Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
Nucks Fan Rebuild & Retool Center - Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
Welcome Vern to our group of disgruntled Nucks fans as guest columnist. Vern is a veteran sports writer and worse... veteran Canucks fan. He has followed the escapades of this franchise since the mid-70s - so he knows hardships like few of us. And yet this latest management regime has driven him to the edge of sanity, to come out of retirement and vent about it.
- jimmi
With the Vancouver Canucks in the middle of a staggering eight nine-game losing streak and parked firmly in last place in the NHL, there are a lot of fans wondering how the hell we got here. Blame management. General Manager Patrick Allvin and President Jim Rutherford have blundered more often than not, and we are here entirely due to their collective, repeated failures.
Long before the Canucks shipped out Bo Horvat in favour of J. T Miller, there was abundant evidence that Miller was a problematic individual with a toxic personality.
The most obvious of those came Dec. 30, 2022, when Miller infamously smashed his stick on the net because Colin Delia hadn’t gone to the bench for an extra attacker in the late stages of what was then a 3-2 game against the Winnipeg Jets. That wasn’t the first time that season Miller was involved with issues with team-mates, either – he had a public disagreement with Luke Schenn Oct. 23, 2022. At the time, Miller was an Alternate Captain. (How he got the “A” on his shirt in the first place, I have no idea.)
Rutherford was hired Dec. 9, 2021 and Allvin was hired Jan. 26, 2022. They had time to act, and didn't. There was ample reason to move Miller at the end of the 2022-23 deadline, but instead, management doubled down, and despite obvious deficiencies Allvin/Rutherford re-signed Miller to a long-term contract in September of 2023, a contract worth $8 million over seven years – which is a lot of cash and a lot of term for a 30-year-old, moody centre who can’t play defence. Oh, that contract also had a no-move clause – one of the favourite blunders of the Allvin/Rutherford duo.
By the time Bruce Boudreau was fired from his coaching job on Jan. 23, 2023, few were going to suggest that the man had earned the right to retain his title as Canucks bench boss. Everyone knew Boudreau was going to be fired, and that is the problem: Rutherford actually told media he was looking for a replacement before the axe fell. That was a horrific treatment of an employee and a human being, and it was of such a degree of unprofessionalism, that it caused a leadership analyst to write a column in Forbes, of all places. It signalled a tailspin into the dumpster for team culture. (See #16 below).
When Allvin/Rutherford traded Bo Horvat, the general discussion was that they couldn’t afford to pay the guy what he was worth on a long-term contract, in part because of the money they need to keep on hand to keep Miller on the payroll. Let's put that in blunt terms: Allvin and Rutherford traded a No. 1 centre, and the captain of the team, in favour of a known dressing-room problem who didn't like playing defence. Nothing says “we have no clue where we’re going” than trading away your team captain when he’s still in the prime of his career (Horvat was 29 at the time) mere days after firing the coach. To put things in perspective, Horvat accepted an eight-year $8.5 million deal after he landed with the New York Islanders.
The return on the trade was, to be blunt, somewhat mediocre. Anthony Beavillier was a middling fourth-line centre, and probably included in the deal as a salary dump so the Islanders could fit Horvat under the cap in the years to come. Atu Raty was heralded as a top prospect, but hasn’t panned out as much more than a fourth-line centre and faceoff specialist. The first-round pick was flipped for Filip Hronek, which is defensible. At the very least, Horvat should have been given the chance to see life under Rick Tocchet, who quite rapidly turned the team around.
Previous General Manager Jim Benning’s decision to trade for Ekman-Larsson was a hardly a brilliant move, and the Swedish defender had a horrible time in Vancouver. When the Canucks announced the buyout, few decried it, but it was a gamble that hasn’t paid off. The problem with Ekman-Larsson is that he’s a player who thrives well as a fourth or fifth D-man in a structured environment. The Boudreau days were hardly a shining example of defensive structure, and the former Phoenix Coyotes captain was asked to hold down first-pair minutes. After the buyout, Ekman-Larsson demonstrated how boneheaded this move was by going off to Florida and winning a Stanley Cup. Every year since, he's been solid as a third-pair or occasional second-pair guy.
He’s now on the Toronto Maple Leafs and is at the time of writing, outscoring the Canucks woefully underperforming Elias Petterson (the centre). What would Ekman-Larsson have been like with a full season under Tocchet? (After all, Tocchet turned Tyler Myers from the Chaos Giraffe into a reliable, competent blueliner, didn’t he?) What would the salary cap look like without the burden of Ekman-Larsson’s contract, which will continue to haunt the Canucks until 2031 – another five freaking years?
Quinn Hughes is one of the most dynamic players to ever don a Canucks jersey – nobody is going to question that. Really, the only other players who are in the same stratospheric level are named Bure and maybe Luongo. That’s it. But there’s a difference between being exceptionally good as a hockey player and exceptionally good as a captain. Because Allvin/Rutherford blundered in trading Horvat, the team had to name a new captain. Unfortunately, nothing about Hughes in any of the interviews I observed ever gave me the impression he was a good leader. Certainly, his horrible body language and generally pissy demeanor, most notably in the beginnings of the 2025-2026 season lend credence to that view.
This is not some retroactive revisionist view: I thought the massive contract for Petterson (the forward) was a bad idea at the time. As one may recall, Petterson didn’t want to sign here, and rather than deal the petulant, soft-skating centre to Carolina for what would have been a heapload of assets that would look damn fine now, Rutherfood/Allvin forced him into signing a monster contract with a no-move clause, essentially paying first-line centre money for a guy who apart from 2022-2023 had been a second-line producer. How’s that working out? To give folks an idea how how tired Vancouver fans are of this guy, Petterson is No. 2 on the Puckpedia Buyout Calculator at the time of writing. (No, that's not going to happen.) The problem now is that Petterson has a no-move clause. Maybe the fact he didn't feel eager enough to be here to resign without prompting is a sign he'll waive that no-move now. One can only hope - but moving the underperforming Petterson is going to require salary retention or a pot-sweetening prospect to make some other team willing to gamble on the guy.
DeBrusk wasn't what the Canucks needed when he signed, and that hasn't changed since. He's signed to a problematic long-term contract that's costing way more than the value it's delivering. At the time, Allvin/Rutherford hailed Debrusk as the solution for Elias Petterson (the forward) when the problem was never with Petterson's wingers. The problem was always Petterson. Signing Debrusk was a $5.5 million/year gamble that predictably failed.
Whatever took place behind closed doors between Elias Petterson the forward and Miller may never be known. All we as casual spectators know is that something happened. And Miller was involved. None of that happens if Miller had been shown the door at the end of the 2022-2023 season, like he should have been had management given a tinker's damn about culture (see #2 above and #16 below). This leads to ….
The returns from trading J. T. Miller to the New York Rangers were underwhelming to be honest. The major blunder here was taking on Filip Chytil in return, despite the fact Chytil had four concussions with the Rangers. Unsurprisingly, he has had two since, and should probably quit playing hockey before his brain is permanently scrambled. The Czech centre has played just 21 games in two weeks shy of a calendar year. It bears repeating: Chytil’s liability isn’t a reality if the Canucks retain Horvat and let Miller go.
At the tail end of the 2024-25 season, Boeser, the well-respected but slow-of-foot winger was a Unrestricted Free Agent who hadn’t committed to re-signing with Vancouver. For some reason, Allvin didn’t move the man at the deadline.
“If I told you what I was offered for Brock Boeser, I think I would have to run out of here because you would not believe me,” Allvin said at the time.
Apart from that coming across as remarkably disrespectful and a sign management has no respect for players (see #16 below), that should have been a clue that more competent managers didn't think Boeser was anywhere near as good as what Canucks management valued him at. (The current analogy is the team waiting for a first-round pick for Kiefer Sherwood, when the market for wingers of his age and skill has long been set at lower.) At the tail end of last year, Boeser had already shown all the signs of peaking (50 points in 24-25 season the overwhelming evidence). A trade might would have likely fetched a second-round pick at the deadline. Heck, anything, really, would have been an asset.
This never made sense, unless there was some Machiavellian awareness the team was going to be horrific, and Allvin/Rutherford just wanted a placeholder. In any event, Foote was never qualified to coach at this level: his previous coaching record was a roughly .500 record during a season and a half coaching the WHL Kelowna Rockets before he was fired. Foote’s record as an NHL bench boss is now 16-25, and the only real marker left for long-suffering Canucks fan is whether the squad finishes dead-last to maximize the chance of drafting first overall.
Foote ought to be axed at the end of the season, without question. There are structure-dependent players (Tyler Myers, Marcus Petterson) who are suffering, and even early in the season, veteran players signaled they weren’t sure what they were supposed to do. The rookies are learning bad habits. Linus Karlsson is one of the league's best five-on-five and isn't given enough ice-time, while defensive disasters like Brock Boeser and Evander Kane are given priority. Further, it's obvious he hasn't the capacity to bring Atu Raty to the next level, and is it any wonder that Elias Petterson (the defender) is floundering after a solid season under a competent coach the year before? If Hughes hadn’t been certain about leaving, the disaster that Foote has created left no doubt. The team wouldn't be a playoff contender with a better coach, but it would be better.
That hefty, long-term contract with its no-move clause is currently looking like a massive albatross now. Boeser has scored once since Remembrance Day. And why tie up that salary when management was already aware that Quinn Hughes had little intent on staying with the team? Re-signing a slow-moving, older player is not consistent with a rebuild that a departing Hughes necessarily triggers. This is one of many examples of management clearly having no true direction for the team. A critical oversight was the fact that Boeser is not a play-driver, and requires a playmaker (think Miller, Conor Garland), of which the Canucks have .... uh, Garland and that's it. So the fact Boeser is struggling (and still -26 for the year, with 140 active players who have scored more) is of no surprise.
Why Rutherford/Allvin felt justified handing out a three-year $8.5-million contract to a goaltender with a proven history of being fragile is beyond me. When he’s on, Demko is one of the best. The problem is, he hasn’t been able to play through a season without several injury issues. He started just 23 games in 2024-25, after a freak injury left the stellar 2023-24 team high-and-dry in the playoffs. At the time of writing, Demko has already missed several weeks with injury, and after a mere handful of games is back in the injury ward. Moreover, it has become apparent that management was well aware that Hughes was not going to re-sign, so why gamble on signing Demko for his inconsistent excellence when a rebuild is clearly in the future? And another no-move clause, of course.
Allvin and/or Rutherford signed this depth defender almost at the outset of free agency. Why? At the time, the Canucks had a stable of players that included Marcus Petterson, Hronek, Hughes (at the time) Tom Willander waiting in the wings, Elias Petterson (the d-man), Derek Forbort (remember him?), Tyler Myers and Victor Mancini. Prior to signing with Vancouver, Joseph had 32 points and 40 penalty minutes in 194 games. He was also -18 for his career, which is now -24 and plummeting every time he plays, which is far too often thanks to Foote having no clue what to do with his d-core. There was no reason to waste $0.775 million on Joseph, who has lived up to exactly what he has always been: irrelevant. Did they not learn from their Vincent Deharnais failure? Might that quarter-million have been used to re-sign Pius Suter - a reliable, versatile center who can kill penalties? Instead the result is a part-time depth defenceman who could likely be replaced by someone younger who is waiver-exempt, a d-man who would help Abbotsford but be there in case of trouble.
Why? Just … why? Anyone who has been around the NHL knows this guy is problematic. The problem with trading for Kane in June of 2025 wasn’t just that this guy is moody, prone to defensive miscues, and perhaps a bit toxic in the dressing room, it was also his $5.125 million contract.
You don’t get to the bottom without problems at the top. There’s no clear vision, no clear identity. Nobody knows who is in charge: after the Hughes trade, both Rutherford and Allvin went to separate announcements. To me, it's pretty obvious that Rutherford calls the shots.
Rutherford and Allvin have had four years to improve the culture, and instead, have made it worse. So here we are, with a team that has traded its captain twice in four years, the supposed “star centre” is on track to score maybe 60 points, its generational D-man has bailed for anywhere else but here, injury reports are about as accurate as a seance with a Ouija board, the Adams-winning coach bailed, the current coach is incapable of managing defence, and will likely be replaced at the end of the season (making it five coaches in less than five years) the offence is anemic and there’s no sign that the owner is going to change management before they make any more blunders. The team's culture is a mess... and prominent and respectable journalists like Kevin Woodley say the same thing: https://x.com/i/status/2001049284897329622.
This - all of this - lies at Rutherford and Allvin's feet.
Welcome to the basement, Canucks fans. Might as well bring the sleeping bag: you’re likely to be staying here a while.
Vern Faulkner is a retired award-winning journalist and editor. He’s suffered as a Canucks fan since the mid-seventies, and lacks the moral fibre to move on.
