A granite hard defenceman during his decorated 20-year National Hockey League career, Adam Foote showed some deft stickhandling when it was suggested that he views the game through a defensive lens only. In one of his more candid responses during a fairly tepid introductory press conference as the Vancouver Canucks new head coach on Thursday morning, Foote pushed back on the notion that he can’t coach offence.
After all, Foote explained, he spent the bulk of his playing days battling some of the best offensive players of his generation – many of them in practices with a loaded Colorado Avalanche roster.
Therefore, the 53-year-old figures he can take his knowledge of slowing down offensive players and reverse engineer ways to help the Vancouver Canucks attack next season.
“I didn’t like the role I got early in my career,” Foote said. “Marc Crawford really threw it on me. I had a great conversation with Marc about a month ago. Every player wants to play on the power play. We all come from our minor league teams and we were all probably a power play guy – every defenceman.I did not like my role. I wanted to be on the power play, I wanted to score goals. Who doesn’t want to score goals? But I remember my dad said to me ‘listen you’ve got the feet, you’ve got the size, you can skate with them and if you can really dial it in you can do something new and you can win. I accepted that role. And when you have that role you get to play against the best players in the world.”
Foote noted that in his youth box lacrosse was his first love and was quick to point out he was an offensive stalwart in that sport. In hockey, it was a different story. But a highly successful story, winning a pair of Stanley Cups with the Avalanche in 1996 and again in 2001, and an Olympic gold medal in 2002.
Along the way, in all those practice drills and game nights against top-end players, Foote made note of what made them successful. His job back then wasn’t to emulate the stars. It was to stop them in their tracks. And to do that, he needed to think and process the game like they did.
“Paul Kariya – how do I shut down his A game?” Foote pondered. “His A game is speed. If I’m playing against a (Joe) Sakic, his A game is that shot. I’m not letting him have that shot. I approached it like If they’re going to beat me, they’re beating me with their C game, not their A and not their B. And I knew what that was.”
Foote acknowledged that his offensive approach to the game was discussed during interviews with Canucks management. Clearly, he convinced the organization that he can think and coach that way.
His best offensive season in the NHL was 11 goals and 31 points in 2002-03. It was the only time Foote cracked double-digits in goals and was one of two 30-point campaigns he had.
So his priority was to prevent teams from scoring, but in doing so, he was also trying to anticipate what the big guns in the game were thinking as they bore down on him.
“You study the game, you use the people around you to help you and understand what offence is coming at you,” he said. “I knew what I was uncomfortable defending against. I knew what worked, what put me or my partner or our goaltender in a tough spot. I did that for a living for 20 years. I was very fortunate, very lucky and I think that’s a big part of me.”
Now it’s one thing to get inside the mind of a forward and read and react accordingly. That’s what Foote did for two decades as a player. Now, his challenge is to impart that wisdom on his Canucks players. Foote won’t be on the ice matching up against Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel. Instead, he needs to find a way to flip the script and get more of his players to think and create offensively.
Foote made it abundantly clear on Thursday that he won’t be the only voice helping players with the attack. The Canucks will be hiring a couple of new assistant coaches and it’s quite likely they’ll look to find a veteran quite possibly with NHL head coaching experience to aid Foote.
“I’m going to surround myself with the right people,” he explained. “We’re going to have that deep discussion. We’ve got some great people here like with the Sedins. And we’re going to continue to keep getting better. I would say I’m very fortunate that I had to play against those top players and shut them down. It was a fun job. So we’ve got lots of ideas how to make that offence better.”
Adam Foote is fine if people think he can only see and teach the defensive side of the game. He believes strongly that his wealth of lived experience in the game will prove the doubters wrong.