Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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He is brought to you by the Metro Ford. He is Yannick Hanson. Yannick, thanks for doing this today as always. How are you? Yeah, my pleasure. I'm good. How are you? We're doing well. And so, you know, obviously the Canucks are looking for a new general manager and we're still kind of reacting to everything we heard when the players spoke at the end of the year on Friday.
And, you know, one of the big themes was and we heard this from the veterans. We heard this from the young players was how much better they thought the atmosphere and the vibes were around the team after the trade deadline. And there were a lot of reasons for that. But that was a pretty consistent theme. And it's easy to look at that and say, you know, well, it's the end of a lost year.
That's probably not going to mean anything going forward. How does the team try to make sure that it does mean something? Try to make sure that it continues going into next season.
Well, you continue, you have those vibes, whatever it was. But again, it's one of those things. There's so much uncertainty coming into a deadline because of where the team is sitting. So everybody is like sitting on pins and waiting for what's happening. And who's my teammates? Where am I going to wake up a week from now? As soon as you get past that, you can kind of relax a little bit.
Yeah, okay, it's not going to be great and we're not making the playoff this year, but at least I know where I am and who my teammates are. So that's where it settles down after that. Now you can talk to about them playing better or more cohesive or whatever it is people start producing at a better rate. And hopefully that continues.
But we've seen that before where teams down the stretch start playing better and then players are producing. Come back game one through six the next year and you're right back to where you were. So again, it comes back to Prove that things have changed because words are easy.
Yeah, and one of the other things I thought was really striking, Yannick, was, you know, we always talk about, okay, they need the veterans to teach these young guys how to do it and to bring these young guys along. And I think that's totally fair to a degree. But we also heard from the vets talking about how... how much energy they got from the young players, right?
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Chapter 2: What insights does Jannik Hansen provide about the Canucks' locker room dynamics?
It's the onus is on the players here. Great if they change that and all of a sudden they do that from game one and they do it throughout the end of the season next year. Then great, they learn something from it. But that's what I said, like words are easy. We need to see it on a consistent basis to kind of say, OK, you know what? They got it. They changed and now they're better for it.
One thing I also found interesting was, you know, when people were name checking, like the leadership that was shown after the deadline, Elias Pettersson's name was absent. Like even when Teddy Bluger sort of mentioned the guys I've been around with, like teammates with for a long time now, Pettersson's name was absent.
It just felt sort of odd to me how peripheral he felt to the story of the season that his teammates were telling Yannick.
Yeah, it's a tough one. And obviously, he's been at the center of a lot, not just because of his contract, but because he's also a catalyst or hopefully could have been a catalyst and wasn't kind of thing. Again, we don't know what goes on when they close the doors and then we aren't there. But obviously, things aren't great. And then there's been so much change and
things come around and then Quinn come back in town they go out for dinner who's missing and you can read into all these things as much as you want but obviously it was a dressing room that weren't they weren't together they weren't on the same page they weren't fighting for each other competing for each other it was Not individuals, but probably cliques.
And then it's very, very, very hard to get anything done in this league.
And on the topic of Elias Patterson, Yannick, because there's going to be another debate this summer, right? Should they trade him? Should they keep him and hope that his play rebounds? We heard from Jim Rutherford again. He needs to prepare differently in the summer and he needs to work harder in the summer. Is there risk? to building that new culture?
Does it pose a risk to keep Elias Pettersson if his play doesn't improve?
No, because you won't get that next year anyway. So you have a little bit of leeway here. You have a little bit of leeway. He's a couple of years off his contract. Hopefully he will become an asset in some way. Either his production comes back to where it's manageable, the cap rises, there aren't five years left of his deal. They're not a playoff team next year either.
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Chapter 3: How should the Canucks handle Elias Pettersson's situation?
I guess I could see that in the same sense of Ryan Johnson. I still think it's one. Yeah, fair enough.
At the very least, I think it's one to start.
I would have a hard time then seeing it be Ryan Bonus, and that's our hire, and Jim Rutherford retires, given the fact that he hasn't been a GM before and his lack of experience in the market.
If Jim Rutherford retires or is shuffled into a new gig, then I think we're having a different conversation, but I think the quick process to name a GM across the next two and a half, three weeks, I think that is one person. Right. But I think, like, I think this process is about identifying one person.
But for me, the candidates that make sense within that framework, it really depends on Jim Rutherford's immediate future. If Jim Rutherford, because you're right. I think you're right about the process right now is focused on the GM and just the GM.
But if Jim Rutherford's plan is then to retire or step aside meaningfully, like in a real way, after the draft, the person they hire has to be able to stand on their own two feet and immediately operate without a buffer between them and ownership. And that's where I have a hard time wrapping my head around even Rian Johnson or a candidate like Rian Bonas.
And that's where someone like Kevin Adams probably does make more sense. Whereas if it's, okay, we're going to hire a GM, and then Jim Rutherford's going to be here for another year, or we're going to go look for a VP type, as Sat has mentioned, or something like that, then I can picture someone like Ryan Johnson or Bonus making more sense.
But if it's just like, hey, come July 1st, you're going to be, Ryan Bonus is going to be the top hockey executive, and there's not going to be another layer above him, I think that's... That seems like a tall order, or a tough sell to ownership anyways.
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Chapter 4: What are the potential risks of keeping Elias Pettersson this summer?
Yeah. The... Yeah, so... Of the... By the way, so of the reheated candidates... Okay. Yeah. Right? Retreads is such a boring phrase, by the way. Reheated. The leftovers.
Yeah.
Well, that's so in Italian soccer and Italian football, they have a phrase that applies to retread managers, which is a cold bowl of soup that makes nobody that satisfies nobody. Like, I don't know the exact translation, but that's effectively what it is. I love soccer terms. Yeah. You know, like the other one that I love is in Chinese football.
If you sky one of those sitters that just gets skied a million miles over the goalpost, they call that a stir fry aeroplane. And I always think that that's great. We should use that in hockey. So, yeah, among the cold bowl of soup that satisfies nobody candidates. Gazpacho.
Gazpacho, for sure. Who do you think, hold on, before you make your point, who do you think is, like, the apex of that? It's got to be Peter Shirelli, right? Peter Shirelli. Is, like, the definition of, I think that might be, other than, like, rehiring Jim Benning, I think that would be the most negative reaction.
Sorry, I actually think I can one-up you on Peter Shirelli. Okay. Brad Treliving.
I'd rather have Brad Treliving than Peter Shirely. Easily. Not close.
Oh, it's really, you're really putting me in a, I think either way. Not good. I think I, Brad Treliving, the carnage of Brad Treliving's Toronto tenure is wild.
It's truly crazy.
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Chapter 5: What mindset should the next GM bring to the Canucks?
And it didn't quite take off. Did not work. It did not quite take off. Yeah. But the fundamentals of how that team was rebuilt was smart. Right?
What killed that team was... Well, the Dubois trade was one of the things.
And the twade. That was a bad twade that they made. Dubois. The Dubois twade.
Sound like Jason Breff over here.
Yeah, that was a real lisping deal. Yeah. The... Dubois trade killed, killed it for sure. Cause Velarde and on and on.
And then I guess you would say like never getting the apex guy at the draft.
That was also painful by field.
Who's like a good player, but never, but not a franchise player. And then didn't like Turcotte was like number three or something.
Turcotte was five, five. Yeah. That's still really hot. That's tough. And then Brent Clark's been really good, but Brent Clark went ahead of Gunther.
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Chapter 6: What role do drafting and development play in the Canucks' future?
And then they started to use that sick prospects system to bring in guys like Fiala and on and on. And it ultimately fell short because the process of sort of leveling up the cashing in those assets for the benefit of, you know, the team now kind of got murky, right? And I'd add there's like so much of this is also bad luck. Like the Sean Walker knee injury really hurt their blue line depth.
Brock Faber being unwilling to sign with them, right? Because people will look at the Fiala trade now and say, well, that was brutal. But no one says that about Adam Fox's In the Elias Lindholm trade in part because Calgary knew Adam Fox wasn't going to sign with them. And then Carolina knew that Adam Fox wasn't going to sign with them when they sent him to New York.
Like there was no reality in which the Kings had Brock Faber added to this core. That wasn't an option. They weren't selling a hundred percent of Brock Faber. They were selling Brock Faber signing rights. Yeah. You know, it's a very different value equation. But in terms of like he rebuilt and he built a team that is going to make the playoffs for the fifth consecutive year. Is it perfect? No.
Is it the Stanley Cup team you want? Absolutely not. But was it done in three years? Did he turn around like an aging core that was like sort of falling into that hit or miss to make the playoffs? Do it with extraordinary discipline. Get zero draft lottery or draft luck.
to speak of and still emerge despite all of those challenges with a pretty consistent playoff team that you know honestly with better coaching probably has a play a series win or two in there I think he did like I think he did and so I look at Rob Blake and I know a lot of people who've worked for that team he built an analytics department pretty aggressively pretty early Rob Volman being sort of one of the big hires and
I hear a lot of good things about his leadership, about his intelligence, about his style of communication and the process, like a big-picture process that he's overseen within the industry. And I don't know, like, I know that Bergevin had the one playoff run, but I see problems in Bergevin's record, you know?
I look at Adams's... What Adams built in Buffalo at the final assessment is good, but you don't want to go through that process, and it took him too long to get there. And in part, they were... permitted to assemble this talent because the team wasn't operating under a full resource environment.
And Adams seemed content to preside over that, which I, I, that concerns me like that's concerning Chiarelli true living. I mean, I think those are non-starters based off their record. Like if you want to talk about the former, the recent former general manager whose record I can at least defend, uh,
whose record wouldn't keep me up at night if he was announced as the next Canucks general manager. It's Rob Blake. Rob Blake's almost like a mini Gillis. It's like if he drafted better. The concern is the draft record. Okay, so Rob Blake with a promise that he's going to bring in different talent evaluators. To me, that's by far the best of the Gazpacho 5. Or is it 6? Because Adams is Gazpacho 5.
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Chapter 7: How do recent NHL playoff reactions reflect on the Canucks' situation?
With some of the names that are out there, I mean... Have you heard one? Let's put the negative spin on it first. Have you heard one that spooks you right off the hop? Yes. And it is?
I mean, you know what, like, yeah, like, there's a few, honestly. There are a few that, and, you know, I got to be careful here. You know what? Because I did this exercise when they hired Jim Rutherford, before they hired Jim Rutherford.
if you guys will recall when the rumors first came out and I was asked about it, I said, well, it's a good thing in Clark is in place because the one thing I would say about his tenure, even in Pittsburgh, if you look at the goaltending decisions and back to Carolina kind of messed up the goaltending everywhere he went.
And I think we've actually seen a little bit of that play out in the last year since he took over the goaltending decision. So I I'm going to be a little careful with what I say about some of the candidates, but for sure, I,
Like there are some guys there where I know other people in organizations that they have been in charge of and that have shared some of the behind the scenes decision-making processes. Obviously, again, it's because I'm involved in goaltending so deeply that that's usually what it's around.
Like, but there are names on this list that quite literally did not have a list on July 1st for a goaltender because they expected their guy to come back, lost their guy. in the opening minutes and panic called their goaltending people to come up with a list of who they should target as the number one goaltender after free agency had opened, did not build a contingency plan.
Like those are the kind of things that are a little scary. And those stories are out there around some of these people that are being mentioned for this job.
And on the other hand, on the other side of it, is there any names you've heard that you're like, Oh, Oh, I like that.
Oh, well, I mean, and this is where the reality is at least me. I have like, like, like Thomas, you're plugged in at a lot. Like you'll know Ventura and more about him than I will. I'm intrigued by what I read, but I don't know him.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the Canucks' playoff performance on their strategy?
The one that, the one that intrigued me the most, um, honestly, was Ryan Johnson.
Because I think when you're around what happened in Abbotsford, not that I was out there on the daily, but certainly was out there a lot more often in previous years, having relationships with previous goalie coaches and getting to spend time with them a little bit more and get to know them and see their process, visiting goalie coaches from other teams, that you end up being around people who are around him.
And the way he goes about his business, obviously the success he had is one part of it, but the way he goes about his business and how he's regarded by the people that ultimately work for him and around him. And even from other people in the league he was working in, like those were all things that made you think, well, this guy would be a really good choice. But again, that's,
Does that mean he's the best choice? I don't know, because I don't know all the other people, right? Like I'm, I'm not in as deep on all the other names, but Ryan Johnson is a name that if that's ultimately where they go, I feel very comfortable with it. The one caveat being, you know, it's one thing to say the new guys in control completely.
But then I think, I think even within that presser, right? Like, the new GM is going to be in control of hockey operations. And then two questions later, I would think that the new GM would get this guy and do this in free agency, do that in free agency, do this, like outline the plan. So anytime, you know, you sort of hear that you worry a little bit about how much autonomy there's going to be.
And again, a lot of that's going to depend on what decisions are made after this decision and ultimately after the draft.
Yeah, I think that question of exactly what the structure is going to look like, both in the near term, you know, kind of going into the draft and then maybe going into next season and beyond is a really interesting one, Kevin. And I'm just curious to get your thoughts, like big picture, not even just related to the Canucks. Do you have...
a preference on which type of structure NHL teams use in their front office? Because there's two ways you can go, basically, right? There's the president and then GM model, or there's just the GM or just the top executive model. We've seen both here in Vancouver. Do you have kind of a take on the strengths and weaknesses or which one you think makes the most sense?
I think that the one that makes the most sense depends on the people involved. I think it just depends on who you have in place, at what level. It's not so much about the structure as your process within it.
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