After firing Adam Foote, Canucks just confirmed a huge front office decision
The Vancouver Canucks fired Adam Foote on Tuesday. No replacement is in the plans for now. The bench is empty and the front office isn't pretending otherwise.
It's the cleanest move and the messiest one in the same breath. One year on the job. One last-place finish. Done.
Foote was hired on May 14, 2025. He was let go 12 months and five days later.
Hours earlier, Harman Dayal reported that Ryan Johnson confirmed Cammi Granato and Emilie Castonguay are both staying on as assistant general managers.
That ordering matters. The hockey-ops voices ownership trusts are getting reaffirmed first. The head coach is getting moved out second.
Read it back the other way and the message is identical. The next coach in Vancouver is going to be chosen with Granato and Castonguay in the room.
What Vancouver's next head coach inherits from the worst record in the NHL
The roster Foote leaves behind finished 25-49-8 for 58 points. Thirty-second overall in the league. A minus-100 goal differential.
Nine home wins all year. Three hundred and sixteen goals against. Those are the kind of numbers that don't get hidden by a coaching change alone.
So why fire him now, with no replacement lined up? Because the alternative was letting another organization walk an assistant out the front door first.
Frank Seravalli laid that exact scenario out on FAN Pregame this past week. The Toronto Maple Leafs wanted permission to talk to Manny Malhotra. That request, Seravalli said, would force Vancouver into a decision on Foote.
Tuesday, Vancouver made it.
Here's the Dayal update on Granato and Castonguay, posted before the Foote news broke.
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The catch with firing a coach before naming a successor is that every available candidate now knows you're shopping. The leverage tilts toward whoever the Canucks call.
It also opens the door for assistants on other staffs to be requested without resistance. Malhotra in Toronto's plans. Other names already circling.
Last-place teams don't usually get their first choice. They get the candidate willing to take on a minus-100 group with no goaltending answer and a fan base that just sat through a 9-27-5 home record.
Tuesday cleared the bench in Vancouver. Now Ryan Johnson, Granato, and Castonguay have to figure out who's brave enough to climb back on it.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 18, 2026
| ||||
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Zachary Bolduc | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Phillip Danault | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Greenway | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kaiden Guhle | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Beck Malenstyn | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ryan McLeod | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Owen Power | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nick Suzuki | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zach Benson | - | - | - | |
| Bowen Byram | - | - | - | |
| Cole Caufield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||