VANCOUVER – Just 368 days after declaring that the Vancouver Canucks needed major surgery, with the team smoldering, the brand darkened and the franchise at its nadir this century, president Jim Rutherford signed Friday a three-year contract extension.
The fact the 74-year-old wholly earned it is indicative of just how remarkable the last 12 months have been.
The Canucks have been reborn, their brand burnished and their market re-energized. When Rutherford and owner Francesco Aquilini spoke to the media at Rogers Arena Friday morning, the most exciting talk was about the future. The immediate future.
“Today, we sit here first overall in the league, and we have five players and our coach going to the All-Star Game,” Aquilini marvelled. “There’s still a lot of hockey to be played, but it’s fun to be a Vancouver Canuck fan and it’s fun to be a Vancouver Canuck player again.”
Rutherford’s bleak “major surgery” press conference occurred last Jan. 16. Six days later, he replaced coach Bruce Boudreau with Rick Tocchet. And in 81 games since then, the Canucks are 50-23-8, including 30-11-4 this season. Tocchet’s .667 winning percentage equates to a 109-point season.
Game 82 of his regime is Saturday when the Canucks ride a 6-0-1 points streak into their Hockey Night in Canada contest against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
No wonder Aquilini sounded in awe as he retained Rutherford to oversee general manager Patrik Allvin and the hockey-operations department through the 2026-27 season.
Optimism surrounding the Canucks is reminiscent of the great teams that were led by Henrik and Daniel Sedin and won consecutive Presidents’ Trophies in 2011 and 2012. Importantly, the ambition is the same, too.
Rutherford didn’t quite tear off his shirt, leap atop the press conference desk, look directly at Canucks Nation through the cameras and scream “Let’s go!” on Friday.
But the three-time Stanley Cup-winner’s measured words made it clear that the Canucks, far ahead in their evolutionary curve under Tocchet and Allvin than anyone expected, will not be complacent about the opportunity to actually challenge for a National Hockey League title this spring.
“You can make the right changes and it can still not work, so there’s a risk in it,” Rutherford told reporters about being aggressive ahead of the March 8 trade deadline. “But there’s also a risk in not trying to improve the team when you get to a certain level. And I’ve seen that with teams, where I say, ‘Wow, that team’s pretty good,’ and then they don’t do anything. So that’s what we talk about.
“We’ve been talking about that for a month now within our hockey operations, trying to decide what we want to do. But Patrik has said this, and this is what we say in meetings: this group of players and coaches deserve the best opportunity they can to compete going forward. And that’s what we talk about every day.”
Allvin told Sportsnet in a one-on-one interview last week: “Well, I think I owe it to the players. The players dictate how good we are and how they’re buying into the way we want to play. We know that they are capable of playing at this high level. And if they continue to do that, then it’s on me to make sure I support them and give them opportunities to be successful.”
So, the Canucks are going for it. Not in three years, not next season, now.
The acquisition in November of Nikita Zadorov, who further bolstered a defence that Allvin has almost completely rebuilt, will not be the last big move the Canucks make this season.
Management’s aggressiveness isn’t new. After Rutherford convinced Aquilini in June to spend $19 million to buy out defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s onerous contract, Allvin signed free agents Carson Soucy and Ian Cole for the blue line, and Teddy Blueger and Pius Suter to provide centre-ice depth and versatility.
Backup goalie Casey DeSmith was acquired from Montreal on the eve of training camp, Sam Lafferty from Toronto on the eve of the regular season.
All of these players have helped push the Canucks up the standings. But none of the construction has been as important as the work by Tocchet and his staff in building systems and accountability that the pre-regime core of Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, Quinn Hughes and Thatcher Demko have embraced.
Before the season, Tocchet challenged them: “You’re tired of losing, but what are you doing about it?”
The answer: everything.
Rutherford agreed Tocchet has played “a huge part” in the Canucks’ revival.
“We didn’t have a team,” Rutherford said of what he inherited 26 months ago after Aquilini came to the Hall-of-Famer’s home in North Carolina and talked him out of retirement. “We had a lot of good players, but we didn’t have a team. But now we have a team.”
Of signing a contract extension that was always expected, he said: “What else am I going to do? It’s the first thing I think about and I’m being serious; at this point in my life, you know, what do you do with your life? But it’s the challenge, and I’ve been driven by a challenge. This is my 42nd year in the National Hockey League. And I have had lots of challenges as a player and lots of challenges as a manager.
“Francesco, he didn’t put any sugar on what he told me the challenges were going to be here when he was asking me to come to Vancouver. And all those challenges that he told me were here, and they’re still here. And even as the team gets better, and even if the team can have success over a few years, you’re always going to have challenges. And that’s really what my life’s been all about. I’ve dealt with challenges over and over. And that’s really what drives me.”
“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Aquilini said. “As owners, you want to be the owner that brings the Cup to the city. That’s really every owner’s ultimate dream. That pursuit of the Stanley Cup, that’s what it’s all about. My job is to support Jim, whatever he needs. But it’s exciting. I mean, you can see it with the fans in the building. The players are excited. And, you know, this could be the year. Who knows?”
• It is clear how the Canucks might create cap space to make further upgrades before the trade deadline. Winger Andrei Kuzmenko, who earned his $5.5-million salary by scoring 39 goals for the Canucks last season, was benched by Tocchet in the third period of Thursday’s 2-1 win against the Arizona Coyotes. Stuck on eight goals for the season and pointless in nine games, Kuzmenko has been a healthy scratch five times.
“Toc has worked with him and other parts of the coaching staff has worked with him,” Rutherford said. “He’s lost his confidence. He’s a good player, and he can score. And there’s no doubt in my mind, whether it’s in Vancouver or another NHL city, he will score. But it’s tough.”
Or another NHL city.
