Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
Nucks Fan Rebuild & Retool Center - Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
A half-dozen signings, a good-sized trade, and then - no offence to Matthew Steinberg - silence around the talent on the team. And that's fine, because lord knows there was enough to do off the ice as well. After taking some time off, let's look at the team and around the division.
The Vancouver Canucks needed coaches, both in Vancouver proper and for the AHL squad. They've rounded out their NHL roster with three-ish Abbotsford promotions and a former AHL head coach joining Malhotra on the big club.
Jordan Smith spent the past two seasons as an assistant on the bench in Abby, so his move is one of leagues, if not titles. Andrew Shaw (not the NHLer) moves from being Abbotsford's video coach to assisting Vancouver's Ian Beckenstein, so it's a promotion and demotion at the same time. I don't think he'll complain.
Jason Krog has been working with players in Abbotsford and Vancouver as a skills and skating coach, and is moving up to bench duties with Malhotra. He had a long professional career, mostly as an AHL All-Star but including four games with the Canucks. All three of these coaches were with Abbotsford for their Calder Cup win in 2024-25.
Ryan Mougenel is an interesting hire, as he was named AHL Coach of the Year in 2025-26. He's been the head coach of the Providence Bruins for the past five seasons, and an assistant there the previous two. The Bruins finished top-three in their division for every one of those years, but couldn't get past the division semi-finals in any of them. Well, he won't have to worry about the playoffs any time soon with his new job, anyway.
There have certainly been some interesting developments outside the Canucks.
The biggest is undoubtedly the offer sheet signed by Leo Carlsson and subsequently matched by the Anaheim Ducks. 'Sfunny how a player widely known as "The Little Ball of Hate" is a general manager that players and agents agree lives up to his nickname. Pat Verbeek and his staff developed a reputation for absolutely grinding any player who crossed his path come contract time. That engendered some resentment, it seems, and suddenly his star didn't want to go through it.
Daniel Briere is living up to his - or at least Philadelphia's - reputation, too. They are a team that has never been afraid of being hated by the rest of the league, and they'll drop offer sheets on stars if they think they can get away with it. It may not be the most effective approach - step up, St. Louis - but it's certainly fun to watch. And now a 21-year-old is being paid $18 million a season for the next five years, ending with him as an unrestricted free agent. You have to wonder if that's Philly's way of encouraging commissioner Gary Bettman's departure.
Cutter Gautier is still waiting for his contract, but Pavel Mintyukov had his on the table and signed VERY soon after Carlsson was resolved. Gautier had a 41-goal season in his third year, and whatever Anaheim decides to offer will be remembered at their next negotiation. Now, he's not a centre like Carlsson is, and isn't eligible for an offer sheet, but he's still a vital cog for a team that wants to improve this year.
The Ducks have $9 million in cap space, but their defence could use more than Nick Jensen to shore up their ranks. Jackson LaCombe has been a delightful surprise, but he's only on one side of the ice. It's definitely Anaheim's weak point. However, they might choose not to shore it up just yet, especially if the options are looking bad for a simple reason: they're in the Pacific Division.
The Pacific Division last season was a fine argument for eliminating the "pity point". The Los Angeles Kings managed twenty [20] overtime and shootout losses to squeeze into the final wild card spot. That meant the team with five fewer regulation wins than San Jose, six fewer than Nashville, and eleven fewer than St. Louis got in while the rest waited. That actually worked out okay for the Sharks, but still!
That the Sharks finished the season four points away from the playoffs and still won the first overall pick shows how weak the Pacific Division was last year. Anaheim and LA would have both missed the playoffs if the top-16 teams leaguewide played. Philadelphia had the fewest points of the Eastern playoff teams at 98, a mark no team in the Pacific reached.
San Jose certainly wants to get in this year, with their wild overpays on Jacob Trouba and Mason Marchment and trade for Darnell Nurse. They're going to be a very interesting team to watch again this year, at least. They can absolutely push into the top-three conversation.
Anaheim, of course, wants to stay in the playoffs now that they've finally made it back. Edmonton has the room to make a move or two with Nurse off the books. Interesting gambles in net, so maybe their eye turns to a bit more scoring depth up front.
And LA is... Okay, to be frank, I have no frikkin' clue what the Kings are doing this year. They made the playoffs by the skin of their teeth, and only because the Pacific was so weak. It wasn't that long ago that they were considered to have one of the best prospect pools in the league. Unfortunately for them, either the players haven't panned out as hoped (Quinton Byfield), or the injury bug hit (Alex Turcotte), or they were moved on (Brock Faber). It's like they looked at their pool in 2020 and said, "Right! We're making a big push in five or six years!" and are determined to fit the timeline, reality be damned.
Seattle, of course, will want to get in there, too. They made big pitches to Jason Robertson and Artemi Panarin, so they're willing to take a swing. They have the money and the will, and there is plenty of time before the season gets underway yet.
Vegas, the supposed Cream of the Crop, didn't even hit 40 wins last year and still won the division. Their big signing so far was Rasmus Andersson, who is a very good player, but...that can't be it, right? That can't be all they're doing? Then again, they did just make the Stanley Cup Final, so maybe that is. A full year with Mitch Marner could do them wonders.
That pretty much leaves Calgary and Vancouver as teams that aren't all that bothered with making the playoffs in the Pacific. And outside Vegas and Edmonton, the rest of the division may be trying, but they don't look all that good yet. Sure, the Flames want to show their fans signs of progress as they gear up for the new arena, but that's probably going to be an incremental improvement. If the Canucks aren't careful, they could risk a wild-card spot by just playing better than last year!
Okay, probably not. But if they find a system that suits the team, they might hit 85 points, getting them well clear of the league basement, which they do NOT want to do just yet. Start the climb next season; let this one be another bottom-five finish.
The rule changes allow teams to send one of their 19-year-olds to the AHL. I have no problem if the Canucks decide to let Braeden Cootes cook for a year in Abbotsford. Heck, if they want Tom Willander to get top-pair minutes, he can go, too. Zeev Buium is probably here to stay, but otherwise, keeping the kids away from what's going to be a hard year? Livable.
Besides, if the kids are suddenly going to find their feet and take off? Let them do it where they can't risk Vancouver's draft position. For one more year, anyway.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and while I was rather skeptical of the Sedin twins/Ryan Johnson hiring from the outset, I’m prepared now to be wrong.
In fact, some of the moves Johnson made in the last few days has put me in the uncomfortable position of feeling vaguely optimistic, which as a long-term Canucks fan invariably means I am failing to insulate myself from the inevitable disappointment that follows.
More than anything, I am heartened that the Vancouver Canucks do, indeed, appear to have fully embraced a rebuild.
Firstly, a wee while back, I listed the eight things I thought the team needed to do in order to move forward. In summary:
So, five out of eight, with bonus points for booting Jim Rutherford to pasture and moving Marcus Pettersson.
On Wednesday, Thursday rendered some opinions on recent moves, so I’m going to go another direction and make the declaration that the best move made July 1 that benefits the Canucks was one the Canucks had nothing to do with.
Hands up if you figured that the Edmonton Oilers would be able to unload the oppressive Darnell Nurse contract onto some other team dumb enough to overpay large bills for a second pair left-shot D-man. Yet the Oilers not only managed to unload Nurse to the Sharks, but a) gathered two prospects in return and more importantly b) didn’t have to retain salary.
To reflect on the Nurse saga for a moment, the Oilers signed a staggering $9.25 million annual deal, for a left-shot D-man who logged solid minutes but never really delivered the kind of numbers one would expect for a $9.25 million-per-year contract. Nurse was supposed to be an offensive threat, first-pair, lead-your-team kinda guy and never really was. Nurse wasn’t bad, but his efforts just could never match the salary, which led to all sorts of discontent with the fan base. Let me know when this sounds familiar, hmm?
The Nurse deal cracks open the window of potentiality to suggest – tantalizingly, perhaps – that at some point in the near future, some team might be willing to eat EP40’s contract and overpay for a defensively capable (when he doesn’t fall down) second-line centre who will probably chip in 70-80 points a year, but comes with baggage courtesy of a he-ain’t-worth-that $11.6 million price tag. The similarities are apparent.
It’s also somewhat refreshing to hear the new brass say, in fairly blunt terms, that Pettersson (the floppy forward) has not put in the summer work that a $11.6-million-per-year player should to meet the potential suggested by said contract.
My read at this moment is that the Canucks are going to give EP 40 one more chance to turn his failing career around, one more year to show something of the 100-point-per-year guy he once was. It is more than obvious that the Canucks had a woeful culture problem, and frankly, it’s also more than obvious that EP 40 is part of that problem. Now, I suspect, he’s going to have one year to change, to show that he hasn’t simply become the Canucks’ Darnell Nurse. But the Nurse deal suggests that if the right calls are mode, Johnson can move Pettersson to someone else without being utterly fleeced in the process.
The Hockey Gods have not been kind to Vancouver in the past, but the Montreal Canadiens gave Vancouver a prime prize in the form of Brendan Gallagher. Frankly, when I first read the details of the deal I had to pause for a moment and confirm with a secondary source because the idea of Montreal trading Gallagher for future considerations and retaining half his salary seemed absurd. Gallagher seems the kind of pepper-pot, never-stop guy that will do everything Conor Garland did on the energy-and-effort side of the equation.
Folks in the media have called the deal “free,” but I’m placing a lot of stock in the “future considerations” part of the piece, because it suggests that Johnson has made a quiet pledge to pick up the phone and call Montreal first if an asset feels like moving. Put a pin in that, because my spidey sense is tingling with a “let’s see if someone in Canuck colours moves to Montreal at or near the deadline if Montreal is in a strong playoff position at that time” kind of vibe. Think “hey, your goaltender is injured/not performing, but we have one we can flog you,” or – dare to dream – “we’ve got an overpaid but really good defensive second-line centre for that playoff run who is waiving his no-trade clause.”
Hands up if you were stunned at Marcus Pettersson being traded, because that came out of the blue. The fact Johnson peddled that for a 2030 first-rounder (which essentially means that Pettersson retained his value despite having a sucky year under Foote’s catastrophe of a “system”) tells me that the management is really thinking about the future. The player that pick will become is barely in puberty at this moment, and unless said pick is of the “can’t miss, plays at 19” class, won’t be in the lineup until the mid 2030s. That’s forward-thinking with vengeance.
Moving Nils Hoglander was good. Signing credible character athletes to short-term contracts that do not have full trade protection is a thankful sign that Johnson will not repeat the mistakes of the previous administrations. They didn’t hold on to Joseph. I trust Evander Kane won’t be involved in any future discussions, other than “good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Is there merit in re-signing Derek Forbort? The Jamie Oleksiak deal makes Forbort expendable, so probably not.
When will the team move Drew O'Connor?
Is Max Sasson a deadline trade chip?
Can EP40 be stripped of his alternate captaincy?
We got some picks, we got a trade, we're looking forward!
To be completely clear: I am not an NHL scout. Yes, I see some tape, but those tend to be highlight reels, which only show the best of a player, not the whole player. I read and heard a lot of scouting reports from folks who do the actual work, some public, some pay. What you're reading here is a combination of what I've read, heard, and seen, but it's other people putting in the real work. If you want more, hunt them down and definitely check out tape for yourself. It's fun!
Now, without further ado, what the Vancouver Canucks did done:
With the first draft under GM Ryan Johnson complete, what can we glean of their intent? Actions speak louder than words, and we haven't seen a whole lot of on-ice choices yet. This is, essentially, our first chance to see what the White Collars are thinking.
The odds-on favourite to go first to Vancouver went first to Vancouver. A lot of smoke was billowing in the week leading up to Draft Day, but when it cleared, Caleb Malhotra was their pick. There are loads of reasons to like Malhotra, on and off the ice. The phrase "future captain" comes up a LOT in his scouting reviews.
Clearly, the team decided to go to the centre instead of defence, but it is a rational decision. They didn't reach for him because there were a half-dozen players you could justify taking. Funny thing is, the player I thought of with last year's selection of Braden Cootes was "Bo Horvat light". With Malhotra, it's "imaginative Bo Horvat".
The same critique of Horvat sits on Malhotra: his skating. He knows where he needs to go, and he skates well enough to get there. And that's about it for criticism. He's very good defensively, proactive in breaking up plays and knocking people off the puck. He can pass it up and out, ideally following a teammate in and getting the return pass in the offensive zone. He protects the puck well, plays on the boards, and can score.
His floor is an excellent, third-line centre who desperate teams might move to the first. His ceiling is an excellent second-line centre that an average team has on the first. You know: Bo Horvat.
The Canucks got, possibly, a steal? Lots of scouting types were very happy with Vancouver picking up Adam Novotný at 24. Craig Button had him at 26, but the vast majority of pre-draft lists put Novotný in the mid-teens. He absolutely looks like an NHL player, little doubt there. Sturdy guy, decent skater, plays the body well, and his best offence is to get the puck off someone, skate in and shoot.
Hopefully, that straightforward game doesn't just translate well to the NHL but is the basis for some more imaginative play. Malhotra will occasionally take risks and try something different to see if he can pull it off, while Novotný takes a safer route. That "safer route" is for him, obviously, not his opponents. They're going to have a generally bad time getting past him/out of their zone if he catches them with the puck.
His NHL calling card might leave him in the bottom-six as a floor. With the right linemates, he can be the guy who plays puck retriever for the top line as his ceiling.
An 18-year-old giant at 6'7" and 236 lbs, it's a bit tough not to give Brooks Rogowski some grace. There's being awkward after a growth spurt, then there's being 6'7" at 18. At the start of the year, he looked like a guy who could reliably put in the work on the defensive side. As the season went on and he got more comfortable, he started doing things like controlling mid-air passes and no-look passes.
He's confirmed to Michigan State in two years, staying in Oshawa for 2026-26. Oshawa was lousy offensively last season and the worst team in the league. That situation can give Rogowski a lot of opportunities. It will be very interesting to see how he develops from here - and what his coaches ask of him.
Who's up for learning the Viking Row? Niklas Aaram-Olsen is the first Norwegian drafted by Vancouver, and if he makes it, will be the first to play for them. But he wasn't drafted for Pokémon reasons. Here's what he does:
I don't put a whole lot into the draft combine, but Aaram-Olsen shows up in the results repeatedly. Third in the Wingate power output test; third in the 10 metre sprint; first in the shuttle agility test, both left and right sides; seventh in bench press; tenth in hands-on-hips, no arm swing jump; and first in the standing long jump. The guy's got a physique, and he's not afraid to use it! But what's all that mean on the ice?
He's decently fast, but more than that, he's very quick. He breaks ankles when he's carrying the puck. He also has a variety of shots and gets it off at different angles, leaving goalies guessing. The risk is that he might think that those skills are enough. He played 16 SHL games last year and takes the defensive side seriously when lined up against men, but it came at the cost of his offence.
Dmitri Ivchenko played in the MHL (the Russian equivalent of the AHL) as a backup for a very good Omskie Yastreby team. He has a .922 goals against average, which sounds incredible until you realize that puts him 30th in the league overall. It's still good, but make sure you know what the stats mean when you read them.
His selling points are being a calm character. When he's in position, he has excellent control of his extremities, snapping his hands and feet into a blocking position. He does have issues outside the posts, losing track of the puck up high, and if he has to move side-to-side, he can go past his posts. Everyone remembers Arturs Silovs' second year, right? Thing is, we probably won't see Ivchenko for another three years - and that's if he agrees to go to Abbotsford. Who we'll see then is a bit of a mystery.
So first things first. Yaroslav Bryzgalov is not a good skater. And he also plays a fast game. These aren't the opposites they seem.
Bryzgalov is big in a phone booth, a player you can trust to win the puck when the battle takes place in four square feet along the boards. He's also a very good passer and knows where the puck should go before he gets it. If any opponent isn't paying attention, he'll make them play. One or two hits from him, and the entire team starts looking over their shoulders.
If he can get his foot speed up, even a little, he can get NHL minutes, though probably on the fourth line.
What's an NHL team without a Connor these days? Connor Davis is a perpetual motion machine, always skating after the puck. He likes to attack defencemen directly, and when the puck gets to the net, he'll buzz around it, looking for a jam, a wrap-around, any opportunity to get it across the line.
A re-entry, like Bryzgalov, he's a bit older than most players taken, so there's some concern he's as big as he's going to get. Still, 6' even is plenty big enough for an agitator, and he's heading to North Dakota next year to improve his skills.
When the draft gets past the 150-mark, you get players like Lucian Bernát. The 6'4", 200 lbs Bernát had an excellent statistical year in the Finnish U20 league for a rookie. His shoot-first mentality led to him being the second-highest scorer on the team. But that scoring dried up in the playoffs, and he ended up in penalty trouble instead of helping the team. He does love making contact as part of his game, but it's also a matter of timing.
We'll get a closer look this season when he joins Owen Sound.
"It's late, grab a big Swede and let's go."
-Imagined conversation among Canucks scouts at every draft
That's not entirely fair, but there are years when it feels like it. Eriksson is, indeed, a 6'6" Swede, and his focus is on defence. His first thought is to pin some poor forward that's fallen within his reach, but his second thought is to overthink it. His physical tools are plentiful, but his mind is not up to speed just yet. Practice and time might get him there, but he's drafted in the sixth round for a reason.
Yes, GM Johnson pulled off his first NHL trade on Day Two of the draft! It was:
A sixth-round pick from the 2026 draft, #161 overall, for a fifth-round pick in 2027, TBD
That is, technically, moving up in the draft. Eh, we'll take it.
Well. THAT was interesting.
Nine - NINE - first-round picks changed hands in the past three days. go back to Friday, and it's been a half-dozen big moves in the days leading up to the 2026 NHL entry draft. The Vancouver Canucks haven't dipped their toes in yet, but you can bet they're paying attention.
Vancouver is probably the only team that is starting a rebuild this year. They should be pure sellers on talent, but they don't need to sell everything now. This is a long-term project, and the first phase of it will be done over a few years, not a few weeks.
That all being said, these prices have been something amazing. A relatively weak draft year plus a predictably increasing salary cap should have been plenty of impetus for trades, but this shit's crazy. This website being what it is, let's take a look at what those moves were and how they affected Vancouver's plans.
To Toronto Maple Leafs:
Darren Raddysh sign-and-trade
To Tampa Bay Lightning:
2026 5th round pick, #133 overall
So, most players who don't make it to the NHL until they're 25 don't get 8 x $8.5 million contracts. Raddysh has played three full seasons, and they've been good seasons. Last year was his breakout, getting 22 goals and 70 points with Tampa Bay. He's also 30 years old, which is an interesting age at which to sign an eight-year deal.
They got this one in early enough to get that eight-year deal, as the rules are changing for 2026-27. Tampa essentially got an agent's "finder's fee" for arranging the deal with Toronto. And now the Leafs can move the slightly older Morgan Rielly.
Effect on Vancouver:
If the Canucks do get a fortune offer for Filip Hronek, Rielly could fill in to some degree. But neither one of those is likely to happen. He apparently has given a list of four teams he'll agree to move to in the West, so I suppose that's an effect?
To Seattle Kraken:
To Florida Panthers:
2026 1st round pick, #25 overall
2027 2nd round pick, TBD
We covered this deal last column, and it's a swing by a team looking to make an impression soon. If Samoskevich pans out, that'll help Seattle. It's a bit hard to see him as a first-line guy, but if it worked for Vancouver getting JT Miller out of Tampa Bay, maybe the younger version will work for the Kraken.
Effect on Vancouver:
I mean, we're all expecting Seattle to be better than Vancouver for a few years, right? In an ideal world, Samoskevich is starring on a Kraken team trying to keep the Canucks out of the playoffs in three or four years. Otherwise? *shrug*
To Florida Panthers:
To Ottawa Senators:
2026 1st round pick, #9 overall
2026 1st round pick, #25 overall
2027 2nd round pick, TBD
2029 1st round pick, TBD, top-10 protected
For a forced deal, that's a pretty good haul for the Senators! They want to improve quickly, and draft picks this year aren't going to do that. But those same picks are cash money, as we'll see.
Effect on Vancouver:
Since the Canucks have neither a Brady Tkachuck, nor an interest in giving away picks, not much. A very specific situation at a very specific moment in time.
To Calgary Flames:
To New Jersey Devils:
Etienne Morin
2026 2nd round pick, #35 overall
2027 1st round pick, top-10 protected
2028 1st round pick, top-10 protected twice (it's complicated)
The Devils are losing a guy who isn't all that happy with them in 22-year old RHD Nemec. Fair enough, they keep bringing in better defencemen. Or at least ones they've given more opportunities to, which is where the unhappiness lies.
Tsyplakov is an interesting player. He's only been in the league for a couple seasons, starting his career on Long Island with a bang (and crash) before getting moved to New Jersey. From 35 points in his first year to just four in his second, we don't really know where he'll end up. He is a very physical player, strong on the boards and as a net-front presence.
Morin split time between the AHL and ECHL last season, but he is just 21. There's time for the young defender to course-correct yet.
Effect on Vancouver:
The Flames just got a bunch more annoying to play against. Great.
To Ottawa Senators:
Kasper Halttunen
Brandon Svoboda
To San Jose Sharks:
2026 1st round pick, #9 overall
I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but Sharks general manager Mike Grier has, I think, done a phenomenal job with San Jose. His teardown of the team was remorseless when needed, but his thoughtfulness about protecting the young stars is also exemplary. He's taken swings when he can, but importantly he's had the resources to do so. We'll see how he continues with the tougher portion of the program: returning to contention.
Eklund is the draw here, obviously. Halttunen put in a good showing in the AHL, but he and NCAA forward Svoboda are still prospects. Eklund won't replace everything Brady Tkachuk brings, but that's for better and worse. He's a bit younger, a bunch cheaper, and not as prone to penalty trouble. But he doesn't have anything like Tkachuk's physical presence, and hasn't put up the same scoring numbers - yet.
Effect on Vancouver:
San Jose will almost certainly pick the best player available - they usually do - so Ivar Stenberg isn't making it to #3. Sorry, Canucks fans.
To Washington Captials:
To St Louis Blues:
Milton Gästrin
2026 1st round pick, #16 overall
Seriously? Kyrou FINALLY got traded? Smoke 'em if you got 'em, folks! It's been, what, five years he's been on the trade boards, either at the deadline or in the offseason? Maybe six? Well, he's got to be relieved that it's over, whether he wanted to get dealt away or not.
McMichael has been a decent young centre, but he's been passed on the depth chart by similarly-aged players. He should be a top-six centre with the Blues. Gästrin has played a single game in North America, so it's wait and see for him.
Effect on Vancouver:
The Blues moved Kyrou, which is great for the Canucks. But they also have four first-round picks this draft. They aren't finished yet.
To Chicago Blackhawks:
To Buffalo Sabres:
2026 1st round pick, #4 overall
2026 2nd round pick, #45 overall
Chicago certainly got tougher to play against, and their defence certainly improved a large amount. How much, you ask? Louis Crevier was the Blackhawks' highest defensive scorer last season, that's how much. Crevier isn't a bad player, exactly, but he's not going to be a needle-mover.
This looks like a deal where someone told management that Connor Bedard was considering how long to sign his second contract for and they panicked. Byram and Greenway make their team better, but they are both unrestricted free agents next year.
Effect on Vancouver:
Counting the days until 2030 when Bedard becomes a free agent. Still, maybe Chicago will improve enough that the Canucks won't accidentally pass them this season.
Alex Tuch to Washington? Hoo, boy. I'm gonna be doing a few of these this week, never mind a draft recap.
Hat tip to PuckPedia, of course
Interesting times, with a week yet to go before Draft Day(s)! The NHL announced not just an increase in the salary cap, but what that increase will be over the next three seasons. Rich teams are looking for innovative ways to spend it, and smaller teams are trying to take advantage. Vancouver is in the in-between, being a rich team but also selling players. The only question is who, and when. Okay, fine, two questions.
Jason Dickinson isn't a bad player.* The 30-year-old centre has pretty good speed, runs around 50% in the circle, and can kill penalties in a pinch. He'll get you about 25 points in your bottom-six, which is...some. That he is also, apparently, a five-year, $20 million man to the Edmonton Oilers certainly highlights what effect the increased cap space will have on the league.
Darren Raddysh's sign-and-trade let the Tampa Bay Lightning salvage a fifth-round pick for a player they couldn't keep. How delighted he'll be with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the next eight seasons is unknown, but for $68 million, it's worth finding out.
Looking at those numbers can give any of us Olds sticker shock. Since when is $4 million a year the going price for a mediocre, bottom-six centre? And since when are teams giving bottom-six players five-year deals? And wasn't Edmonton in a perpetual cap crunch? And... Wait, where's Jack Roslovic? And as for Raddysh, at least he's been a top-pair defenceman and has a hammer of a shot. But he's also 30 years old and has all of three full NHL seasons under his belt. Toronto currently has $32 million tied up in their top-six defencemen. That's probably going to change soon.
The common thread between these teams is their stars. Auston Matthews has two years left on his contract; Connor McDavid has two left on his. The free agent lists are sparse, to say the least, so a team feeling the pressure to improve finds other ways to do it. How can Vancouver take advantage of that?
For the Canucks, neither of these deals is a good example of what they can do in moving players. Dickinson was already with Edmonton, and Raddysh was unrestricted and had the hammer. If he didn't want to go to a team, he couldn't stop the deal, but he could wait two weeks and sign anywhere else. No one on Vancouver's roster matches those conditions.
Useful as Teddy Blueger is, if he gets offered Jason Dickinson money (can't believe I typed that), it won't be by the Canucks. And given the total lack of interest at the trade deadline, Vancouver's not getting a big return from someone wanting to talk to him early.
Much more interesting is the recent Seattle Kraken - Florida Panthers deal. Mackie Samoskevich brought Florida a later first and an unknown second. Samoskevich is a 23-year-old, fourth-line winger who played some centre in junior. Seattle is almost certainly going to offer him a long-term deal in hopes that, as he ages and gets more opportunity, he will become a good value contract. He's been very productive in limited ice time, so maybe it'll translate, maybe not. But even if it falls through, Dickinson set the salary bar for guys who get limited ice time.
Seattle paid a high price, but Samoskevich's age warranted it. Yes, they're taking some risk in giving up two picks, but they also believe they are ready to improve. They want to become playoff regulars and are willing to pay for it. It's not a position that Vancouver will be in for at least four or five seasons, but when they are, they'll need Seattle's currency: draft picks.
Florida isn't a team that's building for the future. Look at their PuckPedia page, and "23" isn't an age that appears until you reach ECHL defenceman Evan Nause. This is a team of 30-year-olds and a few who are close to it. Anton Lundell is their youngest player of consequence at 24. Their first-round picks over the next three years are gone. So, no, this isn't a team thinking of winning in four or five years. Closer to ten.
Don't get me wrong! They're going to ride their current horses until they break a leg, but the team knows that's only so far. Father Time remains undefeated, no matter what the weirdly glisteny billionaires tell themselves.
This is the sort of time frame I want to see the Canucks employ.
New GM Ryan Johnson and new coach Manny Malhotra each have three-year deals. That's fine, so long as no one pretends this team will be good in three years. In three years, we want to see progress on the foundation of a team ready to compete. Depth in the minors, young stars establishing themselves under the guidance of a few veterans who know they'll get moved on, that sort of thing. But I also want to see draft picks waiting for us in the future.
We need them now, yes, and I want to see them get some more if they can now. They can come in 2027, 2028, or beyond; I don't particularly care. The ones in the next few years are getting used by the team, ideally on picks, rarely in trade. I don't want to see them bundle later selections so they can move up a few spots, I really don't. Certainly not in this draft, where even the top five prospects are all over the place on scouting lists, never mind the top fifty.
My priority here and anywhere else I've written about the Canucks has been trying to understand management's decisions. No one does things that don't make sense to them, so why did they trade for Erik Gudbranson? Why did they choose J.T. Miller instead of Bo Horvat? Why did they give Bruce Boudreau an option year, shocking the general manager they wanted to hire?
Understanding their decisions is harder with some moves than with others, but they always make sense to the person who does them. What I want from the team is to see understandable moves. I don't want to work hard at this anymore. I'm inherently lazy. I want it to be not only easy to follow along, but I also want to smile while doing it. Something long-term, outlasting Johnson's and Malhotra's contracts, but earning them renewals. The playoffs can frikkin' wait.
Beyond anything else, I want to see a plan. And I want to see it take shape with this draft, right now.
Let's go!
*I hesitate to call anyone who makes it to the NHL a bad player. Go watch John Scott skate with university players, and you'll see what I mean.
A resolution to the biggest question for the Vancouver Canucks' future might not be a big deal after all.
Lemme explain.
On straight talent, Elias Pettersson is the most skilled skater the Canucks have. With Quinn Hughes gone, it's a one-person list. The good news is that he's signed for the next six seasons. The bad news is the previous two seasons.
Two years with just 15 goals in each is atrocious, given who he is supposed to be. He scored 27 in his rookie and sophomore seasons, just by comparison, and those are his third and fourth least productive years. Even Pettersson's much-vaunted defensive game slipped, with his even-strength Corsi dropping below 50% in 2024-25. It plummeted to 46.8% last year, but whose didn't?*
It's been a precipitous drop from the century-mark high of 2022-23. Successful as it was for him, the year felt...odd. The new management had decided to go with J.T. Miller instead of longtime captain Bo Horvat, signing him to a 7 x $8 million extension before the season began. They left Horvat dangling for months before finally trading him away at the end of January. Management announced that coach Bruce Boudreau was a lame duck before the season began, but waited 48 games to fire him, a week before the Horvat trade.
Obviously, a huge "changing of the guard" happened. Rick Tocchet came in, Hughes was named captain for the 2023-24 season, and Pettersson was going into his RFA year. Now, he said in the off-season that he wanted to wait until the season was over before negotiating a new deal. Management seemed to agree. But both management and Pettersson were asked about a potential deal repeatedly throughout the year. That made sense, as the team had obviously improved, and it was going to be the most expensive deal in Canucks history, whenever it happened.
It was still a flat cap world then, and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin wanted to know what they could spend in the coming years. Getting Pettersson's deal done was vital. Meetings carried on between the White Collars and his agent from July 1st in 2023 right until the end of February, a week before the trade deadline. But a month before the deal was done, things got really interesting.
Just after the All-Star break, rumours leaked out of a potential trade with the Carolina Hurricanes. Then of possible short-term contracts instead of an eight-year one. In public, Rutherford and Allvin said how much they wanted Pettersson to stay. Pettersson, for his part, continued to say he wanted to wait until the season was over before he talked contract.
On the ice, clearly, Miller was feeling the pressure of being The Guy early. Regular outbursts, breaking his sticks, and taking bad penalties had him riding pine early in the year. But Tocchet still heaped praise on him, calling him an "emotional leader" for the team.
We know early in the 2024-25 season, Miller and Pettersson had a confrontation at practice. Word got around that the coaching staff - with the approval of management - encouraged players to "toughen up" Pettersson. It's unlikely that it started in the 2024 training camp, but well before then, and we don't know what was said in the dressing room. But we do know there were factions, with Horvat on one side and Miller on the other. Given how each player approaches the game, that's hardly surprising. We also know how much Tocchet loves Miller and who he would back if there were a divide on the team.
It's not hard to add Pettersson's reluctance to sign, the pressure to do so from management, and his treatment at work together.
Gonna talk about myself a little. Skip this bit if you want.
When I was very young - ten-ish - I was a pretty good student. School was fun, and I liked the challenges there and all the new things to discover. Not the best student in the world, but pretty good. Went into Grade Five and had a seat at the front of the class. (Don't worry, this will be over soon.) Teacher assigned some "circle the answer" homework on the first day, and I forgot to do it. Next day, he asked where it was, and I said it wasn't done.
He threw my desk across the room. Leaned into my face and bellowed for me to get out of his class.
So I was crying outside his classroom - two other kids joined me there - when he came out and chuckled at me. "What are you crying for?" He explained that he wasn't going to hurt me, obviously. He just needed to make an example of someone at the start of the year. Now I should go on back to my desk, and we'll carry on with the day. Well, with an explanation like that, what would your average ten-year-old do?
I moved myself to the back of the class and never did homework for him. Always tried to get the work done during the school day, however much was assigned. If I didn't get some done, too bad, it didn't get done. Studied and did great on tests, which helped average out my grades enough to pass. Then I got him again for Grade Six, so that sucked.
What I DIDN'T do was become a better student, because fuck him. I didn't respect him, and he didn't deserve it. I also didn't tell any other students or teachers, or my increasingly frustrated parents, because I was raised to handle stuff by myself. A terrible, self-sabotaging decision, but whaddya want? I was ten.
You can probably see where I'm going with this.
Late in January of 2024, Tocchet gave a rare public rebuke for Pettersson's play. It was deserved for the game, an overtime loss to St. Louis, where he was held pointless. But Tocchet also said he hadn't liked Pettersson's play "for the last three or four games." "We gotta get him going," and "we'll get him going" sound slightly ominous in retrospect. In the next game, the last in January, he scored two goals and three points. After that, well, it changed.
For that one month, Pettersson scored 14 goals and 21 points in 13 games. For the rest of the year, he scored seven goals and 25 points in 33 games. He pulled a few three-point games, but a lot more zero-point ones were showing up. That the best stretch of games he's played since that January was the fifteen points in ten games when Miller took a personal leave in 2024-25 doesn't seem like a coincidence.
Speaking of which, that 2024-25 season was a disastrous, turmoil-filled year for a team that somehow held on to respectability, finishing out of the playoffs with 90 points. But it was pretty clear they were going nowhere fast.
For 2025-26, Tocchet declined a return. Management took a couple high-risk swings at Filip Chytil and Evander Kane. They hoped some stability would emerge by keeping Adam Foote behind the bench. The injury gods were not kind, resulting in Linus Karlsson being the team's second-highest scoring centre. Great for him, but not so great for the team. Hughes was traded, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Petersson's form was slowly returning. In his first 28 games of the year, he scored a reasonably solid eight goals and 22 points. Then, not only was he injured, but his wife of six months suffered a miscarriage. After that terrible personal loss, a team reduced to one and a half centres, and a comically condensed schedule, this season hasn't been the best gauge of his abilities. He managed just 12 points in his first 21 games back after the Christmas break, then another 12 in the 16 after the Olympic break, then just five points in April's nine games to finish the year.
Here's the crux: if you want to trade Elias Pettersson the Forward, then this is possibly the worst possible year to do so.
His offensive numbers are rock-bottom; he's got another six years to go and a No Move Clause for all of it; and he's getting paid less money this season than he did the last or will the next. With the team expecting to lose some casual fans during the rebuild, paying $3.5 million less for one player sounds great!
There is simply no way to recoup the level of talent he has in a trade because no one knows if he can get back to that level again. You're not trading a 100-point player; you're trading a former 100-point player. And in this, of all years, there certainly isn't a free agent worth pursuing to fill the gap.
Can Pettersson come back to what he was? My opinion hasn't changed since last season's preview: I think at his best, he'll be close to a point-per-game, very good defensive centre. But before he gets to being his best, there's a very important question to ask: Does he respect who he's playing for?
*Of the players who played more than 45 games? Linus Karlsson's. That's it.
Of the many, many pressing demands on general manager Ryan Johnson's time, one stands out: what to do with all these veterans.
The Plan, as we all know, was to play well enough that the best defenceman in team history would stick around. Keep his friends here, hire the coach he liked, take wild swings at improbable targets. Ends up that wasn't the best possible tactic for sustainable improvement. Who knew?
He's long gone, of course. But what's left behind are some awkward contracts, both in length and offered trade protection. The push is clearly to continue collecting young talent, either as players or draft picks, and use that to build a contender. Those players are going to need time, on the ice and just chronologically, for this to happen.
That means folks have got to go.
An optimistic timeline for a full rebuild of the sort Vancouver needs can be broken into chunks. Both Johnson and new coach Manny Malhotra have signed three-year deals, and that's a decent length for a first chapter.
What's the goal for that time frame? It's not challenging for a Stanley Cup, obviously. So what fits in there? At least three years of high draft picks - and corresponding pain on the ice - is a minimum. The cap is rising substantially for the first time in years, so teams won't feel that crunch of talent getting more expensive and forcing their hands. Bad deals become relatively more affordable and excuses to keep players get easier.
In the next three years, the Canucks should be trying to get good prices on their veterans, ice time for their kids, and instilling pride of the work put in - even if results aren't there just yet. Ideally, the kids will take this time to develop enough that they replace the current veterans.
The trick is wanting Zeev Buium to grow into a number one defenceman and Marco Rossi to have a healthy, productive season while not contributing so much it ruins the draft slot. They want to work hard at getting a bottom-five finish. Signing the right veterans to do that with is a juggling act.
Getting paid to take bad contracts is a bit trickier now. For all the talk of taking Brendan Gallagher from the Montreal Canadiens, there may actually be some demand for his services. He's well respected around the league, but in a practical sense, he's the sort of player who is a luxury. A $6.5 million cap hit for a bottom-six, 30-ish point player is a lot, however hard he works.
If Vancouver did get him, or a player like him, the objective would be for a contender to pick him up for a playoff run, where that luxury can get full value. Then again, the complete lack of interest in Teddy Blueger at last season's deadline shows that the tactic doesn't always work. So that sort of veteran player needs to provide something else.
The best part of a veteran like Gallagher or Blueger is to provide a benchmark. Any young player coming up can be shown the veteran in practice and get told: "Want to play? Outwork him." And almost any veteran can briefly play up the lineup if needed, with little pressure to score. That versatility can be very useful when one of the young guys needs to take a step back, but should still be on the ice.
It's an important lesson. To have veterans is to maintain an even keel in a losing season. Young teams can run hot or cold, and having voices around that have been there before can temper the expectations. No losing streak lasts forever; it just feels like it. Encouragement from the coaching staff is good then, but so is it coming from the teammate who's got ten+ years in the league.
Right now, it's a two-way street. No player wants to move, even if they want a better situation. Can't blame them, really: moving's a pain. Five of Vancouver's most expensive skaters and both goalies have full no-move clauses right now. That puts a lot of the power in their hands, should the team want to deal them. And Drew O'Connor has a modified no-trade clause.
However, both Conor Garland and Tyler Myers have trade protection, and they weren't impossible to move. And all of these deals were signed under very different circumstances (see Win For Quinn, above). They might not be hard to convince that the grass is greener on the other side of the mountains.
The most obvious name is Jake DeBrusk. His cap hit is a perfectly reasonable number for a 25-goal scorer you pull your hair out over. We know he wants to stay in the West, but he also doesn't want to be part of a rebuilding team. Utah wants to reach the playoffs ASAP, maybe a deal can be reached involving RFA centre Barrett Hayton. He had a solid season in 2024-25, but regressed last year. Maybe the team can be convinced to finally cut bait on him. He's 26 years old, so not exactly the young guy the Canucks want, but getting some centre depth behind perpetually-injured Filip Chyil wouldn't hurt.
Beyond that, Vancouver needs to make some decisions. Filip Hronek is the best way the team can get the classic 3-P return: a first-round draft pick, a current player, and a good prospect. But Hronek also has value as a mentor, and that carries weight. He's expressly said he doesn't want to go anywhere, which is great. But it's a double-edged blade: he's an excellent player in a high-value position, so any return will be very good. But the Canucks defence is going to be so dang young around him that his voice can be a huge difference for them as they mature. He will also likely be worth just as much a year from now or the 2028 trade deadline - unless he gets injured. What does management consider the riskiest move?
Whether the team wants to move Hronek immediately or not, they could certainly ask Marcus Pettersson the DeBrusk question: Is this what you signed on for? Another five years at $5.5 million is a steep price for a rebuilding team, but maybe not one that's a playoff regular looking for more.
Drew O'Connor had a phenomenal year, and Linus Karlsson finally broke into the league in a big way, but those two players' values might never be higher. They may bring in disproportionately large returns right now for teams that are looking to get some skill in the bottom ranks. And as much as I like Nils Höglander, if another team makes an offer, well...
I'm mentioning the price with each of these players because the Canucks ownership needs to be convinced to hold the line when things get a bit sparse. Interest IS going to go down with a losing team, future potential or no. Convincing them that the former cap masters can cruise very comfortably below that level can help gird their loins after two years of declining jersey sales. This doesn't mean they should yard sale the place, but picking and choosing who stays and who goes is a big deal.
Saving money on a higher cap hit than cash pay - like with Gallagher - can still appeal. It's better if they have some talent and want to be here, but beggars and choosers and all. Vancouver currently sits nearly $22 million below the salary cap with 21 players signed, about $5 million above the floor. The team has room to maneuver, if they wish. They'll probably have to carry three goaltenders, for all practical purposes, until Thatcher Demko shows he can play a year uninjured.
Bringing in a couple of guys of the type who can probably move at the deadline is the best choice, but they also need to make sure they have enough room for their kids to earn their place. And if the veterans get bumped, will that depress their value for future trades? It's a fine line, but also a selling point to potential free agents come mid-July. Come to Vancouver! Get a chance to play for a contract with someone else!
Fans of the team, rather than the players, should like what they see next year, even if it isn't often wins. Who knows? The prices may even come down enough to see the young guys live before they threaten glory.
Well, the inevitable happened: the Vancouver Canucks made a major announcement at an awkward time for media and fans. A bit surprising it wasn't another "Friday night after five" call, but the middle of Monday is bad enough. Don't tell me that's when you're at YOUR best, bucko.
The 2011 Reunion Tour continued apace, with the expected hiring of Manny Malhotra to work the Canucks bench. This comes a year after he was one of two finalists to take over for Rick Tocchet, losing the job to Adam Foote. That they've come back to Malhotra now tells you how well that went.
Malhotra joins Canucks alumni GM Ryan Johnson, Presidents of Hockey Operations Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin, and player development coach Mikael Samuelsson. Former Canucks defenceman Alexander Edler has been asked to join the team in player development at this year's training camp, so will likely be working with/for Samuelsson.
For an added kick, the team needs a new coaching staff for Abbotsford with Malhotra's promotion. Alexandre Burrows just happens to be quite well thought of as a future head coach. He worked the bench as an assistant with Laval and Montreal, recently moving into player development. Know a team that might be interested in player development? And in former 2011 Canucks Alums?
At a glance, it looks like a mediocre Happy Gilmore-produced Netflix special, where Adam Sandler has hires his buddies to vacation somewhere and they'll work out the plot as they go. Fortunately, the new management has more than a paycheque as motivation. They also have anger.
While Malhotra didn't leave the team on good terms, he came back because he wanted to. His eye injury left the Canucks with a hard decision to make, and then-GM Mike Gillis put him on injured reserve a month into his final contract year in 2012-13. Malhotra continued his playing career through sheer force of will before finally retiring in 2016. The Canucks hired him as a development coach almost immediately upon his announcement.
He's worked his way up the coaching ranks since then, being an assistant coach with Vancouver and Toronto before succeeding Jeremy Colliton as head coach in Abbotsford. We all know what happened then, winning the Calder Cup in his first year coaching the AHL team. And now, here he is as the big club's bench boss.
So when we say the new management is angry, we don't mean at the team itself. For the past decade, Johnson, Malhotra, and the Sedins have watched their former team fail, repeatedly and spectacularly. They've stumbled from panic to crisis to tire fire, with apparently little care for what made the team worth cheering for. PR disasters, personnel disasters, and management disasters bounced off each other like diseases in a hot tub.
They weren't pleased with what they saw. It was, frankly, embarrassing. And they decided to do something about it. The Sedins volunteered to return to the club in a typically low-key way. And now that they're in charge, they're bringing in others who not only remember the team they played for, but want to get that feeling back.
There is no one here who will brook fools lightly. Malhotra dragged his career back because he wasn't finished with it yet. Johnson played through 15 pro seasons and a ludicrous number of injuries, and despite peaking at 21 points in a full season, he kept finding work for a reason. And as for the Sedins, well, anyone who wants to pretend they were ever "soft" can keep thinking that right up until they break the 1300 NHL game mark.
So here's the thing: the team they're managing isn't looking to make the playoffs next year. That, paradoxically enough, means they don't need to tolerate someone who is disruptive, however they choose to interpret it.
Highest scorer on the team? Big deal! You didn't hurry back to the bench, so you're missing a couple shifts. Being a dick to teammates? Take the next game off, you won't be missed. Don't want to be part of the community service the team does? Maybe this isn't the place for you.
But they can also be more patient with players who are working hard, but don't have the experience to go with it yet. A defender who's missed his check might get a reminder, but shouldn't miss a shift if it's not a regular thing. A kid taking a bad penalty because he got emotional, well, it sucks, but that happens.
There's a saying that the NHL isn't a development league, and that's mostly true. Players shouldn't be in it without a basic toolkit they can fill elsewhere. But the Canucks are also starting from the bottom up. They can afford to be patient with young guys learning the league, especially when the entire team is pretty dang young.
Malhotra has coached a team that was frequently stripped for parts last year. A constant influx of new players rotating in only to have them bumped out of place by returning vets is a juggling act. Trying to find a place for prospects while encouraging veterans just added to the puzzle. One message he and Johnson gave their players was this: our job is to get you out of here.
That goal going to be different now, with longer-term players and no help coming from the parent club. You won't find guys who are "too good for the league" joining the team for a injury rehab. This is as good as it gets.
But the method is the same: it's guessing who has another gear and how to find it. Using the parts provided in the place they're most appropriate. Convincing someone who's always played one way that they'll last longer playing another. It's going to take patience, honesty, and clarity of vision at every level, from White Collars and Blue ones alike.
So, sure, the NHL isn't a development league. But for the next couple seasons, the Canucks - and Manny - are probably best served by pretending it is.
It’s only been two weeks since the Sedin twins and Ryan Johnson took the helm of the Canucks, and something’s changed - you just haven't heard about it, which is the point.
Ponder this: was anyone surprised at the announcement where Francesco Aquilini installed Henrik and Daniel as co-presidents and Johnson as GM? Heck no. The first gurglings of that move came a week and a half earlier, with professional hockey rumourmonger Eliotte Friedman being one of the first to state what eventually became fact.
For years, the Canucks have leaked what should be guarded secrets and internal-only communications at a colander-porous rate. Everybody and their pooch knew about the feud between Elias Pettersson (the forward who falls down a lot) and ever-toxic J. T. Miller, despite how many denials there were. The first media whisperings of the breakdown came to the forefront four-plus months, if not more, before Miller was shuffled out of town. Remember the utterly contemptuous mistreatment of Bruce Boudreau? The media reports suggesting the Canucks were talking to Rick Tocchet surfaced weeks before management finally made the switch. The whole thing stunk like a Granville Street back alley in mid-summer, and reflected poorly (but accurately) on the franchise.
In my former career as a media geek, I had sources and contacts. Good journalists foster those contacts. I basically got my start in the media business because hockey officials I knew well told me they were going to withdraw from games in protest over the fact nothing had been done after parents at an Atom hockey game locked a teenage referee in a dressing room. They didn't tell anyone else, so I published what became a national story before it actually happened. (Thirty-odd years later, not much has changed as far as official abuse goes.) Some of my best work came after people within an organization told me something I wasn't otherwise going to know. In that, I recognize a fundamental reality about rumours that later turn out to be factual: the information almost always comes from within the organization.
The relationship between a source and a journalist is usually symbiotic: both source and journalist benefit from the information becoming public. An example might be a municipal councillor whose constituents have been clamouring for a derelict house to be torn down quietly saying, “you normally take Thursdays off, but maybe you want to work Thursday morning…. By the way, when you come into work, do you take Main Street? Maybe you should.” Said journalist now can capture images of the demolition, and conduct at-the-moment-interviews of delighted neighbours watching as the excavators do their thing, and when all that is done, doesn't it make sense to call the councillor for Ward 3 for a few quotes?
But there’s a massive difference between the councillor for Ward 3 tipping a journalist to show up for the demolition of a derelict eyesore and someone feeding media the news that Rick Tocchet is in line for Bruce Boudreau’s job. How did the bungled Boudreau firing benefit anyone in the organization? If anything, that mess should have warned us the Jim Rutherford/Patrick Allvin duo were not going to be good for the franchise.
It’s important to strike a contrast between leaks. For example, trade rumours that eventually turn out to be true can, in some cases, have a benefit to the team doing the leaking. Consider the night Tyler Myers showed up for pre-game skate but didn’t play. It didn’t take long for news to hit the circuit that Myers might be traded, as turned out to be the fact. It was in some ways beneficial for either Myers, his agent, or the Canucks to have that accidentally-but-not information become public. Maybe it helped Myers find a more desired destination. Maybe the Canucks found a better trade deal.
Other leaks are more difficult to evaluate. It is known now the Vegas Golden Knights refused to give the Edmonton Oilers permission to speak to former Knights coach Bruce Cassidy. Nobody is going to believe that Edmonton was the source of the leak: it had to have been Vegas. But what did Vegas gain from it? Simple: they sowed chaos in Edmonton, forcing a rival hockey team in the same division to fire Kris Knoblauch, assume the remainder of a lengthy contract, and all the while look utterly stupid and unprofessional. There is a cost-benefit calculus here, because there is a risk that other teams will now consider Vegas to be untrustworthy, incapable of the kind of suitable secrecy that should take place when teams are engaged in discussions with each other. (Hold onto that thought, says the retired journalist, who will return to this point shortly.)
So not all leaks are bad: it depends on who benefits, and how. But if there’s no benefit …. there should be no leak. And that lands us splat-dab back at the Canucks.
With all of the above laid out, I can’t figure out any advantage or benefit gained to most of the leaks that have sprung from the Canucks the last five-odd years. Oh, sure, the “insiders” received lots of content, but tell me how the Vancouver Canucks as an organization benefited from having the sports media know that Miller and Pettersson were squabbling like two kids in elementary school?
I really respect Kevin Woodley as a media figure. The former webmaster for the Peninsula Panthers of the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League and frequent talk-show guest has said for a long time there are problems with the Canucks culture, and in so doing showed more courage than most. He has more recently stated the fire-hose of unfettered rumours and garbage coming from the team was a key part of the degrading culture. It was likely a key factor in the team being so poorly graded by NHL agents (as per an anonymous poll published by the Athletic last month.)
Asked to address this topic on one of the talk shows recently, Woodley used a phrase on one of the talk shows that struck me as insightful: “the call is coming from inside the house.” Does it not seem the rumour river stopped the moment former president Jim Rutherford was no longer part of the team?
In that Athletic story, agents said the Vancouver Canucks were a difficult management to deal with, and that communications were problematic. It's easy to see why, and it goes beyond the "do I speak to Allvin or Rutherford, because we all know who is in charge" conundrum of the previous regime. Ponder this – if you’re the general manager of another team interested in trading a key player, will you start conversations with Detroit, which is known as a black hole for communications because they’re essentially so damn tight that not a whisper squeaks through, or risk a discussion with Vancouver knowing that doing so will result in your player learning he's on the trade block from a sports pundit who was given an inside secret and is now blathering said secret to the masses? I can't help but think the piss-poor information control exhibited by Vancouver has been a key part of the difficulties in trading for meaningful assets or securing free agents. It is certain that players and agents are well aware Vancouver has for a long time been a broken organization with a constant churning river of rumours and toxic sludge.
You can’t be respected unless you act like you should be, and the Canucks have not acted like they want to be respected. I’ll relate it to my current job as a building official: if I show up unannounced on a construction site and see everyone in safety gear, with floors swept, plans readily available in a defined location, and a site supervisor who can answer all my questions, I’m likely going to have far more confidence than if I arrive for a scheduled inspection to find the place in total shambles, with nobody in charge, and the drywall crew hotboxing the plans room.
I'll let the dear reader (if there are any) figure out which of the above two situations the Canucks most resembled the last five years, and I suspect the answer carries a certain Pepe Le Pew odour.
Five days after the change in leadership, the new trio in charge of the Vancouver Canucks surprised the hockey world by axing woefully incompetent coach Adam Foote, as well as all of the support staff (except for, interestingly, goaltender coach Marko Torenius). It's not that announcement was unexpected in and of itself, the collective hockey media just had no clue it would happen when it did. This is one of those instances where a subtle shift in the English language carries a world of meaning.
The difference here is not the negation, but the preposition. As a consumer of way too many hockey podcasts while I drive from construction site to construction site on the taxpayer dime, I can assure you the hockey pundits were caught off guard by the announcement Foote had been relieved of duties. Not a one had a clue.
Likewise, there hasn’t been a single whisper – not one – about the search for a replacement coach. Sure, everybody and their pooch is speculating that Manny Malhotra will be promoted from the baby ‘nucks to the big club. But even the professional rumourmongers are speculating. In absence of any real intelligence, the poor sports jocks at Sportsnet 650 are left regurgitating the concerns they don't know what's going on. The angst is palpable. (Are there interviews? Are they negotiating? Why haven't they scheduled a press conference? Who will the assistants be? Will they wait for the draft to ensure there aren't two Malhotras on the team? Next up, a special segment with special guest Don Taylor, who will spend 20 minutes telling us he has also heard nothing. Then we'll discuss if the nothing means something, and if so, what that something is.)
Well, wait a second here. Why should we know about the deliberations on the next hiring? Is it not better – for the franchise, not the sports jocks – if we don’t know a damn thing?
The Sedins and Johnson will ultimately be judged on a far greater body of work, but as the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Two weeks into their new gig, the Sedin/Johnson triumvirate seem to have stopped leaks that crippled this organization’s reputation. It almost makes me believe the new management might be running the hockey team in a manner one would expect of a professionally run, multimillion-dollar business.
Vern Faulkner is a former journalist, photographer and editor, whose works appeared eons ago in various things the oldsters call "newspapers" and "magazines." (He also assumed responsibility for the Peninsula Panthers website after Woodley got a gig with Associated Press.) While he now resides in New Brunswick, Faulkner retains sufficient connections to the Wet Coast to correctly use the term "hotbox" in context, while intentionally mis-spelling West Coast in a tagline for humour.
The Vancouver Canucks didn't win first overall, as you may have heard. They didn't even finish second, with two teams taking their place on the board ahead of them. But what they have is still very, very interesting. We have a month to go, and a lot of screen space to fill between now and then. Fortunately, this is the Canucks we're talking about. We never know when this team will set its own hair on fire.
Here's our best guess at what they're thinking, and how they should be thinking, about this year's draft class.
Marshmallows at the ready.
The talk around this season's draft has been how weak it is. Gavin McKenna has been a runaway favourite for the past five years, but otherwise, 2026 lacked star power. No one's projected to be a regular 40-goal scorer or an All-Star defender. Goaltending is pretty much its own category, teams knowing they should draft one without knowing when. As the saying goes, Once Bitten, Once More Bitten.
If there's a single maxim that teams, scouts, and fans repeat to themselves and each other, it's this: Best Player Available. Nothing else matters. If the best player available happens to be in the position your team is strongest, well, that's irritating, but not fatal. Even teams built through the draft usually have just a handful of their own picks on them. The rest have been acquired through free agent signings or trades, and you can only make trades if you have something worth trading.
But it's not a maxim that sticks through every round. By the time the picks reach triple digits, anyone making it is an extreme long shot anyhow. Why not take three left-side defencemen, just to see who gets through? Look for the kids with a single NHL-possible trait, and see if the rest comes along with time and training.
The risk in a modest draft year is that some positions suddenly look better than they are. Rarity brings value, earned or not. You can probably see where we're going with this.
Caleb Malhotra looks like a solid, NHL-bound player. Every report about his character is exemplary. The work he's put in has shown on the ice, and his draft position has skyrocketed this season. And if either Ivar Stenberg or Gavin McKenna is available, the Canucks shouldn't draft him.
I want to be absolutely clear on this: scouts love Malhotra, and he justifies the affection. If he does get drafted by Vancouver, there's going to be a lot of thinkpieces referencing Bo Horvat. Horvat is an excellent second-line centre and a low-end first-line one. Is that what you spend the third overall pick on? If a team is picking Malhotra because he is the best centre available - a debated argument - then you're picking for position, not best player available.
In a draft year very strong in centres, Horvat was the fifth one chosen. Picking a different position because you are chock-full of centres is how you get Seth Jones, Rasmus Ristolainen, or Darnell Nurse instead. Perfectly good defencemen, but I'd rather have the fifth-highest rated centre that year.
Similarly, Malhotra could very well be the best centre from 2026. And there could be a half-dozen defencemen you'd rather have instead.
Here's the thing: if the team is absolutely set on getting Malhotra, I won't cry too much about it. It looks like he's going to be a fine player, and I look forward to him being in the league. That goes double if he's in a Canucks jersey. But if they pass over Stenberg to draft him, we're going to have words.
Now, the odds are against that possibility, as it looks like there is a definite tier separating the two. But, as we've all seen, drafts don't always go as scripted. San Jose doesn't strictly need another forward, and maybe they're happy to drift back a little to take their chances while picking up some extra talent. But a team moving up to second overall isn't likely doing it for Malhotra. They should be going after Stenberg, leaving Vancouver in the same position if San Jose doesn't move.
Maybe whoever's in that second slot is convinced Chase Reid is their guy. Beautiful! Stenberg, it is, thanks for coming, we'll see you in another twenty picks or so. And if there's a team that is certain Reid (or whomever) is their One and Only, then pick up the phone. I'm perfectly happy to drop a half-dozen spots for a first-rounder next year, even if it's top-10 protected. There are a lot of defenders I like this year, and I'd be perfectly happy to get any of a half-dozen of them. If all of them happen to get taken, well, okay, I guess we'll have to make do with Malhotra after all. Plus the extra draft capital in 2027.
Yes, I like Liam Ruck and his twin, Markus Ruck. They're a fine story, and twins obviously have resonance in Vancouver. I also think 24th is probably too high to draft either of them, especially with nine spots to go between picks. Unless someone pulls off the Brian Burke back-to-back picks, can you imagine how many teams are going to call after the first brother goes?
Yes, any other team that drafts Markus will be the Villain of the Day, and the media will talk of little else but potential trades for the rest of their careers. But why would you expect them not to draft someone on their board? Kindness? It hurts to say, but if any team manages to pull off getting them together, it'll be Calgary. They have two first-round picks and four in the second, so if they really want to move up, they have the ammo to do so.
Awesome though it would be to start the Sedin's presidential tenure by drafting twins, they can't afford to spend future assets to do so. Unless they're really, REALLY sure about them being NHL players. Then yeah, give us the storyline, baby!
What would we get if I got what I wanted? The absolutely perfect first two rounds? I mean, the scenarios listed would be pretty great, but you can't simply assume teams will be fools. I'd love to see either of the top two fall into Vancouver's lap, but that's probably not going to happen.
I'd like to drop down and pick up a 2027 pick and, say, Keaton Verhoff. Then, there has been a fair bit of movement - usually with players coming up with little mention of those falling. In my dream world, Ryan Lin continues to move down the boards (sorry, Ryan!) until the Canucks can take him. If not, there is a small pile of centres around 24th that are worth consideration - Alexander Command, Maddox Dagenais, Yegor Shilov. It gets a bit blurry quickly this year.
Past that? Getting the Ruck twins would be hilarious. But if not, I'm all for getting defenceman Ben Macbeath with the 41st pick. Sure, he has talent, but the real reason is that I'm a total theatre nerd and I'm trying to picture the broadcasters not saying his name in the arena.
