The Vancouver Canucks’ new coaching staff is going to be gaining experience right alongside their youngest players, as they’re all NHL rookies too.
Don’t get me wrong: Manny Malhotra has paid his dues, with seven years of experience as an assistant coach in the NHL — three years with the Canucks and four years with the Toronto Maple Leafs — then two years as a head coach in the AHL with the Abbotsford Canucks, winning a Calder Cup in his first year.
But Malhotra is still a rookie head coach at the NHL level. Typically, teams will hire an assistant coach or two with experience behind an NHL bench to help out a rookie head coach. But the Canucks won’t have a single assistant coach with NHL experience alongside Malhotra.
That’s not to say that the Canucks’ coaching hires lack any experience at all.
Ryan Mougenel comes with two decades of coaching experience, starting as an assistant coach in the ECHL with the Fresno Falcons and working his way up from there. For the past five years, Mougenel has been the head coach of the Providence Bruins in the AHL, where he just won the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as the coach of the year.
Jordan Smith has 14 years of experience as a coach, starting in Junior A as head coach of the Thunder Bay North Stars and working his way up through the OHL and AHL, including two years as an assistant coach with Malhotra in Abbotsford.
Still, neither Mougenel nor Smith has ever been in the NHL, either as a coach or as a player.
Jason Krog has a leg up in that regard with his 223 NHL games as a player, even if he has the least coaching experience on the Canucks’ staff. Krog has been the skating/skills coach for the Vancouver and Abbotsford Canucks for the past two seasons, but this will be his first time behind a bench outside of the Burnaby Winter Club.
Given the rebuilding Canucks’ focus on development, having a skills coach as an assistant makes a certain amount of sense, but there will be a learning curve for Krog as he adjusts to his new role.
The Canucks aren’t completely lacking in NHL experience among their coaching staff. Goaltending coach Marko Torenius and video coach Ian Beckenstein have been part of Vancouver’s coaching staff the past two seasons. But Malhotra will be the only coach behind the bench during games with any experience as a coach in the NHL.
It has been suggested that this lack of experience might be the result of a certain frugality on the part of the Canucks. Coaches with NHL experience can command a higher salary, while those without that experience might be more willing to accept a lower paycheck to get their foot in the NHL door.
That theory is supported by the reporting of Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston, who stated that the Canucks failed to land Jussi Ahokas as head coach of the Abbotsford Canucks because their contract offer was “substantially less than what he was already making in the OHL.”
This may well be true, but it could also be argued that the Canucks are following in the footsteps of the most successful recent rebuild in the NHL: that of the Montreal Canadiens.
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