from Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Province,

If Canucks general manager Jim Benning likes the core of this team as much as he claims to, it would appear there should now be a clear frontrunner for the club’s vacant head coaching job.

That would be Dan Bylsma, the recently deposed coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who won a Stanley Cup in 2009 after he took over from Michel Therrien in the middle of the season; a man who is said to be a clone of Alain Vigneault. He’s also a man who was none too thrilled to be kept hanging around as long as he was by the Pens, only to be dumped on Friday, but there was nothing he could do about it.

But we digress. Who better to follow AV here in Vancouver than the same guy who had great success following his body double, Therrien, in Pittsburgh — the one thorny year of John Tortorella perhaps the only thorny issue spoiling what could be the perfect succession plan.

Since that wonderful first year in Pittsburgh, obviously things haven’t gone as well for Bylsma, but there is a pretty good explanation for just about every failing the team had under his watch.

continued