On Sunday, the Vancouver Canucks made official the league’s worst-kept secret, relieving Bruce Boudreau of his coaching duties and naming Rick Tocchet the 21st head coach in franchise history.
The announcement finally put an end to months of speculation about Boudreau’s dwindling time with the struggling team.
The Canucks hired Boudreau on Dec. 5, 2021 – a day of much change for the organization, which saw then-head coach Travis Green and then-general manager Jim Benning relieved of their duties as the franchise embarked on an organizational overhaul. That would include the official hiring of Jim Rutherford as president of hockey operations five days later, and the rebuilding of a front office staff over the course of the seven weeks that followed.
In 103 games over 14 months at the helm of the Canucks, Boudreau guided the team to a 50-40-13 record for a .549 point percentage. He now has a career record of 617-342-128 as a head coach over the course of his 1,087 regular-season games.
Though his time coaching the Canucks was short, it was also memorable. And while much of it will be remembered for the losses and the way Vancouver’s front office handled his drawn-out demise in the public eye, Boudreau’s Canucks career did include several impressive accomplishments and memorable milestones and moments. Here’s a look.
Dec. 6, 2021: “Bruce, there it is!” is born
Boudreau couldn’t have made a better first impression in Vancouver – upon inheriting an 8-15-2 team sitting last in the Pacific, he coached the club to a 4-0 divisional win over the Los Angeles Kings in his very first game.
The fans made their gratitude clear… well, mostly clear. Boudreau couldn’t quite decipher the “Bruce, there it is,” chants, raining down from fans in the stands to the tune of Tag Team’s Whoomp! (There it is), in real time but would need to get used to the cheer thanks to a string of wins that followed…
Dec. 29, 2021: The win streak hits seven
Boudreau very quickly turned the Canucks’ luck around. After that debut victory on Dec. 6, he coached the club to six more consecutive wins. In doing so, he became the third coach in NHL history to win his first seven contests with a new franchise and the first to do so with the Canucks.
Fittingly, the win streak that opened with a 4-0 win over the Kings concluded with a loss to the same club on Dec. 30. Nearly two full weeks separated the team’s sixth and seventh wins due to COVID protocols and the holiday break.
Jan. 23, 2022: Boudreau coaches 1,000th career game
Less than two months into his Vancouver tenure, Boudreau coached his 1,000th career regular season game. That made him the 26th head coach in league history to meet that mark.
His game total currently sits at 1,087, which is the 24th most among all NHL head coaches. Just five current head coaches (Paul Maurice, Lindy Ruff, Darryl Sutter, John Tortorella, Pater Laviolette) have appeared behind the bench for more games than Boudreau.
Unfortunately for Boudreau, the Canucks couldn’t pull off a win in the milestone game. They lost to the Blues, 3-1.
April 6-18, 2022: Another winning streak has Canucks challenging for wild card
Boudreau’s seven-game win streak to open his time in Vancouver wasn’t the only hot streak for the club. After a handful of three-game streaks, he coached the Canucks to six straight wins (including three divisional victories and three against fellow wild-card hunters) to make the playoff picture pretty interesting. He finished the season with eight wins in the team’s final 12 games, sitting fifth in the Pacific – and just five points outside a wild card spot – after ranking last in the division when Boudreau was hired.
May 13, 2022: Canucks announce Boudreau’s return
From the beginning of Boudreau’s time with the Canucks, the biggest question was centred around the duration of his stay. With the team very much in flux at the time of his hiring – the club had yet to name a successor to Benning at the time Boudreau came on board – it was unclear whether Boudreau’s tenure would be more stop-gap or long-term.
The Canucks answered that question last May when they announced the bench boss’ return for the 2022-23 season, though a lack of commitment beyond that at the time of the extension didn’t quiet questions about the team’s big-picture plans for long.
Boudreau had, at the time, guided the Canucks to a 32-15-10 record in the second half of the 2021-22 season since his December hiring, making the Canucks one of the hottest second-half teams in the Pacific Division and finishing just five points shy of a wild card berth by season’s end.
Oct. 27, 2022: Boudreau secures career win No. 600
The Canucks’ 2022-23 season started off with a thud. Winless through their first seven games of the campaign – a franchise record – Vancouver finally registered their first win of the season with a rallying effort against the Seattle Kraken. The 5-4 victory brought the Canucks’ record to 1-5-2 and delivered Boudreau a milestone win.
With that win, Boudreau became the 22nd coach in NHL history to reach the milestone and the second fastest to get there (1,049 games). Only Scotty Bowman hit 600 wins faster, needing just 1,002 games to hit the mark.
"I mean, there's one guy that deserves it," Canucks captain Bo Horvat said following that skid-snapping, history-making win for Boudreau. "[Boudreau] has had a heck of a coaching career, and we made it hard on him here at the beginning of the season. To get that one for him, it was still a nail-biter to the end for him. I'm sure he was sweating behind the bench there, and it really feels good to get him that one."
Among all 600-win coaches, Boudreau currently has the second-highest point percentage (.626) behind only Bowman (.657).
Jan. 21, 2023: Fans bid Boudreau a final farewell
As speculation heightened about Boudreau’s dwindling time with the team, exploding in November following pointed criticism dealt by Rutherford and continuing to grow throughout reports of the team’s not-so-secret hunt for his replacement, fan support for Boudreau grew, too.
That made Boudreau’s final game as coach of the Canucks perhaps the most memorable.
As the Canucks’ loss to the Oilers Saturday night became final, fans in Vancouver erupted in chants of their Bruce, there it is! as a farewell tribute to Boudreau – a rare case in which an active coach and his fanbase are able to share a goodbye.
"I just wanted to savour looking at the stands because who knows if I'm ever going to get this chance again," Boudreau said of Saturday’s show of support. "And just keep that in my mind and the memory, let it burn there forever.”The emotional display of support did, in fact, mark his final game as Canucks coach following an 18-25-3 record to start the 2022-23 season.
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