour looking at the stands. Because who knows if I’m ever gonna get this chance again. And just keep that in my mind, in the memory, you know, let it burn there forever. And I was looking across trying to find my wife to see what she was doing.”

The passion still burns for Boudreau

He made it clear: he doesn’t want this to end. He wants to stay in hockey.

“I don’t think there’s anybody that loves the game more than me and will miss the game when I’m out of it. And I hope I never get out of it. I mean, I own a junior team. I might have to fire my kid and coach there.  It’s been tough the last couple of weeks, but you know, I used to watch every game; I’m sure I’m going to watch every game. I want to get back into it somehow. Whether it’s doing TV again … I still got the passion to do this. I never missed a practice that wasn’t an optional. And I love the game and know the game. So hopefully something works out. I hope this isn’t my last hurrah.”

The daily routine

Schenn said that every day, Boudreau would write players’ numbers on the team white board, an indication of who he wanted to catch up with that day in his offie.

“He’ll put five or six numbers on the board on a practice day and you’ll come in there and it’s just you kick your feet up and chat a little bit about your game but more so it’s ‘how’s your wife and kids?’ It’s just to touch base. And you’ll ask him how his family’s doing.

“It’s real.”

Schenn and Boudreau tried to meet up in the summer when Boudreau was on a golf trip to Kelowna. The organization had bought him a trip to Predator Ridge in honour of him coaching his 1,000th game.

The timing didn’t work out but it was a statement about how much mutual respect there was between player and coach to make an effort to meet up in the off-season.

“There’s no question that you can shoot the shit with a guy like that.”

Horvat’s tribute

“He cares about every single guy in this room and whatever his fate may be, we’re always going to respect him as a person, as a coach,” Horvat said. “He’s done nothing but great things for us. So much respect for him. He’s always gonna be one of my favourites.”

“It couldn’t have been easy to have everything out there and continue to keep coming in to the rink every single day with a smile on his face and coaching to win every single night and not giving up on us. And you just respect a guy like that a lot. And we tried to play right to the end for him.”

“His biggest message was obviously we wanted to win the game but at the end of the day he just wanted us to work hard. I think he just wanted us to give it our all and and see what happens and that’s all you can ask for from a coach and that’s all we tried to do in here.”

The price of all this

The players behind the scenes are furious at what’s gone on.

Everyone knows the crucial re-signing that looms large over the next 18 months. How will Elias Pettersson feel about the organization’s plan going forward?

But beyond that, how hard will it be to recruit free agents going forward?

One league source suggested agents will want at least a 25 per cent premium over what’s offered elsewhere.

The on-ice story

On the ice, the Canucks made it interesting, anyway. They fell behind 3-0 early to Edmonton but pulled the game close, getting a second-period goal by Andrei Kuzmenko and then a third-period tally by J.T. Miller.

But this is not a league where it’s easy to come back and when you’re facing Connor McDavid, falling behind by three isn’t a good call.

Zach Hyman scored on the power play seven minutes later, making this the 32nd game the Canucks have yielded a power play goal. This was game 46, so by the math, they have given up a power play goal in 69.6 per cent of their games.

Leon Draisaitl scored what stood up as the winning goal 9:26 into the second.

The Canucks kept working, best exemplified by a diving block of a pass by Elias Pettersson, who was back-checking on a 3 on 2.

McDavid sealed the encounter in the last minute with an empty-netter, his 41st goal of the year — in 48 games.

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