VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — A chat toward the end of his playing career planted a seed in Travis Green's mind.

The veteran center had already thought about staying in hockey after retirement when a conversation with Paul Maurice, then his head coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs, got him thinking.

"We were just talking one day and he gave me the advice: 'You should be a coach,'" Green said. "It stuck with me."

Some 10 years later, Green was introduced as the 19th head coach in Vancouver Canucks' history on Wednesday, tasked with injecting youth and increasing scoring for a franchise that has fallen on hard times.

The native of Castlegar, British Columbia, inherits a team that finished 29th in the NHL and was near the bottom in several offensive categories, including setting a club record for futility with just 178 goals.

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