VANCOUVER – On the eve of his summer vacation, Bruce Boudreau on Monday seemed neither uncertain nor worried about his coaching future. This off-season should be much more enjoyable for him than last.
Despite the year to be determined for his contract with the Vancouver Canucks, the 67-year-old head coach told a news conference at the end of the season that he was confident he would return to the National Hockey League team he leads. record 32-15-10 after he was hired in December.
Boudreau spent the previous 22 months out of work after being fired by Minnesota Wilde, and last summer he received only two unsuccessful job interviews with NHL teams.
“It’s funny because when I left Minnesota, it tasted really bad in my mouth,” Boudreau said after the Canucks finished their season with six points less than a place in the playoffs. “And when you’re out for a year and you’re interviewing for a few jobs over the summer and you don’t get them, you just wonder, ‘Do people think time’s gone or what do you have?’
“And then to come back and have such a record and have the team play the way it has played in many different areas positively makes you believe when you come home that you did well. And that you can still get the job done. The other thing is that you know you still have the fire in your stomach and the desire to get the job done. You wake up every morning and can’t wait to get back to work. And that’s what I realized: once I started doing it again, I couldn’t wait to get to work. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you love something until you have it, and then you get it back and you realize it. ”
Budro trained in his 1,000th NHL game in Vancouver and also scored 599 wins, losing another stage of the 3-2 loss on penalties to the Edmonton Oilers on Friday. His 0.649 win to Canucks, albeit from a small sample, will make him the most successful coach in franchise history over time.
No wonder fans, players and – frankly – reporters want the quoted coach back. But Canucks president Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrick Olwin, who will meet with the media on Tuesday, said they would review the season and Boudreau’s performance before deciding on the coach who overtook them in Vancouver.
The option clause in the “two-year contract” that Boudreau signed with owner Francesco Aquilini is open to both parties, which puts the coach in a position to ask for an extension before agreeing to return.
“I told Patrick and Jim I wanted to train here next year,” Boudreau said. “It simply came to our notice then. I think they want me back and I know I want to go back, so I think it should happen. “
Boudreau said the only thing he knew for sure was that he was returning to Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.
He and his wife, Crystal, own and manage the Hershey Cubs, a youth team in the United States Hockey League. Bruce and his grown sons, Ben, Andy and Brady, also run summer hockey camps in Belleville, Ont., And St. Catherine.
“Usually now I just play Gatorade back and forth,” Budro joked after his press conference.
An avid baseball fan, Boudreau was offered a contract for the Pittsburgh Piers rookies after winning the Marlborough Memorial Cup with Toronto in 1975, but turned down the Premier League because he was so focused on becoming a professional hockey player. But he will attend Toronto Blue Jays games when he is in his hometown, and sometimes drives two hours south of Hershey to watch the Washington Nationals.
Boudreau also said he plans to play a lot of golf this summer. With seven handicaps, his home returns to the Hershey Country Club, where he is a member.
“I will go out in the evening and play five times on the second hole,” he said.
Whatever he does, Boudreau will think about Canucks, what they have achieved and how to make them better next season.
“I think the biggest thing is that the team believes they can win every game,” he said of the cultural change he has witnessed over the past five months. “It didn’t matter if we played with Minnesota, Calgary, Colorado, with some of the really good teams in the West, we thought we could win. It makes you feel pretty good that the players are ready to play. ”
In his large-scale press conference, Boudreau said:
• The organization was aware of Brock Boezer’s concern for his ailing father Duke and supported him in every way possible, offering him leave if necessary.
“If you have a basic testament to your team, the first thing is always the family first,” said Boudreau. “It was hard for him. If you look at his (season), he starts with a little endurance, and when you don’t have a full training camp, it’s really hard. And then you have this (Boeser’s father’s health) on top. This makes a long, difficult year. I think Brock will be great next year and I hope everything goes well at home. But he knows he has our support for everything he needs. ”
• Ideally, Boudreau would like to play with starting goalkeeper Thatcher Demko, who ended the season with an undisclosed injury, about 55 games next season, instead of the 64 he made this year.
• With Demko, a star defender at Queen Hughes and a great 1-2-3 in the center with JT Miller, Elias Peterson and Bo Horvat, Canucks are close to the contenders.
“With a few small changes here and there,” said Boudreau, “I think this team could be very, very dangerous next year.”
• Budro has no plans to change the coaching staff, which he largely inherited from Travis Green.
“You end the year without qualifying for the playoffs,” he explained. “But it is very rare to end the year without qualifying for the playoffs, but with a very positive note. And I think (the players) will take that all summer and look to come back and be a different team in training camp and at the beginning (of the season) than they were in the past. That will be the biggest factor is that this summer they will come back and expect to win. “
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