Rick Tocchet will not return as coach in the chief of the Vancouver Canucks next season.
The NHL team announced the news on Tuesday, saying that Tocchet has chosen to move away after the discussions with the team and management.
“I am choosing to move from the Vancouver Canucks,” Tocchet said in a statement published by the team.
“The family is a priority, and with my contract that changes, this becomes the right time. Although I do not know where I go or exactly how it will develop for me in the short term, I feel that this is the right time to explore other opportunities inside and around the hockey.”
Tocchet had a 108-65-27 record after taking over the Vancouver Bank on January 22, 2023, and his contract gave the Canucks the option to keep it for the next season.
Vancouver Hockey Operations President Jim Rutherford said earlier this month that the team would not exercise that option, but wanted to keep Tocchet behind the bank and continue the negotiations.
“This is a very disappointing news, but we respect Rick’s decision to move on to a new chapter in his hockey career,” Rutherford said Tuesday.
“We did everything in our power to maintain it, but at the end of the day, Rick felt that he needed a change. He is a good friend, a good coach, and we cannot thank him enough for everything he did for our organization. Toc is a type of foot, and we wish him nothing more than the best progress.”
Tocchet guided the Canucks to their first appearance in the playoffs in four seasons last year before Vancouver was eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in a sandy series of seven games in the second round.
The former 61 -year -old NHL end won the Jack Adams award as the best coach of the League last season and was appointed assistant coach for Canada in the 4 -nations confrontation tournament in February.
The struggles of the season
However, the Canucks had problems during the 2024-25 campaign, ending with a record of 38-30-14 and lost the postseason for six points.
When asked at the Vancouver season press conference if he would like to return, Tocchet said he needed time to work in “a process” before making a decision.
“Throughout the year, I’ve barely breathed,” he said. “During free time, I was in 4 nations, you are trying to take this team to the playoffs, dealing with many things. So I have not really thought about myself … I have to breathe and review it. With respect to both sides, you have to go through the process. You have to.”
The Canucks took care of injuries and drama out of ice for much of last season.
The JT Miller and Elias Pettersson centers were carried out below expectations as rumors circulated on an ongoing dispute between them. The Canucks tried to remedy the problem by treating Miller to the New York Rangers at the end of January, but Pettersson could not recover their offensive skill after the move.
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What seemed to be a promising season for the Vancouver Canucks has turned to concerns that two of the team’s star players cannot get along.
The Defense of the star Quinn Hughes lost 14 games with a series of ailments, and a knee injury continued to start the Thatcher Demko goalkeeper out of the alignment until December 10. The Netminder Star had trouble staying healthy after his return.
“It’s not the season you want,” said Tocchet. “Everyone has to look at us, what could have been different? It has been a difficult year, but it has also been a year in which you can improve in learning these lessons of adversity.”
Rutherford said on April 21 that Tocchet and his staff had done a great job by wearing difficult situations throughout the season, and that Canucks would like to see him back behind the bank.
Stanley Cup winner
Tocchet played 18 seasons in the NHL as a power forward with the Flyers, Penguins, Kings, Bruins, Capitals and Coyotes, and won a Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh in 1992.
Later he moved to training, serving as head of banking with the coyotes of Tampa Bay Lightning and Arizona, and won the consecutive Stanley drinks as an assistant coach for the Penguins in 2016 and 2017.
The end of Canucks, Conor Garland, played for Tocchet in Arizona and Vancouver, and said it means a lot to him as a person and coach.
“I had it when I was younger, and now I am 29 years old with a family, so it is a different stage of my life and my career. And it has helped me overcome many things, obviously, on the ice as a player and grow and get out of the ice,” Garland said.
“I think that all the players in the league want to be a key player in a team that wins a cup or deepens the playoffs, not only a team that is at the bottom of the classification. Therefore, it is a big difference as a player, and it is one of the main reasons why I could make that jump.”
