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| Last updated at 12:57 AM on 22/05/08 |
Assistant coaches not in Canucks' plans 
ELLIOTT PAP
Canwest News Service
VANCOUVER—The Vancouver Canucks are expected to clarify today their coaching plans for the 2008-09 NHL season, and apparently they don’t include assistants Barry Smith and Mike Kelly.
“We will be announcing something (today),” general manager Mike Gillis said Wednesday night.
Gillis would not confirm that Smith and Kelly have been fired, which was reported on TSN’s website Wednesday.
“No comment,” Gillis said.
Asked if his entire coaching staff would be announced today, he replied: “No.”
However, it is expected Gillis will announce the fate of head coach Alain Vigneault, with many believing the Jack Adams Trophy winner in 2006-07 will retain his position.
Vigneault led the Canucks to a team record 49 wins and 105 points during the 2006-07 campaign before things fell apart in the last two weeks of 2007-08, as the team recorded 88 points, missing the post-season by three points.
All members of the coaching staff, including assistant Rick Bowness and goalie consultant Ian Clark, have a year remaining on their contracts.
Smith, a holdover from the Marc Crawford regime, was extended last summer for two more seasons while Kelly was brought aboard by Vigneault when the latter was hired on June 20, 2006.
The 47-year-old Smith has been a member of the Canucks organization since 1999. He worked with the organization’s minor-league affiliates in Syracuse, N.Y., Kansas City, Mo., and Manitoba before moving up to the big club. He also worked with the Manitoba Moose during the 2004-05 lockout season.
Kelly, 48, spent the 2005-06 season in Manitoba when Vigneault was head coach.
The P.E.I.-born Kelly previously coached the major junior Brandon Wheat Kings and North Bay Centennials as well as the universities of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
One of Kelly’s main responsibilities under Vigneault was running the power play, which finished 18th in the NHL last season at 17.1 per cent. In the game in which Vancouver was eliminated from the playoffs, a 2-1 loss to Edmonton, the Canucks’ power play went for 1-for-8 despite spending nearly 18 minutes with the man advantage.
(Vancouver Sun)
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22/05/08
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