Canucks Have Conflicting Paths and General Manager Directions
The Vancouver Canucks continue to search for their new General Manager after firing Patrik Allvin. President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford’s time is winding down, and it could be as early as after the draft. It has been a complete organizational disaster from top to bottom over the last couple of years. And that dysfunction is carrying over into the search for a new general manager.
What is Going on with Jim Rutherford and the Vancouver Canucks?
As Elliotte Friedman told Kyle Bukauskas on the Wednesday edition of the 32 Thoughts Podcast, the Vancouver Canucks have two to three lists they are working off of. The owners have one, Rutherford has another, and there could be a third.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Elliotte Friedman: “Vancouver. So Rick Dhaliwal reported Ryan Bowness. Matthew Fairburn reported that they want to speak to Kevyn Adams. I believe that they are interviewing Ryan Johnson formally this week, and there’s more. And so again, I had some people asked me about Oilers Now, and I said there was two, maybe three lists. I think Rutherford has a list. I think ownership has a list. I don’t know if it’s as simple as saying that Rutherford is interviewing some newer people, and ownership is interviewing some more experienced people.
But I do think that that’s kind of the way it looks, because I’ve heard that there are some fresh names here. Ones that may not have been connected to any other search. Working on those. And I think there’s some experience names there too, and that’s kind of how I heard it was being split. I did mention that it’s possible. There’s a third list. I’ll see if I can figure out if that’s true. But I did hear it on Tuesday.
Kyle Bukauskas: “Should it be concerning that there are separate lists at this stage of the process, or is that? Is that kind of normal?
Friedman: “I don’t know that that’s normal, but I’ll tell you this. This has been a year for very unusual searches. There are things about the Nashville search that have been a little bit unusual to me. There’s things about the Toronto search that have been a little bit unusual to me. So I can’t say I’m usually surprised that there’s things about this Vancouver search that sound a little bit unusual to me.
The Vancouver Canucks Have To Rebuild The Right Way
Like, if you’re one of those people who’s like, the NHL has been doing the same thing over and over and over again, and it’s time to do things a little differently. Well, we’re setting new records for that this time out.”
As the segment concluded, Elliotte Friedman noted that if it were up to Jim Rutherford, Ryan Johnson would be the team’s next general manager.
NHLRumors.com: The Vancouver Canucks are just a dysfunctional mess. Do the Canucks know who they even are, what to hire, and what direction they want to go in? From the sounds of it, they don’t know. Rick Dhaliwal said it best when he wrote that Canucks want to hear about how quickly the new general manager can turn things around, not how long a rebuild will take.
Despite what Rutherford says, it appears Canucks ownership wants a retool, not a rebuild. So it will be interesting to see what direction they go in.
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