Mike Gillis era<\/a>, has been with the organization in an executive capacity for more than a decade now. He\u2019s served as the general manager of Vancouver\u2019s AHL affiliates in Utica and Abbotsford since the summer of 2015 and won the Calder Cup with Abbotsford in 2025.<\/p>\nJohnson is an exceptional communicator, carries weight with active players and has some experience managing or working with just about every level of a hockey operations department. When the Rutherford era began, and a variety of first-time assistant general managers and a first-time general manager with an amateur scouting background were hired, it was Johnson\u2019s efforts which held things together down the stretch of the 2021-22 season.<\/p>\n
Johnson will be a strong candidate for the job, and was thought around the industry to be the heir apparent as the regular season wound down. On Friday, however, a league source suggested to The Athletic that Canucks ownership wasn\u2019t exactly sold on Johnson as a successor to Allvin as general manager. A Canucks source, who spoke with The Athletic on the condition of anonymity in order to speak openly about the GM search, denied this suggestion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also felt it was important not to limit (our search),\u201d Rutherford said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go out of the market and talk to a lot of people \u2026 We\u2019ll start to do Zoom calls next week and hopefully get somebody in place here sooner than later.\u201d<\/p>\n
There have been reports from CHEK TV\u2019s Rick Dhaliwal and Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman about the Canucks declining permission to teams \u2014 most notably the Nashville Predators \u2014 seeking to interview Johnson for their general manager positions, but those reports have been denied by the team, a stance that Rutherford backed up on Friday.<\/p>\n
Rutherford clarified, however, that while the Canucks\u2019 search for a general manager is ongoing, any future requests to interview Johnson for other vacant general manager jobs will be denied.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Foote didn\u2019t meet with the media on Friday and remains in place as the team\u2019s head coach.<\/p>\n
Rutherford indicated that the next GM will make a decision on whether to retain or move on from Foote.<\/p>\n
Vancouver\u2019s somewhat surprising decision to slow-play its decision on Foote is rooted in something of a delicate balancing act, with two primary motivating factors.<\/p>\n
The first is that there is a feeling internally that Foote was dealt an unworkable situation between injuries and off-ice drama, which submarined his first season as an NHL head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, respectfully, we should give our coach that chance,\u201d Rutherford said. \u201cWe can talk about different things about what happened with the team, but as long as I\u2019ve been in this game, this coach has been dealt the hardest hand to deal with, and this was a very difficult year. So that\u2019s why I want to be respectful and give both the new GM and the coach the chance to see what they think of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second is an interesting one, and pertains to the timing of the draft lottery.<\/p>\n
At the top of the 2026 draft class is a pair of NHL-ready wingers with franchise-altering offensive potential. If the Canucks pick first or second, it would be a development with the potential to electrify this market and accelerate Vancouver\u2019s rebuilding trajectory.<\/p>\n
However, if the Canucks end up in their statistically most likely draft slot at third, one of the chief considerations may be whether or not they should select Caleb Malhotra, a big centre with a high floor and a ton of admirers in amateur scouting circles around the league, including those in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
If Canucks had replaced Foote on an expedited timeline, there\u2019s really no question that their choice to take over from Foote behind the bench would\u2019ve been Caleb\u2019s father, Vancouver\u2019s AHL head coach Manny Malhotra.<\/p>\n
Therein lies the rub. Rushing to hire Manny Malhotra and then ending up with the third pick, where the club would find itself strongly considering making his son a signature addition to the rebuilding effort, would create an awkward set of organizational decisions.<\/p>\n
Such awkwardness, however, can be avoided entirely by simply waiting three to four weeks to work through Vancouver\u2019s options behind the bench.<\/p>\n
All of which brings us back to this cacophonous moment in Canucks history, and the sense of deep-seated uncertainty at the helm of the hockey operations department.<\/p>\n
We know that Allvin will no longer be the general manager.<\/p>\n
We know that a search for a new general manager will be guided by Rutherford, although to what extent he\u2019ll be making the final hiring decision \u2014 as opposed to vetting candidates for ownership to select \u2014 remained unclear in the wake of his year-end availability.<\/p>\n
We also know that the Canucks are rebuilding, and Rutherford indicated that \u201cno shortcuts\u201d would be a vital stance for any GM candidate to harbour.<\/p>\n
Rutherford, however, also suggested that Vancouver wouldn\u2019t be comfortable courting or accepting additional pain next season. And Rutherford made a case that the Canucks\u2019 foundation to be an exciting young team is already set and in place, and that the team intends to begin to improve as soon as next season.<\/p>\n
Friday, if anything, just posed additional questions for the franchise, chief among them Rutherford\u2019s future with the organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I made the commitment to come here,\u201d Rutherford said, \u201cI think I told Francesco (Aquilini) I\u2019d come for two years (if you) think I can help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a lot of thoughts this year about my future,\u201d Rutherford added, \u201cbut right now, my focus is on getting a GM and getting through the draft. And when I do that, then I will think a lot more seriously about what makes sense. I\u2019m at least at that stage where I\u2019m thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rutherford, 77, made this declaration while standing and conducting an energetic media availability from a podium in Vancouver\u2019s make-shift video\/media room at Rogers Arena. Age, of course, can just be a number, and outliers do exist. In terms of his energy levels, his mobility and his facility with technology, it\u2019s absolutely fair to note that Rutherford is not your typical 77-year-old.<\/p>\n
He is, nonetheless, on the back nine of his storied career, and he\u2019s beginning to think about his future. Will he continue to work at the rate that he has for Vancouver for the past few years beyond this campaign? Beyond the draft? Beyond the search for the next Canucks general manager?<\/p>\n
As Rutherford held court on Friday, there was a certain discordance to the concept of having him guide a far-sighted rebuilding process while being noncommittal about what his Canucks future may look like by midsummer of this year.<\/p>\n
And on a day during which the Canucks\u2019 actions and words posed more critical questions than they provided direct answers, whether Rutherford\u2019s hand will remain on the wheel by the start of next season is the question that looms largest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vancouver Canucks formally concluded the worst season in the mostly sordid history of the franchise on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99,1320],"class_list":{"0":"post-591005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-vancouver-canucks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}