Despite next year being selected for his contract with the Vancouver Canucks, the 67-year-old coach said in a press conference that ended the season that he is confident he will return to the National Hockey League team he led. record 32-15-10 after his recruitment in December. Boudreau had been unemployed for the past 22 months after being fired by the Minnesota Wild, and last summer received just two unsuccessful job interviews with NHL teams. “It’s funny because when I left Minnesota, it was a really bad taste in my mouth,” Boudreau said after the Cannons finished their season six points ahead of a playoff berth. “And when you’re out for a year and interviewing for a couple of jobs in the summer and you don’t get them, you just wonder, ‘Do people think time is running out or what do you have?’ “And after coming back and having that kind of record, and playing the team the way it played in so many different areas positively, it makes you believe when you come home that you did well. And that you can still do the job. The other thing is to know that you still have the fire in your belly and the desire to do the job. You wake up every morning and look forward to returning to work. And that’s what I discovered: as soon as I started doing it again, I was looking forward to going to work. “Sometimes you do not realize how much you love something until you have it, and then you take it back and realize it.” Boudreau coached his 1,000th NHL game in Vancouver, and also reached 599 wins, depriving another milestone of the season with a 3-2 defeat by the Edmonton Oilers on Friday. His 0.649 percent win over the Canucks, albeit from a small sample, would eventually make him the most successful coach in franchise history. No wonder the fans, the players and – to be honest – the journalists want the coach who deserves to return. However, Canucks president Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin, who will meet with the media on Tuesday, said they would review Boudreau’s season and performance before deciding on a former Vancouver coach. The selection clause in the “two-year contract” signed by Boudreau with owner Francesco Aquilini is open on both sides, which puts the coach in a position to ask for an extension before agreeing to return. “I told Patrik and Jim that I wanted to coach here next year,” Boudreau said. “It simply came to our notice then. “I think they want me back and I know I want to go back, so I think it will work.” Boudreau said the only thing he knows for sure is that he will go home to Hershey, Pa., On Wednesday. He and his wife, Crystal, own and manage the Hershey Cubs, a junior team in the United States Premier League Hockey. Bruce and his older sons, Ben, Andy and Brady, also organize summer hockey camps in Belleville, Ontario, and St. Catharine. “I usually run the Gatorade back and forth now,” Boudreau joked after his press conference. A baseball fan, Boudreau said he was offered a rookie-league contract by the Pittsburgh Pirates after winning a Memorial Cup with the Toronto Marlboros in 1975, but turned down the Major League because he had focused solely on becoming a professional player. . . But he will watch the Toronto Blue Jays races when he is in his hometown and sometimes drives two hours south of Hershey to watch the Washington Nationals. Boudreau said he also plans to play a lot of golf this summer. With seven handicaps, his home returns to the Hershey Country Club, of which he is a member. “I will go out at night and play the second hole five times,” he said. Whatever he does, Boudreau will think about the Canucks, what they achieved and how to make them better next season. “I think the biggest thing is that the team believes they could win every game,” he said of the culture change he has seen over the past five months. “It did not matter if we played against Minnesota, Calgary, Colorado, any of the very good teams in the West, we thought we could win. “It makes you feel very good that the players were ready to play.” In his big press conference, Boudreau said: • The organization was aware of extreme Brock Boeser concern for his ailing father, Duke, and supported him in any way he could, offering him leave of absence if needed. “If you have a key player in your team, the first thing is always family first,” Boudreau said. “She was cruel to him. If you look at his season, it starts with a little stamina and when you do not have a full training camp, it is really difficult. And then you have this (Boeser’s dad’s health) on top of that. It makes for a long, difficult year. I think Brock will be great next year and I hope everything goes well at home. “But he knows he has our support for anything he needs.” Ideally, Boudreau would like to play original goalkeeper Thatcher Demko, who finished the season with an unknown injury, about 55 games next season instead of the 64 he recorded this year. With Demko, a star defender in Quinn Hughes and the formidable 1-2-3 punch in the center with JT Miller, Elias Pettersson and Bo Horvat, the Canucks are close to being nominated. “With a few small changes here and there,” said Boudreau, “I think this team can be very, very dangerous next year.” • Boudreau has no plans to change the coaching staff he largely inherited from Travis Green. “You close the year without going to the playoffs,” he explained. “But it is very rare to finish the year without entering the playoffs, but with a very positive note. And I think (the players will) do it all summer, and they will look back and be a different team at the training camp and at the beginning (of the season) than in the past. That will be the biggest factor is that this summer, they will come back and wait to win. “
