Practice facility or not, keeping Tocchet should be Canucks’ priority

VANCOUVER — The lack of a practice facility has long cost the Vancouver Canucks franchise some prestige and lustre around the National Hockey League. It would be embarrassing if it also cost them a successful head coach.

Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman’s report on his 32 Thoughts podcast that the absence of a practice rink is a concern for Rick Tocchet, who met with Canucks management Friday night, shined at least a sliver of light on the holdup of a new contract for the head coach.

The organization is one of only two in the NHL without its own training facility, and the Calgary Flames are rectifying their problem by including a practice rink in plans for a new downtown arena due to be completed before the 2027-28 season.

The Canucks have operated without a dedicated practice facility since an agreement with the Eight Rinks complex in Burnaby was terminated in 2010. The team has greatly expanded and upgraded its training compound at Rogers Arena but still rents ice, usually at the University of B.C., when their own rink is unavailable due to other events.

And as Tocchet told Sportsnet two summers ago, not having a practice facility with full medical and training support attached is especially a problem in the off-season and works against players spending their summers in Vancouver and skating together ahead of training camp in September.

“I can’t be disappointed players were not here in mid-August because they probably had a facility or something where they were,” Tocchet said. “We’re working on that as an organization. We want players to stay and train under our umbrella, under our roof. The best teams do that.

“There’s a lot of things that we just don’t have, so I can’t really blame the players.”

And nearly two years later — and three years since president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford told reporters the Canucks were “very close to making a decision on the site” for a practice facility — not much appears to have changed.

Clearly frustrated, Rutherford assured reporters at another year-end press conference last week that a facility will get built.

“I assure you we’re going to get this done — maybe long after I’m here and maybe long after I’m even on this earth — but… it’ll get done,” Rutherford told reporters last Monday. “We’ve tried hard to form a partnership with some of the local rinks. We’ve tried three or four different facilities, and for different reasons, it didn’t work out.

“I know you’re not going to listen to me — you don’t trust what I say, and I don’t blame you — but I’m just going to tell you what I know. We have more people working on this, and it looks like a new facility is going to have to be built to get this done. There’s a couple of parcels of land that have been targeted, and that’s what we’re trying to work on now, but it’s going to take a while. And we’re all disappointed in that.”

This is a genuine issue for the Canucks organization and, obviously, for Tocchet as he decides whether to stay after 2 ½ seasons and a .608 winning percentage in Vancouver or take his Jack Adams Trophy and shop his services to the seven NHL teams currently looking for a new head coach.

Tocchet’s frustration is understandable, especially if he was told when he took the Canucks job in January of 2023 (after turning down several coaching offers during his year and a half in the TNT television studio) that he and players would get a practice facility.

But given the time frame involved in building a 20,000-foot training complex attached to at least one sheet of ice, it’s hard to see how a practice facility can be the final factor in Tocchet’s decision.

Tocchet is 61 years old. He wants the chance to win and deserves to get paid.

And in the end, the Canucks may still offer him the best opportunity to achieve both of these things.

The Pittsburgh Penguins became the seventh team with a coaching vacancy when they agreed on the weekend to separate from long-time head coach Mike Sullivan, who won two Stanley Cups with Rutherford in Western Pennsylvania and was, for one season, an assistant coach in Vancouver under John Tortorella.

But the Penguins, like the Boston Bruins, are facing the grim reality of rebuilds or major roster renovations that could take years. The Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks are a mess. The rebuilt Anaheim Ducks have talented young players who haven’t figured out how to win, and the New York Rangers underperformed this season just like the Canucks did, but without most of the adversity Vancouver faced.  The Seattle Kraken should be better than they showed.

None of these teams have a player like Canucks captain Quinn Hughes, who is a fervent supporter of Tocchet and whom Rutherford admits the franchise can not afford to lose. Few teams have a goalie like Thatcher Demko (when he is healthy) or a defence as solid as Vancouver’s.

For all the disappointment of this season, the Canucks may yet give Tocchet the best chance to challenge for a Stanley Cup within a couple of years.

But, of course, they still have to sign him.

Before Sullivan was fired, Rutherford couldn’t have been clearer about his desire to bring back Tocchet.

“We’ve gone through a process where we’ve negotiated (and) I would suspect sometime this week he’ll have a decision,” Rutherford said one week ago. “We have gone a long ways from where coaches have been compensated with the Canucks for years — forever, actually. And we’re hoping that he takes that contract.”

The pay grades of previous Canucks coaches are irrelevant. Two coaches before Tocchet, Travis Green is believed to have raised the internal salary ceiling to $2.75 million U.S. when he signed a two-year extension in 2021 with former GM Jim Benning.

Tocchet is worth much more than that.

The NHL salary cap is rising to $95.5 million next season and projected to be $113.5 million two years after that. The structure established by head coaches, and the trust and standards they build with their players, has never been more important to an NHL team’s success. And what is Hughes’ value to the franchise?

The Canucks are worth about $2 billion. Building a practice facility or keeping a head coach, money shouldn’t be the issue.

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