Darkest Era of Canucks hockey - Vancouver Canucks' most controversial head coach Mike Keenan tells all

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Maverick Mitchell
October 21, 2024 (6:49 PM)

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Former Vancouver Canucks head coach and general manager Mike Keenan sits down to discuss his time with the team, which is viewed as the darkest era of Canucks hockey.

Per Chek's 'Donnie and Dhali & the team' this week, coach Mike Keenan went over some chapters in his new book, Iron Mike: My Life Behind the Bench,
where he went into serious detail on some of the troubles and tribulations that had occurred in his Tenure with Vancouver.

«Chapter 19: A curious 14 months in Vancouver, 1997 to 1999,» began show host Don Taylor during the interview. «How strange was it to come to Vancouver to coach a team that you'd beaten in a Stanley Cup Final three years earlier?»

Darkest Era in Vancouver Canucks Hockey

During the late 1990's and early 2000's, the Canucks has issues of turnover, as the team was plagued by new coaches, owners, general managers and overall branding, which in turn made it difficult for the tea to focus on what really mattered, performance on the ice.

When Mike Keenan took over the team as the man behind the bench, there was no current manager in place, so he served as the interim general manager while aslo being the head coach.

Kennan delves into the major decisions made in that sole year as GM, where he decided to move on and ship out players such as Trevor Linden, McLean, Gélinas and Odjick. In return he did acquire big names in Todd Bertuzzi and Bryan McCabe, whoever, his legacy in Vancouver is shadowed by these unexplained and controversial moves.

«There was a dichotomy,» Keenan said. «There was a split in the room, the guys that had gone to the finals with Trevor, and then a new supporting cast. So there was a split in the room, which makes it impossible to win at any level, nevermind the NHL. So it had to be rectified.»

He doubled down on his decisions and said that in the long run, it worked out for the Vancouver Canucks in the end as his GM predecessor Brian Burke used Brian McCabe to get 2nd and 3rd overall picks in the 1999 NHL Draft, which turned out to be Henrik and Daniel Sedin.

«In the big picture, in the long run, it worked out pretty well for the Vancouver Canucks,» he said.

What did you think of Mike Kennan as a head coach?