We are finally here at the end of a gawdawful season. As we naturally look back at what went wrong (what didn't?) and, also, naturally look forward with the question “how the blazes does this team improve next year,” there are some obvious things that must be done. Well, obvious the average shmuck who watches this team, whether they are paying … how the frig much? That much? Holy jumpin …. Large sums of money to watch this disaster live or watching from home, and obvious to folks like yours truly, who was once paid to watch hockey games.

1) Fire Adam Foote.

I’m staggered at the number of people who still support the guy. Game after game, he has been outcoached in the dynamic adjust-on-the-fly manner, as well as systems. In fact, it’s abundantly clear that Foote and systems go together roughly as well as me and my ex. Marcus Pettersson’s season has been horrible, because Pettersson – a systems guy has no clue where to be, entirely due to bad coaching.  How bad a coach do you have to be to turn a perennial plus player into a defensive disaster? Adam Foote bad. I've seen more than a few BCHL teams with better systems than whatever the heck is going on in Vancouver this year. Even if someone can make a convincing argument that Foote was stuck in a bad position this year (You’d best buy me several adult beverages to make that argument stick), there are too many examples where Foote gave too much rope to veterans and failed to provide training and teaching to the youth. Perhaps I'm biased as a retired ink-stained wretch, but Foote is a very poor communicator to media, and in my experience, good coaches are good communicators. Foote is neither.

Examples of poor coaching include

• Overplaying Evander Kane, who spent most of the season not giving a damn. In fact, Kane’s play was so disastrous early in the year, he should have been benched for some kid who actually gave a crap, or at the least given less ice-time. It's called "accountability," and there was very little of that this year.
• Keeping Elias Pettersson the under-performing centre on the powerplay when it was obviously not working. In fact, I’d argue that Pettersson should have been benched a few times this year in favour of kids who might actually try to shoot the freaking puck once in a blue moon. Again, accountability.
• Not playing Linus Karlsson enough, even though all the fancy stats and eye tests indicated he deserved more ice time. He's averaged just 10 minutes of five-on-five time, despite being one of the league's best goals-per-sixty. It makes no sense. Nothing Foote does or says make sense.
• Screwing around with Nikita Tolopilo and Atu Raty.
• Playing P. O. Joseph over better options such as Victor Mancini. I'd rather have the beaten-up road cone that marks that pothole just down the road that the town crews refuse to fix than Joseph. (Gosh, Vern, tell us what you really think.)

After firing Foote, the next thing is

2) Fire every other coach.

You can’t have a 32^nd place effort without bad coaching on all fronts. This includes all the assistants, including goaltending coach Marko Torenius, who is an example of someone who has been promoted past their level of competence. As local goalie guru Kevin Woodley has aptly pointed out on dozens of occasions, the big club teaches completely different goaltending approaches than the AHL affiliate. That’s just plain stupid, and didn't happen when Ian Clark was on the clock. While we’re giving cardboard boxes to folks who are provided expanded opportunities to seek employment anywhere the frig else, the human performance staff need to be canned, en masse. The string of injuries this year was so significant that several major media outlets chronicled the issues. The team didn’t have as many injuries when Tony Twist made players sweat: correlation isn't causation, but still .... And, one more very important cardboard box:

3) Fire Patrick Allvin.

Whether he’s directly in control, or the puppet at the end of Jim Rutherford’s strings, it makes no sense to keep the man as the team’s General Manager. He has screwed up almost every major decision since coming into control, starting with the bungled “we want to keep J. T. Miller instead of Bo Horvat” mess, and pretty much continuing down the line from there. The last thing we want is this dude picking Viggo Björck with the third pick year (oh, come, if you don’t know the Canucks will be bounced to third with the draft lottery, you’ve not been a fan long enough) just because of the umlaut in the last name. There’s a long list of other things for the new GM to do, starting with:

4) Hire a new coach.

The new coach must have the capacity to teach and train the youth. It will be important, as the roster of existing young talent, as well as a year-older Braeden Cootes and top-three draft pick will need guidance and support - something Adam Foote has utterly failed to provide. For the love of Pete (and every other player not named Pete) the guy or gal (let’s be open minded about this) must, must, must be a systems coach. Most of the problems this year result from Foote’s “system” such as it is being such a flustercluck. Get back to basics, teach the kids, and rebuild something. Anything. The key task for the new coach will be to build some culture, some identity. The GM can assist this by:

5) Trading Jake deBrusk.

DeBrusk has been a massive disappointment, and this year, has only been able to score on the powerplay. Trading deBrusk clears the way for a younger player. Jonathan Lekkerimaki needs the chance to show whether he’s a top-six forward or a bottom-six bust. Speaking of busts,

6) Do not re-sign P. O. Joseph.

Another of Allvin's bonehead decisions, was a predictable mess from the get-go.

7) Trade Kevin Lankinen.

Spending $13 million/year on he and the ever-injured Thatcher Demko makes no sense for a rebuilding team. No sane manager is going to touch Demko, but Lankinen is a competent backup and will fetch something from someone – maybe Edmonton, who always need a goaltender. (Might be able to fetch a decent forward in return and hey, that Podkolzin kid would look good in Canuck col….oh, right.) The primary reason to trade Lankinnen is that Nikita Tolopilo, despite being jerked around by a coach who had every reason to play the kid and didn’t, might be very good if you have a competent goalie coach (see #2 above). To test whether that's the reality, the kid is going to need some playing time. Simply put, It takes time to grow netminders, and by the time Vancouver is legitimately looking at playoff contention, Demko will be either done because of injuries or done because of age, or both. Plan for the future, which may include Alexi Medvedev.

8) Tackle the Pettersson problem head on.

At this moment, it’s obvious EP40 is a bust, and everyone is abundantly aware that $11.6 million annually for a second-line centre who can’t score when it matters is going to be the albatross around the team’s neck for a long time. Nobody is going to want to trade for the guy, so the only option is to deal with it. The best way to do that is to take the kid gloves off, and give Pettersson some ultimatums:  do the work to get into better shape, spend the summer learning how to skate, and build some kind of central core strength so that bitchy fans like me don’t end up having a collection of screengrabs showing one of the highest-played players in the NHL sprawled on the ice every. damned. game. Nobody (including Rick Tocchet) has actually held the ever-moody forward to any degree of accountability, and for $11.6 million a year, that has to change. It might well be worth stripping EP40 of his alternate captaincy, because he's not got a drop of leadership in his veins, and benching Petersson when necessary.