In what has been one of the worst kept secrets around the NHL, the Vancouver Canucks finally introduced Willie Desjardins as the team’s 18th head coach at a press conference in Rogers Arena today.
For Desjardins, it’s been a long time coming. The 57-year-old is finally getting his first crack at a head coaching position in the NHL, after many years plying his trade in lower leagues.
Everywhere he’s played, success has shortly followed. He led the Medicine Hat Tigers of the WHL to a West championship in just his second season as coach in 2003-04, and won another championship three years later. In 2012 he joined the AHL’s Texas Stars as head coach, and led the team to the Calder Cup championship just a few short weeks ago after, again, just a two year interim. Not that similar results could be reasonably expected in Vancouver, but it’s clear that Desjardins knows what it takes to win.
It was an interesting interview process for Desjardins, who looked like he might be heading for the coaching vacancy in Pittsburgh on Thursday, only to quickly get snatched up by the Canucks. According to Vancouver team President Trevor Linden, there was no doubt that Desjardins was at the top of his list, and he apparently had to move quickly.
On the decision process, Linden said, “(Desjardins) ticks all the boxes,” and “shares the values and beliefs of how we feel a winning hockey team should preform.”
“Desjardins has won at every level,” said GM Jim Benning in a statement issued by the team earlier in the the day, “We believe he’ll be an excellent fit as we strive to return to the playoffs and build with youth for long-term success.” In regards to the style we can expect the Canucks to play based on Desjardins’ coaching style, Benning mentioned an “up-tempo, hard-skating, relentless attitude that he wants his players to play with,” and which Desjardins can provide.
As for Desjardins himself, it appears he wants to let his coaching do the talking, however he knows the pressure he’ll face in a market such as Vancouver as a first time NHL head coach. Though he doesn’t particularly enjoy the spotlight, he said, “It’s a great market, how could you not want to come into this market?”
Ultimately, the decision came down to a number of factors from Desjardins’ perspective. “The roster is so exciting, so many great leaders, great city, great organization, it was the right choice to come here,” he said. “I like the package here, it’s a great package and a great group of players.”
What all this portends for the immediate success of the Canucks is yet to be seen. There will surely be some trepidation from having a rookie president, a rookie general manager, and now a rookie head coach running the team. That being said, the trio of Linden, Benning, and Desjardins have many decades of experience around the game and, along with assistant GMs Lorne Henning and Laurence Gilman, form a braintrust that seems to share a similar vision for the Canucks that has the potential for success.
Certainly hockey fans in Vancouver have much to look forward to in this group, as the general thinking is that it can’t get much worse than last year when John Tortorella and Mike Gillis were in charge (how soon they forget the late 90’s). The point is: the Canucks have been selling hope since Linden was brought into the fold, and the excitement has only been building around Vancouver’s fanbase with the addition of Benning and now Desjardins. The new season can’t come fast enough for these men to prove their worth, and for Canucks fans to see what they’re made of.
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