Has Canucks’ ownership scared off potential GM candidates?

The Vancouver Canucks are searching for a new general manager after Patrik Allvin was fired earlier this month.

Some are wondering if assistant GM Ryan Johnson will take over, or if there’s other names we haven’t even considered, but there’s some fretting over Canucks’ owner and chairman Francesco Aquilini and whether he would interfere in the day-to-day hockey operations for whomever takes the job.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton are joined by The Fourth Period’s editor-in-chief David Pagnotta to discuss the Canucks’ search for a new general manager and whether Vancouver’s ownership and its management structure is enough to turn off potential GM candidates.

Tyler Yaremchuk: One viewer is wondering why anyone would take the Canucks’ job if they’re just going to be a puppet for Jim Rutherford. The other thing I saw pop up is that more veteran or “sought after” GM candidates have heard the horror stories of ownership in Vancouver.

Do you buy into the idea that maybe more veteran candidates would say “you know what? I’m not touching that situation in Vancouver, I’ll wait for another job to pop up”? Or is it one of those things where everyone says that, but there’s only 32 GM jobs in the NHL, so it’s not like there’s that many guys who can be picky about where they work.

David Pagnotta: Exactly. There’s 32 National Hockey League GM jobs, and that’s it. So if you want one, you gotta suck it up in some circumstances. Now I think with the Aquilini family, and Francesco is at the head of it, I think a lot of those rumors are blown out of proportion. Let’s put it that way.

Now, does he have a big say in how this team is operated? Absolutely, he’s the owner. He gets as much say as he wants. But in terms of running the hockey operations department, he’s not coming in and telling management to trade Elias Pettersson or that he needs to get this guy and move that guy out.

Yes, he’s overseeing everything, but he’s allowing Jim Rutherford to handle things on the hockey ops side. We can all come to our own conclusions when it comes to how we feel Rutherford has run things, but he’s the head of hockey ops. Whoever comes in is going to want to come in with the title as GM with the understanding that you will eventually have to report to the owner.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…