Canucks ownership ‘still weighing all their options’: report

Could Jim Rutherford’s time as President of Hockey Operations for the Vancouver Canucks soon be over? How about Patrik Allvin as GM? Adam Foote as head coach? All options are on the table, it would seem.

As the Canucks’ disappointing regular season comes to a close, the team is shifting into offseason mode. And this summer will likely be a turbulent one, with major decisions to be made about the organization’s future.

First up will be deciding who stays and who goes, and right now it looks like no one is necessarily safe. On Wednesday’s edition of Canucks Central, Sportsnet’s Satiar Shah concurred with reporting from Nick Kypreos this week, that no one in Vancouver’s front office quite knows what their future holds.

“The assumption has been that Rutherford’s going to be back, but I think (Nick) Kypreos nailed it, that nobody’s been assured anything yet,” Shah said. “The longer it takes for that assurance to be given, the possibility of everything changing remains on the table. The idea of everything happening in terms of cleaning house top to bottom, I think that possibility exists. And maybe that possibility is stronger than we may have assumed a few days ago.”

It was previously believed that Rutherford would be safe from this offseason’s exodus, but that’s looking less certain by the day. Given how far the team has fallen over the past two seasons, it’s not unreasonable to think he could end up taking some of the heat.

“I’m sure with how things have gone for Rutherford, there has been some confidence lost if you’re ownership,” Shah said. “There would have to be, right? It doesn’t matter if you still believe in the person or not. If you had to guess, would you assume that ownership would have the same level of confidence in everything Rutherford does today, as they would two years ago?”

Rutherford was originally named President of Hockey Operations and interim General Manager in December 2021. A month later, Patrik Allvin was named the team’s new GM. In January 2024, both signed multi-year contract extensions with the team.

Over the past few weeks, there have been conflicting reports about the future of the Canucks’ brass. In late March, Kypreos reported that Allvin “doesn’t expect to survive past this year.” Days later, TSN’s Darren Dreger reported that Vancouver wasn’t planning any changes at the GM position. Given the wide range of speculation, it’s starting to feel like the only certainty is that nothing is decided for sure.