Canucks' Rick Tocchet discloses his message to team after elimination from playoff contention

Vancouver Canucks coach Rick Tocchet shared his message to the team after their elimination from playoff contention this season.

The Canucks were officially eliminated following the Minnesota Wild's 8-7 overtime win against the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday. Reflecting on the team's performance and his message to the players, Tocchet said:

"Yeah, you know, the message is like, we can't get into what if so what happened? And that's for another discussion for me, I keep saying there's a lot of people watching us," said Tocchet." You know, the efforts there continue to give the effort going to try to play some guys in certain situations."

Tocchet plans to give opportunities to certain players in different situations:

"There are certain those guys that have played well for them, I think they deserve to keep playing too."

The Vancouver Canucks started the season with high inspiration. However, as the season progressed, their performance began to falter which can be attributed to injuries to key players, internal drama, and other factors contributing to their inconsistent results.

This marked the fourth time the Canucks have failed to make the playoffs in the last five years. Last year, the Canucks surprised everyone by clinching the Pacific Division title. However, their playoff run was ended by the eventual Stanley Cup finalist Edmonton Oilers, with the series going to seven games of Round 2.

Brock Boeser shared his thoughts on Vancouver Canucks missing playoffs

Brock Boeser, the longest-serving Cnaucks, shared his disappointment about the team missing the playoffs. He noted that anything can happen once a team qualifies, recalling that the Canucks played strong hockey when fully healthy.

"It hurts,” winger Brock Boeser said. “We wanted to be in the playoffs again so bad. If you get in, you never know what can happen. We were playing some good hockey when we had everyone in the lineup, and then we ran into more injury problems."

"We've had the distractions this year and injuries throughout the lineup all year. Yeah, it's been a rough year. But there's no excuses; we didn't win hockey games when we were supposed to.”

The Vancouver Canucks have three games remaining. They'll be up against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday.