Willie Desjardins will be back behind the Canucks bench for his third season.

Speaking with reporters, team president Trevor Linden said that it's "unfair to blame Willie" for the Canucks' performance, which included a nine-game losing streak late in the season. The team ended up with 75 points.

"He was given a challenge," Linden said. "I think he worked hard at it. He did a good job and he'll definitely be back next year."

Linden also declared that the team is intent to sticking with its youth kick.

"We've always said we meant to make the playoffs and we want to be competitive," he acknowledged. "But we've never taken our eye off the future. We've never mortgaged the future to make the playoffs. And we're not going to do that now."

He noted that the Canucks have to think about the 2017-18 season and how that will look with younger players like Bo Horvat, Ben Hutton, and Jacob Markstrom.

"If things go well in the lottery, we'll add another very good player that could potentially be on our team next year," Linden said. "That will mean we're younger again, but that's not a bad thing."

Below, you can see all of Linden's comments.