VANCOUVER — It wasn’t the championship season in the minors that convinced Vancouver Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson he had the right coach for his National Hockey League team, but the American Hockey League team’s injury-ravaged, rubble-strewn losing campaign that just finished.
Manny Malhotra was the same coach in both: calm but demanding, thoroughly prepared, communicative and consistent in everything he did with the Abbotsford Canucks. And so Malhotra is now Johnson’s new NHL coach.
The only surprise in Malhotra’s promotion to Vancouver was that it took all of 13 days for the Canucks to announce that the coach-manager partnership that brought the Calder Cup to the organization one year ago would now lead the NHL team’s rebuild under co-presidents Henrik and Daniel Sedin.
In this context, Johnson’s singular focus on Malhotra was entirely understandable.
The new coach’s top priority, besides helping re-establish standards and culture that have eroded in Vancouver, is teaching and developing players who can lead the NHL team to something far better than this past season’s last-place finish.
“I think we all, having the opportunity to do this, we wanted to do it with the right people,” Johnson said Tuesday in a Zoom call from the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo. “We know how tough this is going to be. We know there’s going to be some hard days. I think maybe because you guys see that there’s a connection between Daniel and Henrik and myself and Manny, (it’s like). ‘Hey, you know, just some buddies getting together.’ That’s not the case here. This is more of a mission, something that we see as an amazing opportunity to change a franchise, to build it the right way, to get it sustainable.
“I really feel this is an amazing opportunity for a coach that has the makeup and everything that I could want in a coach … to start the process into this rebuild, working with players and growing to where we want to go.”
Just as Johnson is a first-time NHL GM, hired by the Sedins three weeks ago, Malhotra is a first-time NHL coach.
He was also a first-time AHL coach when Johnson recruited him from the Toronto Maple Leafs’ staff two years ago.
As players, they were not Canucks teammates. Malhotra followed Johnson to Vancouver by a season, in 2010, to upgrade the bottom half of the lineup at a time when the team was one of the league’s best, driven by the Sedins’ skill and leadership.
But Johnson, now 49, and Malhotra, 46, were like the same guy: smart, thoughtful, meticulous pros who understood the game and team dynamics. They were natural leaders who embraced responsibility.
It’s no surprise that they have ascended to the senior positions they now hold, only that their paths have been bound within the same organization.
Malhotra, who spends off-seasons in Toronto where he grew up, is expected to travel to Vancouver for a press conference on Thursday. Johnson stopped by to see him this week on his way to the scouting combine in nearby Buffalo.
Ever attentive and observant, Johnson talked again Tuesday about “the book” he keeps on coaches and potential coaches who intrigue him. From those pages, he sought out Malhotra two years ago.
The GM understands and fully trusts the coach he is getting in Vancouver.
Any doubts Johnson may have had were assuaged by Malhotra’s second season in Abbotsford as the AHL team, already undermined by the graduation of a handful of key players to the NHL, was beset by injuries and roster churn that saw 52 players log games while the minor-league Canucks plummeted 29 points in the standings.
“After winning a championship, was that when, you know, the a-ha moment was?” Johnson said of his coach. “No, it was moments throughout … this past season (when) we navigated injuries and adversity and never really saw a team together. But when I saw Manny and his staff be able to deliver that consistency that was exactly the same as it was through a championship season, that’s where I felt … he was the guy I needed to have a real good conversation with to get to this point where we are today.
“To be able to navigate that with your head up, your shoulders back … that showed me that when you’re down and you’re getting kicked a little bit, you can stay with who you are in that consistency. Continue to coach, continue to develop.”
Malhotra’s consistency was important for Johnson to witness, given the rebuild the Canucks are starting and the challenges it will bring.
“I want him to implement what I know he does well,” the GM said. “Structure within a game in three zones, absolute certainty from players what’s expected of them (and) the structure that they’re going to play in.”
Johnson said team- and culture-building isn’t about 7 p.m. games on a Friday, but the mindset and habits you bring to work at 8 a.m. on Mondays.
“We’re going to ask these players to get uncomfortable at the 8 a.m.s,” he said. “The wins and losses and all that other stuff will take care of itself.
“The judgement, not just on Manny but on myself, will be the ability to get the players that are here to understand that and deliver it. And the players that don’t will make it very clear that they’re not interested to be here, and we will bring in players that we know are ready to change that. We will have the patience within the wins and losses. But with the structure, how we’re going to treat each other, and then the competitiveness that we will expect at 8 a.m., that will bleed into the (games) and slowly in time the results will come.”
Interestingly, Johnson said it is not “an absolute” that Malhotra’s yet-to-be-named coaching staff must include an assistant with extensive NHL coaching experience.
Obviously, however, it would be an asset to a rookie head coach to have someone on staff to mentor him and help navigate.
Part of the discussions between Johnson and Malhotra have been about what the NHL coaching staff might look like. Malhotra’s top assistant in Abbotsford was Jordan Smith, but the AHL Canucks are suddenly now in need of a head coach.
Johnson also needs to hire key people to oversee the minor-league team and Canucks player development.
More staffing announcements are expected in the next couple of weeks.
ICE CHIPS – Johnson told reporters he had a “great conversation” with enigmatic star Elias Pettersson, who has struggled for more than two years since signing his franchise-record, $92.8-million-US extension with the Canucks. “I wanted him to be able to speak without judgment, that he knew I was there to listen and to not judge,” Johnson explained. “Whatever happens here moving forward, I just wanted him to know that I was very comfortable with him just being himself. I’m not going to ask him or put an expectation on him to be something other than that he (is).” … On the Canucks’ vacant captaincy, Johnson said: “I am a firm believer that the captain presents itself. The captain eventually rises to the surface, where you just don’t have a choice. Everybody can feel it. I don’t like forcing that position on someone … when it’s not that obvious or that accepted by the group.” … The GM reiterated that hiring a coach and drafting the best player available are unconnected, even if it means selecting Caleb Malhotra third overall on June 26.