Rick Tocchet brutally compares his players to the Oilers.

Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet was not happy with his players following an ugly 5-1 loss at the hands of the Boston Bruins over the weekend, and he let his players know via his comments following the game. Tocchet made it clear that he felt a large number of his players were not emotionally engaged throughout the game and, although he did not call them out by name, it was clear that Tocchet was publicly challenging those players to deliver more moving forward.

If anyone believed that Tocchet might have any second thoughts about his post game comments following the loss to the Bruins the Canucks head coach quickly dispelled that notion when he doubled down on his comments on Sunday. Tocchet again made it clear that he felt a number of his players were simply not delivering, hitting them with yet another dose of public criticism for their poor play on the ice.

This time however Tocchet did not merely criticize his players, but compared his team unfavorably to a bitter Pacific Division rival and a bitter Canadian rival in the Edmonton Oilers. Tocchet pointed to the fact that the Oilers have superstar level talent that allows them to overcome a lack of effort on some nights, adding that he doesn't feel the Canucks have any such luxuries at their disposal.

"Sometimes guys aren't going to have their A game, we understand that," began Tocchet before again questioning the effort from some of his players. "Some guys were just not engaged. We don't have the team to have three or four or five passengers. We just don't have it. Edmonton, they can have four or five guys sleeping. They have guys that can win the game for them. We are a team that needs everybody to play. That was the thing that was most disheartening yesterday was we had some guys that weren't ready to play."

If Tocchet was looking to light a fire under his players these are certainly the type of comments that should do exactly that, especially when those players are being compared to such a bitter rival. The only question now is how will Tocchet's players respond to this latest challenge from their head coach.