Bruce Boudreau has been fired as coach of the Vancouver Canucks, who are again on track to miss the playoffs with another underachieving season.
The team announced the change Sunday, less than a week after president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford said “major surgery” was needed to fix the Canucks, who have made the playoffs only once in the past eight years. Rick Tocchet was hired as Boudreau’s replacement for a Vancouver team that has lost 28 of 46 games this season.
Assistant coach Trent Cull was also relieved of his duties Sunday. Adam Foote was named as an assistant and Sergei Gonchar a defensive development coach on Tocchet’s staff.
“We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Bruce and Trent for their contributions to this organization,” general manager Patrik Allvin said in a statement Sunday. “We appreciate their dedication and wish them nothing but the best moving forward. This was not an easy decision to make, but one that we felt was necessary for this franchise.”