For Canucks bench boss Bruce Boudreau, positive trust a must

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Over his long coaching career, Boudreau’s only had two losing seasons, and the second was 22 years ago. In the three seasons Boudreau was fired from jobs in the NHL — in Washington in 2011-12, Anaheim in 2015-16 and Minnesota in 2019-20 — his teams had winning records when he was let go. In the Anaheim case, the Ducks finished first in the Pacific Division, only to lose a seventh and deciding game in the playoffs’ opening round.

Since taking over the Canucks from the fired Travis Green on Dec. 5, Vancouver is 24-13-7, the 11th best record in the league in that span.

Boudreau has had strong lineups and he’s drawn the best from his players. That’s more than motivation — it’s about creating an environment in which players thrive.

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Former New Zealand All Blacks rugby coach Steve Hansen was once asked about how to draw out the best performances from players.

“Performance for me has always been motivated athletes who are in an environment that demands a high level from them, and the job of the coach is to facilitate an environment that allows that to happen,” Hansen said. “And to do that you need to ensure there is the right balance of simulation and fun. Simulation is learning, and athletes get off on learning, but they also need to enjoy it.”

A successful coach — the All Blacks won the 2015 Rugby World Cup under Hansen’s guidance — is more than just a motivator.

“Your job is not to motivate the athletes. Your job is to inspire them through that environment,” he said.

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Ben Ryan coached the Fiji rugby sevens team to gold in at the 2016 Rio Olympics and now works as a performance consultant, and has worked with people in many sports beyond rugby including the New York Knicks, the English Premier League and at Nike.

“He’s basically talking about creating a high-challenge/high-support environment,” Ryan said of what Hansen was laying out. “The high challenge bit is fairly self-explanatory, high process and outcome goals, standards are high, etc.

“The high support is the teaching and technical support, but the sweet spot is to provide that in an environment where the coach is there to serve and understands that within this, that individuals all learn differently.

“That also comes from having an environment that’s full of earned trust.”

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Hansen’s comment resonated with Boudreau.

“If you make it a grind, it’s going to be a grind,” Boudreau said, before pointing to Thursday’s practice plan. He intentionally prepares more than he knows he’ll be able to get through in a practice.

“If I was going to go any longer today, I would have had a game at the end to make it fun for the guys, but I didn’t want them to go more than 35 minutes, so when I saw that time was up , I said OK,” he said.

Boudreau’s energy in meeting with his players is also important, he said.

“In today’s meeting, I had to show that there’s hope.”

Then Boudreau adopted a mopey tone: “I can’t come in and say, ‘I know it was a tough game guys, but you know we got to keep going. And you know, I know you’re tired.’ ”

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He then returned to his energetic approach: “Instead it’s ‘This is the game we love man! We should be so happy to be here! There’s 13 games left, and we’re in a position to still make the playoffs. Now would you have thought that four months ago?’ ”

OVERTIME — Asked Wednesday if he hoped to be offered a contract extension beyond the 2022-23 season — the team is understood to hold an option on his contract for next season — Boudreau was clear. “I think I’ve done an OK job. That’s a tough question. I want to coach forever and I really like Vancouver. So I guess that sort of answers the question.”

Boudreau’s coaching inspirations

Boudreau has been a professional hockey coach for 30 years. He was a professional player for 17 years before that, including 141 games in the NHL.

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“I think I’ve had a lot of great coaches… When I started wanting to coach which was at an early age, I took the best out of every coach I thought. And then every coach had bad things, too.”

• In Jr. B: “Bill White was the greatest. You’d do anything for him.”

• In Jr. A: “George Armstrong was like that, too. I remember a conversation we had where we lost a game and the players were so upset because we were letting him down.”

• In the NHL: “Roger Neilson was a technician and Andy Murray was a technician.”

• In the AHL with the Nova Scotia Oilers: “Larry Kish was an organized coach. I hated everything about him, but he was very organized. And that’s where I get the (practice sweater) colors from. And so it’s easy for me to say red and blue on that blue line and white and green on that blue line. Because he was so organized in that stuff.”

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• In the AHL with the St. Catharines Saints: “Doug Carpenter taught me about defense. It was old-style defense, but you take all of these things, you add your own personality into it. And sometimes hopefully it works. With me, I think the biggest thing is my passion. And that shows through.”

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