Canucks: What did Rick Tocchet know — and when?

In the end, you can pretty much conclude that the moment it became clear that Quinn Hughes would likely be leaving, Rick Tocchet was never coming back to the Vancouver Canucks.

Earlier this month, after trading the former Canucks superstar to the Minnesota Wild, team president Jim Rutherford admitted that he had felt for more than a year that it was likely Hughes wouldn’t be re-signing in Vancouver when his current contract came to an end in 2027.

And as the team’s core collapsed last season, you can bet that Tocchet was thinking the same.

“That’s part of it,” Tocchet told reporters Tuesday, when asked about how much the uncertainty around Hughes’ future played into his decision to not re-sign as Canucks head coach last spring. The Canucks had made a big offer. Money, leave no doubt, was not the issue.

In the end, it was about the future of the franchise. J.T. Miller had been traded at the end of January. Thatcher Demko had struggled with injury all season. Elias Pettersson was a shadow of the player he had been.

That’s a lot of uncertainty. And then there was the uncertainty around Hughes, the team’s best player, the kind of player you really do construct your plans around.

It wasn’t easy. He is well aware people will have opinions about his decision to leave.

But it wasn’t easy.

“I don’t think people understand how (difficult it was),” he said. He loved living in Vancouver, coaching in a Canadian city where hockey was top of the heap. He loved walking around the city, hearing from fans.

“I think most people understand I tried my hardest, trying to turn things around.” He went on about his efforts to make the Canucks a team of note again.

And it was going in that direction after the 2024 playoffs. That it fell apart so fast, in the way it did, surprised most, even those who had a better inside understanding of the fracture that developed in the Canucks’ core.

He had to make a life decision in the end, he said. Moving back east meant being closer to his brothers in Toronto. His son has moved to Nashville in the past year.

“I’ve been in the NHL a lot of years,” he said philosophically. “A lot of things happen. You’ve got to be ready to pivot.”

Clearly, he saw the pivot point coming last winter, when Miller was traded.

The Canucks he had hoped to lead were no longer going to be. And given the reality of how often management changes in the NHL, he surely had to consider that too.

How would ownership take a team that wasn’t going to be lead by Hughes anymore, which might not make the playoffs as a result? For all the experience of Jim Rutherford, would he still be here?

What would Tocchet have been signing on to? He had no certainty around the future of his star player and none around the future of his bosses. As rare as the chance is to coach in the NHL, would you sign up to work in a scenario where you didn’t know who your key staff would be and you didn’t know who your boss would be either?

Well, we saw Rick Tocchet’s answer in the end.

SICK BAY — Teddy Blueger and Filip Chytil skated Tuesday morning, both in non-contact jerseys. That’s a good sign for both centres, who are working their way back from injuries suffered early in the season. Chytil suffered a concussion from a hit by Washington’s Tom Wilson, while Blueger suffered some sort of leg injury in the same game.

pjohnston@postmedia.com