The hunt is on for the Vancouver Canucks‘ new general manager after Friday’s dismissal of Patrik Allvin, and once that decision is made, president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford is more than ready to hand over the reins.
Including, Rutherford said, a decision on the coaching staff.
“It’ll be the decision of the new GM as to what happens with the coaching staff,” Rutherford told reporters at his year-end press conference on Friday. “The new GM is going to have a lot of responsibility and a lot of say and make those decisions.
“I want the new GM to make all hockey decisions.”
As for who the new GM might be, Rutherford said the search will start Monday. He singled out Abbotsford Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson as a strong candidate, but also emphasized they were going to cover all their bases before making a decision.
“We have a very good candidate within the organization, Ryan Johnson, who I have a lot of respect for. He built a championship team at Abbotsford,” Rutherford added. “But we also felt it was important that we don’t limit it to one person, and that we go out into the market and open it up to a bunch of people. Maybe we’re going to see something different, and make a different choice.”
When asked if Rutherford thought waiting too long to make a decision might mean risking Johnson, he was not concerned but also noted that no team has requested permission to speak with Johnson yet.
“I know some people think we turned down permission to Nashville. They never requested permission from us. Somebody made that story up,” he said. “But I can definitely tell you through this process, until we get to the end, we will not, if somebody requests permission now, we will not grant it.”
Rutherford also said that owner Francesco Aquilini will be involved in the interviews once the field is narrowed down.
Rutherford on Hughes re-signing: ‘Don’t think that was ever in the cards’
Given how the Canucks’ season has transpired since, the blockbuster December Quinn Hughes trade feels eons ago. But as the dust settles on one of the worst seasons in franchise history, Rutherford is pulling back the curtain on how the decision came to be.
“I’ve known for some time that Quinn was not staying in Vancouver, and I’ve known before this season started, for that matter,” Rutherford said. “It’s one of the reasons why we signed the guys, the Garlands, the Boesers, the Demkos, that had relationships with him, hoping for a little bit of a chance right down to the end, that he would decide to stay here, but I don’t think that was ever in the cards.”
Hughes was dealt to the Minnesota Wild on Dec. 12 in exchange for Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren and a 2026 first-round pick, signalling more clearly than ever that the franchise was heading towards a rebuild.
There was hope, however, that if the Canucks built a legitimate contender that had the chance to win every year, they could incentivize Hughes to sign.
“Some people think Quinn left here because the team wasn’t any good. He was leaving anyways, OK, and the best example I can give you is Matthew Tkachuk,” he explained. “He was in Calgary. They had a good team. He wanted to go back to the U.S. and he went. This is not going to be the last guy in Quinn Hughes that decides he’s going to leave.
“Guys work towards free agency, and we should respect that he had that option, and he was going to exercise the option to go back to the United States.”