Trevor Linden seems to believe coaching contributed to Canucks' recent struggles

Freshly-minted Vancouver Canucks president of hockey operations Trevor Linden is something of a blank slate as a front office executive. Despite a successful 20 year career as an NHL player, Linden seemingly spent the past six years building successful real estate and fitness businesses, and training for triathlons. 

Also, presumably, blending kale into green smoothies. Because that's what it takes to be a beloved Vancouver icon.

Linden is, by all accounts, an intelligent guy with experience in both the hockey and business worlds - but because he's never spent time in an NHL front office (or a minor league front office, for that matter) - not much is known about his team-building philosophy, or how he'd like to see the Canucks play going forward. 

On Friday morning, Linden appeared on the Bill Good Show on CKNW radio in Vancouver to shed some light on his hockey-related opinions. He also appeared to softly criticize head coach John Tortorella's handling of the disappointing, draft lottery bound Canucks this past season.

"I think you have to use your people where they will best excel, and good coaches understand that," Linden said in response to a question about whether or not the Sedin twins were misused by Tortorella (transcription via vancitybuzz.com). "I haven’t talked to John about it. I think most people would say you put your best offensive players in the most offensive positions you can."

Linden continued, addressing the use of the Sedin twins in penalty-killing situations this past season: "It’s one of those things where I probably felt personally it was a misuse of their abilities, but I’d have to dig deeper into it."

Not all of Linden's criticism was directed at Tortorella, as the new (and old) face of the Canucks franchise also took aim at the club's lack of depth the past several seasons:

When I think about the coaches that were most influential for me, if you take Pat Quinn for example, his greatest strength was to use his whole bench. I think certain players can take big minutes, and certain players start to economize.

When you save yourself because you know you’re going to play X amount of minutes, it’s not a great thing for your bench. I think when you take other players out of the game by playing them such small minutes, that can detract from the overall team identity

Linden brought up the depth question twice during the interview, the second time in answer to a question about whether the Canucks roster needs to be bigger, and faster. 

"Big and fast is always a good thing in any sport," Linden answered. "The model never changes. I think we need to support the core guys with people from underneath, and I think that’s been part of the disconnect in the last couple of years."

Former Canucks coach Pat Quinn, who remains close with Linden, took more direct aim at some of Tortorella's decision making, and his shot-blocking heavy coaching style, during the same interview:

During the first part of the year, (the Canucks) played (their) veterans until their noses were bleeding, and then we started to hit the injuries. I talked to (team doctor) Mike Bernstein and he said the injuries are terrible. He said so many of them are coming from the blocked shots and they’re fractures, and they’re not easily healed.

At his introductory press conference Linden assured the media, regarding the future of Tortorella, that "any sort of coaching decision will be made in due time after thorough evaluation." 

But you don't need to bicycling competitively, at top speed, to get a feel for which way the wind is blowing. 

Stick-tap to Vancitybuzz.com.