The Vancouver Canucks are nearing the final days of their search for a new head coach after Rick Tocchet opted to part ways with the club this summer. The race for next-man-up has come down to NHL assistant coach Adam Foote and AHL head coach Manny Malhotra, per Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK News. The report was seconded by Patrick Johnston of The Province on Bluesky.
No matter which candidate Vancouver chooses, these reports emphasize the club’s desire to promote an internal candidate rather than search externally. That sentiment can definitely be appreciated, after Vancouver hired Tocchet and Malhotra, promoted Jaroslav Svejkovsky to NHL assistant coach, and added two AHL assistant coaches all just one year ago.
Neither Malhotra nor Foote have had much work behind a pro bench. Malhotra’s coaching career started in an assistant role with Vancouver in 2017-18, just three years after he spent his final NHL games in Montreal. Malhotra served behind the Canucks bench for three years before moving back across Canada to join the Toronto Maple Leafs for four years of the same role. He returned last summer and inspired a strong push from the Abbotsford Canucks this season. With Malhotra at the helm, Abbotsford pushed to a 44-24-4 record – good for second in the AHL’s Western Conference. They’re set to take on the only Western Conference team to outperform them – the Colorado Eagles – in the AHL’s Pacific Division Finals. That playoff race might delay, or dictate, any incoming promotion for Malhotra, despite Johnston suggesting he was the slight favorite.
Foote finds himself in a spot that’d be familiar to Malhotra – currently fielding coaching offers after spending three years as a Vancouver assistant coach. The past three seasons have been the first of Foote’s pro coaching career, and come over 10 years after he retired from the NHL in 2010-11. Foote was a hard-nosed and calculated bruiser during his playing days. He pushed to two Stanley Cup wins and 142 games of playoff experience with the Colorado Avalanche from 1995 to 2004. Foote served a perennial top-four role and, while he never scored more than 31 points in a single season, his presence was simply imposing for the opposite team – evidence by his 1,534 penalty minutes in 1,154 career NHL games. He’s now a fundamental guard of the troops who would bring Cup-winning experience and 1,000 games of experience to Vancouver’s head coach role. Malhotra can’t claim either benefit, with 991 career NHL games and a 2000 Calder Cup win standing as his only pro championship.
No matter which candidate they land on, Vancouver seems destined to invest in a rookie head coach for the 2025-26 season. Their options range in playing and coaching expertise, but both have deep roots in the Canucks organization. That fact could keep the loser of the head coaching race in the organization as an NHL assistant, unless they find new options elsewhere.