Rick Tocchet's Track Record Points to the Vancouver Canucks Considering a Trade for Nils Höglander

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Maverick Mitchell
November 13, 2024 (5:37 PM)

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It has already been firmly established that Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet is not a fan of forward Nils Hoglander, and history shows that when Tocch doesn't trust a player, he could be on his way out the door.

Look, we are not going to sit here and speculate for the sake of speculating, right now Tocchet and Hoglander are not on the same page, and when this happens, a lot of times it is hard to dig yourself out of that hole.

It is not often that a 24 goal scorer in the NHL, which is not easy to come by, consistently plays on the 4th line with a team that could benefit from scoring. But, as we know, Tocchet slots Hoglander on that bottom line basically every game, just like a few other Canucks in recent memory.

How past Vancouver Canucks trades could indicate Nils Hoglander is the next out the door

As stated previously, Hoglander has scored a career high 24 goals last season, and this year, he is barely getting the change to sniff that total again. Rick Tocchet is showing time and time again that he doesn't trust Hoggy to play in the top-6 against other clubs' best players.

History shows when Tocchet doesn't believe in a players game, or trust them to be on the ice in big roles, the team starts shopping them around.

It happened just recently when it was announced that Daniel Sprong (who also is a 20+ goal scorer), was shipped out of town after just 10 games with the Canucks for the exact same reason.

Don't forget that Andre Kuzmenko found him self in the same spot, and he was on even the more extreme side of things as he scored 39 goals with the Canucks.

Whether or not Nils Hoglander is on his way out the door, only time will tell the answer, because having a 24 goal scorer on the 4th line does not make too much sense.