Stecher signed his first NHL contract with the Canucks and played for his hometown team for four seasons.
The Vancouver Canucks are taking a step in a new direction with their current rebuild.
After years of looking towards a ‘core’ involving Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Thatcher Demko, and others, Vancouver has made the decision to start focusing on the future of their organization rather than the present.
For the longest time, it appeared that this core would be the one to take the Canucks to success. However, with season after season of not-quite making it, followed by deals that sent Bo Horvat, J.T. Miller, and Quinn Hughes out of town, Vancouver has decided that it’s time to change the course of their journey.
The emphasis now is on the future — it’s on budding young stars like Zeev Buium, Tom Willander, Braeden Cootes, and the rest of the team just entering their 20s.
With youth, however, comes a need for leadership. Veteran presence is necessary in the early steps of a rebuild, such as the one Vancouver is taking now. Those three players who were part of Vancouver’s earlier core are still with the organization, but it can’t be them alone who lead the way for the team.
Troy Stecher was one of those players who seemed to rise alongside that late 2010s core that Vancouver had developed. He spent four seasons with his hometown team, making the team despite going undrafted, before signing with the Detroit Red Wings in free-agency.
With a new direction forged, could Stecher find his way back to Vancouver?
“There’ll always be interest, especially with the guys in place now,” Stecher said on Tuesday’s edition of Donnie & Dhali.
Stecher, who was first signed by Vancouver in April of 2016, has connections to all four of the Canucks’ new management staff. The defenceman was recruited out of North Dakota by new-General Manager Ryan Johnson, had new-head coach Manny Malhotra as an assistant coach, and even once skated on a line with Daniel and Henrik Sedin.
“I have a lot of respect for obviously Hank and Danny. Manny too, he was one of my coaches when I was in Vancouver. RJ helped recruit me out of North Dakota, so I’m familiar with all those guys and couldn’t have more respect for them.”
Dec 29, 2019; Calgary, Alberta, CAN; Vancouver Canucks defenseman Troy Stecher (51) skates against the Calgary Flames during the first period at Scotiabank Saddledome. Mandatory Credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY SportsThe former Canucks defenceman, now entering his 11th season in the NHL, also spoke about having Malhotra as a coach and what stuck out about his coaching style.
“He was awesome. He was super detailed, could lift more weight than anybody in the weight room still at the time, ran a really good PK, kind of had a more one-on-one relationship with all the players, just being an assistant guy, but had a lot of respect for Manny. He’s a great man.”
As a free-agency acquisition, Stecher would work in the Canucks locker room for a few reasons. First is his familiarity with the organization — both management and players — which is something that could make this sort of agreement intriguing for both sides. Second is his familiarity with both the positive and negative sides of Vancouver’s market, knowing what expectations are set on the team specifically as a Canadian fanbase.
On the ice, Vancouver will need some veterans to help supplement the team’s young blueline with some experience. From a depth perspective, the Canucks don’t have many NHL-veteran right-handed defencemen, which are all boxes that Stecher checks off.
Stecher himself isn’t turning down the idea either. In fact, the defenceman noted that returning to Vancouver after six years away would be intriguing. Having said that, he was quick to emphasize that the process in reaching a deal takes a lot of work.
“Obviously that’d be an opportunity that I’d be pretty excited about if it got to that point, but there’s a lot that goes on in-between here and then.”
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