VANCOUVER — It took 28 days from the time Jim Rutherford fired Patrik Allvin just before the Vancouver Canucks’ final game for both executives to be replaced when owner Francesco Aquilini announced on Thursday that Ryan Johnson is the new general manager and will report to co-presidents Henrik and Daniel Sedin.
Four weeks at the start of an extended off-season is little more than a short shift in the history of a National Hockey League franchise. But given the monumental scope of the Canucks’ rebuilding project, it means the new management team must play a little catchup.
Daniel Sedin immediately left to watch the world championships in Switzerland, while Henrik Sedin and Ryan Johnson got to work internally, talking with the staff they’ve inherited. The new leaders of hockey operations have a bunch of key personnel decisions. Undoubtedly, some of them will be difficult.
One of the worst campaigns in Canucks history is being followed by one of the franchise’s most important off-seasons. There is a mountain of work. Here are five issues that should be near the top of the list for Johnson and the Sedins.
Johnson rightly noted during Thursday’s introductory press conference that evaluating Adam Foote off of last season is “pretty unfair” and difficult to do. And yet… here we are, a new regime empowered and responsible for deciding who stays and who goes — starting with the head coach.
Hiring Foote to replace experienced and successful coach Rick Tocchet was one of the biggest home-run cuts outgoing president Rutherford and former GM Allvin made a year ago. They needed continuity, wanted to appeal to defenceman Quinn Hughes and were desperate for a bounce-back season.
But the team bled scoring chances and goals and any continuity was hard to see as the Canucks struggled much of the season to play cohesive, dependable hockey. Hughes was traded, and the team plummeted 32 points in the standings, a nearly 200-point collapse in winning percentage that was easily the worst single-season decline in franchise history.
In some respects, Foote never had a chance. Management failed to provide the centre depth everyone knew the Canucks needed, a tsunami of injuries quickly swamped them and drowned starting goalie Thatcher Demko, and a mostly veteran team that was expected internally to return to the playoffs suddenly pivoted to a rebuild and back-filled the roster with early-20s players.
Considering how profoundly the landscape has changed, it’s difficult to see Foote being the right guy to develop young players and guide a rebuild. But he deserves respect, which means serious conversations with his new superiors and getting his status clarified soon. One of the worst mistakes previous management made was cruelly letting Bruce Boudreau buffet in the wind as Tocchet was being recruited to replace him. Foote deserves better than that, just as a fanbase being asked for patience and ticket money during the rebuild also deserves to know the head coach who will be leading it.
And if that doesn’t provide enough impetus to deal with the issue expeditiously, the leading candidate to replace him, highly regarded Canucks minor-league coach Manny Malhotra, is already on the radar of other teams. Malhotra built his coaching foundation on player development, and has years-long relationships with Johnson and the Sedins.
Just as Foote deserves clarity, incumbent (and ground-breaking) assistant general managers Cammi Granato and Emilie Castonguay also need to know if they’re going to be part of what comes next. Castonguay has adeptly managed the salary cap, been involved in contract negotiations and worked through CBA issues. Granato has overseen scouting, among other responsibilities.
But the Canucks, as management said during its press conference, must improve hockey operations. At minimum, with Johnson promoted to the GM’s chair and the Sedins surrendering their important roles in player development, there is a giant organizational need for development staff and someone to run the farm team in Abbotsford. With a rebuild starting, player development has never been more important.
“Obviously, moving forward with all the prospects (and) draft picks, player development is going to be a huge part of this journey,” Henrik Sedin said last week. “So that’s obviously one thing we’re looking to make better.”
Amid historic salary-cap inflation, the need for a crack capologist isn’t the priority that it was just a couple of years ago. But it’s still vitally important long-term, as is expanding the organization’s lean analytics department. And what about amateur scouting director Todd Harvey and his staff?
Johnson has a pile of decisions to make.
Rutherford and Allvin may have overseen the collapse of a team that was one win short of the conference final just two years ago, but they leave the Canucks with a rebuild head start that includes four picks among the first 41 selections of the entry draft in June. Vancouver selects third, 24th, 33rd and 41st and has 10 picks overall.
That number of early at-bats is not only rare for the Canucks, who over a three-draft period starting in 2020 had only two picks in the top 41 — two! — but rare by NHL standards. Last year, Nashville, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh each had four picks in that range. But before that, you had to go back to 2022 to find teams with that high-end volume. Only 10 times in the last 10 years has a team called out four names among the first 41. So when Rutherford said during his final week as president that the draft could be a “game-changer,” it wasn’t hyperbole.
Most of the planning and nearly all of the scouting, of course, have been done. But with a scouting background and tireless work ethic, Allvin probably did as many prospect viewings as any GM in the league. Without his influence, do things change for the Canucks at the draft? Probably not. But one wrinkle Johnson may have to deal with is how to handle top centre prospect Caleb Malhotra, whom the Canucks have long admired and should be available at No. 3, if dad Manny is to be the team’s next coach.
It would be foolish to think that top centre Elias Pettersson, after more than two years of grossly underperforming the richest contract in franchise history, will find a time machine this summer and re-appear at training camp in September as the top-10 player who earned that eight-year, $92.8-million deal.
But it doesn’t mean Pettersson isn’t still useful as a two-way centre who contributes 50 or 60 points, blocks shots, plays on special teams and works hard. The new bosses have to decide if they can live with that. Part of that decision should be based on what they might still be able to get for Pettersson if they can actually trade the 27-year-old.
Recurring trade rumours and the accompanying public debate aren’t helping Pettersson or the Canucks, so settle the issue.
As we’ve written, Pettersson may be prickly with the media and outwardly miserable at times, but he is not a problem in the dressing room. Younger teammates may simply find him quiet, possibly quirky, but he doesn’t yell at or ridicule them, is supportive and tries hard when he plays. The Canucks can live with Pettersson — if they can live with his contract.
In one winter, the Canucks traded veterans Hughes, Kiefer Sherwood, Tyler Myers and Conor Garland to get the rebuild going. But it’s not enough.
Even with new management sharing old management’s conviction that you need some capable, character veterans around to teach the prospects and help the team stay competitive — the Canucks can not have another season in which they win only nine home games — the organization still possesses marketable assets, especially with salary retention.
We don’t think defencemen Filip Hronek and Marcus Pettersson are going anywhere, but Johnson and his staff must make decisions on incumbents like Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk, Kevin Lankinen and Thatcher Demko, weighing how valuable they are to the team versus their trade value. Of course, to get anywhere in a trade, management will have to work through trade protection for most.
Johnson also needs to decide whether to try to retain depth centre Teddy Blueger, who emerged as a key leader after this season’s trades, or let the 31-year-old leave in free agency. Those who covered Johnson with the Canucks late in his playing career will see strong similarities between him and Blueger.