Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote.

Photo credit: NHL.com

Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote was not happy with the team’s performance on Saturday night against Macklin Celebrini and the San Jose Sharks.

After having four days off thanks to the National Hockey League’s holiday break, the Vancouver Canucks were back in action last night as they hosted the San Jose Sharks and got a massive boost to their lineup with Elias Pettersson returning from an upper-body injury that sidelined him for eight games.

It was a rough night for Pettersson as he was a minus-three, with 20:47 time on ice – most among Canucks forwards, along with three shots on goal and a 55% success rate in the faceoff dot.

Along with Elias Pettersson, the entire Canucks roster had a tough start to the unofficial second half of the 2025-26 season, which didn’t sit well with Head Coach Adam Foote.

Vancouver Canucks’ Adam Foote unhappy with team’s performance vs San Jose Sharks

Thanks to a three-goal third period, the San Jose Sharks walked away with a 6-2 win against the Vancouver Canucks, which happened to be their first victory at Rogers Arena since February of 2019.

Vancouver’s start to the contest wasn’t great either as Ryan Reaves opened the scoring 6:11 into the first period before John Klingberg doubled San Jose’s lead less than two minutes later.

When meeting with reporters after the loss, Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote expressed his displeasure with his team’s performance, especially their start to the game.

“Well we weren’t ready to play early. We got outworked early. You saw the first goal and you know, we think we have that big 5-on-3 kill, we’re going to get that and comeback. We’ve got to finish that kill off. But they were outworking us early in the game.” Foote said to the media.

While the coaching staff and the players would certainly love to pick up the two points and get back into the playoff race, the management staff is probably hoping for the opposite as they want a top-three or top-five pick in June’s draft to help accelerate their so-called “hybrid retool”.

The Canucks will look to snap their losing streak on Monday night as they take a short flight south to Seattle to face the Kraken before returning to Vancouver on Tuesday where they’ll host Rick Tocchet and the Philadelphia Flyers for their final game of 2025.

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Vancouver Canucks’ Adam Foote calls-out his team after tough performance vs the San Jose Sharks

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