General Manager Ryan Johnson announced today that Head Coach Adam Foote and Assistant Coaches Scott Young, Kevin Dean and Brett McLean have been relieved of their duties.
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NHL Notebook: Canucks fire Adam Foote, Canadiens win Game 7 in overtime
Photo credit: Bob Frid-Imagn Images
May 19, 2026, 20:00 EDTUpdated: May 19, 2026, 18:01 EDT
Another NHL team is on a hunt for a new head coach after the Vancouver Canucks announced that Adam Foote has been fired.
Assistant coaches Kevin Dean, Scott Young, and Brett McLean will also not return for the 2026-27 season.
Foote only spent one season as the team’s bench boss, which saw the Canucks finish second last in the league at a 25-49-8 record. This marked the Canucks’ worst performance since the 1998-99 season, where they only won 23 games.
Johnson recognized that this season was not the easiest for a coach to come into.
“That said, as we head into a rebuild, our group feels new coaching voices are needed to chart the path forward,” Johnson said in a statement. “At the start of next season, our coaches will need to do a lot of work with our players, to instill in them the traits and habits they will rely on moving forward. The process to bring in a new staff begins immediately.”
Foote joined the Canucks as an assistant coach under Rick Tocchet in 2022, the team went on to win the Pacific Division in 2023-24, before being eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in the second round. Since then, the team has not made their way back into the postseason.
The former coach has an extensive resume of NHL experience as a player. He played in 1,154 games across 19 seasons, winning two Stanley Cups with the Colorado Avalanche in 1996 and 2001.
Johnson was just hired last week, along with the promotion of Daniel and Henrik Sedin to co-presidents of hockey operations. This move was the first notable move for the new management group.
Canada’s Stanley Cup hopes stay alive with the Canadiens
Canada’s dream to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in 33 years lies in the hands of the team who won it last, the Montreal Canadiens.
After a highly contested seven-game series between the Buffalo Sabres and Canadiens, Alex Newhook was the man to put it away in overtime, ending the Sabres’ season, and propelling the Habs to the Eastern Conference Final.
ALEX NEWHOOK. LE HÉROS DES MATCHS 7!!!!!! ALEX NEWHOOK. THE GAME 7 HERO!!!!!! #GoHabsGo
The Habs are thriving as the underdogs this playoffs, but no underdog is thriving quite as much as Jakub Dobes.
The Czech goaltender came in as the backup to Sam Montembeault this season, but after the Olympic break, he went 11-5-0 with a .916 save percentage (Sv%), and has seized the reins as the Habs’ No. 1.
Through 14 games this playoffs, Dobes has gone 8-6, with a 2.52 goals-against average and a .910 Sv%, stats that have been damaged after he allowed six goals on 33 shots before being pulled in Game 6 against the Sabres.
“I actually felt really good last game, so I kept [my game the same], a couple of tweaks, but I felt pretty good the last game,” Dobes said. “So emotionally, yeah, for sure I wanted to be better. But I think me getting pulled at home was kind of a wakeup call, and I took it personal.”
Newhook’s seven goals lead his team in playoff scoring, which is a personal best for him by quite a long shot, as he has never scored more than one playoff goal in a single postseason before.
He played 42 games this season, and was set to have a career year, if he had not fractured his ankle in November. Through the first 17 games of the season, Newhook had 12 points. After returning from injury, he tacked on another 13 points and called it a year at 25, his previous best being 34 in 2023-24.
Canadiens fans are not underdogs when it comes to being renowned for their intense passion for their team. This is the first time the Habs have made it this far in the playoffs since the 2021 run that was led by Carey Price’s heroics.
Experts say celebrations during Canadiens goals on Saturday and Monday were so intense they registered seismic activity measuring approximately 0.5 on the Richter scale montreal.citynews.ca/2026/05/19/hab…
Between 7:47 and 8:07 p.m. ET, seismic activities were reported by a local university that is near the Bell Centre. It was reported that sensors registered a 0.5 magnitude earthquake around the time of the second goal by the Montreal Canadiens, who were playing in Buffalo.
The Habs continue to push against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. MT, as they aim to bring “Lord Stanley” back to a Canadian team.