VANCOUVER — Three training camps, three coaches.

The Vancouver Canucks’ upheaval over the last two years is reflected by the staggering volume of changes among staff and players. But the greatest change of all was the dramatic veer last winter into a rebuild after a team that started the National Hockey League season with plans to return to the Stanley Cup playoffs instead plummeted to the bottom of the standings and finished last overall for the first time in franchise history.

Rookie head coach Manny Malhotra, with a staff almost entirely new, is now in charge of training camp that opens Thursday morning in Penticton, B.C. A year ago, Adam Foote was head coach. Twelve months before that, it was Rick Tocchet.

Tocchet was successful. Foote was not. But assessing success for Malhotra will be more nuanced than wins and losses because he’s not just trying to install systems, he’s at the sharp point of the Canucks’ biggest rebuild since they held their inaugural NHL training camp in 1970.

Run by new general manager Ryan Johnson and co-presidents Henrik and Daniel Sedin, and backed by what seems like almost universal support for the rebuild in their frantic fan base, the Canucks are essentially breaking ground at the start of a years-long megaproject.

32 Thoughts: The PodcastHockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.Latest episode

32 Thoughts: The Podcast

Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.

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