Increasing scoring and injecting youth will be among Travis Green’s first priorities as coach of the Vancouver Canucks.
Green was introduced as the 19th head coach in Canucks history Wednesday as he joined team president Trevor Linden and general manager Jim Benning at a press conference at Rogers Arena.
The 46-year-old Castlegar, B.C., native inherits a team that finished 29th out of 30 teams in the NHL last season and was near the bottom in several offensive categories.
“I know we have to create more offence,” Green said. “Our special teams have to get better. I think there’s a way you can create offence nowadays with the way the game is played, but that’s definitely an area where we’ll have to improve.”
Part of that will involve getting young assets involved in Vancouver’s rebuilding process.
The Canucks are still led by Henrik and Daniel Sedin, who turn 37 in September, but have a promising core of younger players led by Bo Horvat, Sven Baertschi and Markus Granlund up front, along with Ben Hutton and Troy Stecher on defence.
Brock Boeser also impressed late in the year after joining Vancouver following his college season, while Jake Virtanen, another former first-round pick, spent most of 2016-17 with Green in the AHL working on his game.
READ MORE: Vancouver Canucks fire coach Willie Desjardins
Add to that the Canucks’ acquisition of forwards Jonathan Dahlen and Nikolay Goldobin for veterans Alexandre Burrows and Jannik Hansen prior to the trade deadline, as well as having the second-best odds of winning Saturday’s draft lottery, and Green should have plenty to work with.
“We need to get younger, it’s no secret,” Green said. “We need to infuse more young players into the lineup … There’s a long list of young guys who are going to try to make spots on the team, and that’s really what you want.”
Green spent the last four seasons coaching the Canucks’ top farm team, the Utica Comets of the American Hockey League.
Prior to that, he coached the Portland Winterhawks to a 2012-13 Western Hockey League title and an appearance in the 2013 Memorial Cup final.
He replaces Willie Desjardins, who spent the last three seasons in Vancouver. Desjardins was fired earlier this month less than 24 hours after the Canucks finished the 2016-17 campaign 29th in the overall standings.
Similar to Desjardins when he took the job in June 2014, Green has zero experience as an NHL head coach. Green has also never been an NHL assistant and is Canucks’ fourth head coach since May 2013.
The lack of NHL experience didn’t concern Canucks brass, with Linden saying Green was the only candidate interviewed for the job.
“The day the season ended in Utica he did the exit meetings there, he flew to Vancouver on a Tuesday, we interviewed for two days and started the contract process on Friday,” Linden said.
Green led the Comets to the Calder Cup final in 2015, but lost out in the first round last season before missing the playoffs altogether this spring with a depleted roster as a number of players expected to be in the AHL instead wound up in Vancouver.
Green scored 193 goals and added 262 assists in 970 games over 14 NHL seasons as a centre with the New York Islanders, Anaheim Ducks, Phoenix Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins.
Selected 23rd overall by the Islanders at the 1989 draft, Green comes to Vancouver with expectations that couldn’t be lower for a team that has missed the post-season three of the last four years.
Desjardins made the playoffs in 2014-15 with 101 points, but was axed after following up a 75-point effort in 2015-16 with a dismal 69-point campaign in 2016-17 as the Canucks pivoted into a full rebuild over the season’s final six weeks.
While Desjardins was initially tasked with trying to guide an aging roster back into contention after Vancouver fell one game short in the 2011 Stanley Cup final, Green should have more leash to develop some of the Canucks’ youth with less emphasis on the standings in the short term.
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