NHL Playoffs: Is Vancouver Canucks' Alain Vigneault Coaching for His Future?

After his team’s overtime win in Nashville Tuesday, Canucks coach Alain Vigneault looked relieved.  He smiled and chuckled through his press conference and seemed pleased with his team’s performance. Had he lost it would have been a different story. 

In many ways Alain Vigneault is coaching to keep his job. 

A strong argument could be made that there isn’t a more pressure-packed franchise to coach or play for than the Vancouver Canucks. British Columbia is simply hockey crazed and its fans have waited 40 years to see a Stanley Cup hoisted above a Canuck uniform. 

They’ve had some close calls, once in the '80s and then again in 1994, but this year seemed like it was their chance again. It still may be, and Alain Vigneault might need to make it happen to stay behind the bench. 

It seems crazy to say that a coach who has gone 236-133-41, won four division titles and a Presidents' Trophy might be on the hot seat, but he is. 

While those numbers are impressive, they have yet to translate into playoff success.  

Vigneault’s teams have made the playoffs in four out of his five years in Vancouver but have failed to make it past the second round. He and his team have become labeled a team that is built for great regular seasons but not the gritty playoffs. 

There are reasons to believe that if he doesn’t at least get the team into the Stanley Cup finals this season the Canucks may look to go in a different direction. 

There are areas to criticize Vigneault, nit picky as they may seem. He has a tendency to try and sit on leads. Once Vancouver gets a lead they seem to let off the break, keep an extra guy back and try to absorb the onslaught from their opponent. 

In a larger sense, they may have done that in the first round against Chicago this year. Racing out to a 3-0 series lead, they seemed to take a couple of games off. That lack of focus reflects on the coach. 

Vigneault also has a history of holding grudges against players. This year Mikael Samuelsson has clearly under-performed but Vigneault refuses to sit him. On the flip side, young Cody Hodgsen has looked good at times, made one mistake by shooting a puck over the glass and has barely seen the ice since. 

Then there was the questionable goal tender switch in Game 6 against Chicago. By benching Roberto Luongo, Vigneault risked having his No. 1 goaltender lose his confidence, his trust in the coach or both. 

An argument could be made that Luongo would not have made the puck handling mistakes young Corey Schneider did and the series may have ended that night in Chicago. 

So how far does Vigneault have to get his Canucks to be safe? It would seem at a minimum he would need to get past Nashville and into the Conference Finals.  

But even that may not be enough. With a team as loaded as this Canucks team is, the expectation is higher than the Conference Finals.