VANCOUVER – After exhausting all other options, the Vancouver Canucks finally did the right thing in hiring Ryan Johnson as their general manager and Henrik and Daniel Sedin as co-presidents of hockey operations.
We borrowed that paragraph from Winston Churchill, who purportedly said something similar about American foreign policy. But there is a relevance to it because the Canucks, in a sporting sense, are nation-building. Or re-building.
Canuck managing owner Francesco Aquilini and outgoing president Jim Rutherford interviewed 17 candidates to replace former general manager Patrik Allvin. And after the ownership family decided whom they wanted to run hockey ops, the iconic Sedin twins were presented with the two finalists: Johnson and Boston Bruins AGM Evan Gold.
It was Daniel and Henrik who then chose to hire Johnson, the Canucks assistant GM, who was the first candidate and, eventually, the final one.
What the three new leaders of the Canucks have in common, besides their background as players and manager/coaches with the National Hockey League team, is intelligence and irreproachable character and integrity.
And since they are taking over an organization at its nadir, a team that rotted from within with startling speed over the last two seasons, those characteristics are a pretty good place to start in undertaking the repairs.
The Canucks are in the embryonic stage of a rebuild, already with a few potential building blocks but obviously needing more. This is not in dispute by anyone, including the Sedins, Johnson and Aquilini.
What was clear from Thursday’s press conference at Rogers Arena to introduce the new regime is that the most important and immediate job for Johnson and the Sedins is to build a culture and dressing-room ecosystem that can anchor the framework for competitive improvement.
And here again, it would be difficult to find better people to lead that work since the dressing room culture started to erode as soon as the Sedins, who set Canuck standards for more than a decade as players, retired in 2018.
“Before we talk about wins and losses or getting to that point, the environment will be first and foremost,” Johnson told reporters. “The expectation of the players, I always talk about the professionalism of how they approach every day and having a plan. . . my biggest challenge to them every day is: What is the quality of teammate that you could be for each other today?
“I'm not worried about wins and losses. The environment is something that I will establish now, as I'm talking to players, not in September. They'll be very aware that when they walk into this facility in September that they've got to make a decision of who they want to be as a player, (and) who they want to be as a person and a teammate. We will establish that very, very quickly.”
Johnson, 49, was hired as a consultant by Mike Gillis, promoted in player development by Benning, then promoted again to assistant GM by Rutherford. Johnson managed and largely built the Abbotsford Canucks, who, 11 months ago, delivered the organization’s first American League championship.
Fans who are uneasy about Johnson's connection to "failed" regimes headed by Benning and Rutherford should remember that the turnover in hockey ops under both was widespread. And how did that turn out?
Johnson spent two seasons as a player in Vancouver and said upon his arrival in 2008 that he felt the influence and leadership of the Sedins as soon as he walked through the dressing room door.
All three of them would have been appalled at what became of the Canucks’ culture.
“Culture is huge,” Henrik said Thursday. “You cannot win without it; that's impossible. And you cannot be sustainable without it. For us, the culture piece is our main thing to fall back on over the next little bit here. And that's starting with us. We’ve got to come in every day, and we’ve got to show up and we’ve got to do the things that took us to this position. It’s the same as players — preparation, preparation. We're going to do everything it takes to do this job well.”
Clearly, the Canucks will be demanding more from their best and most experienced players. Leadership was reset after the trade deadline when veterans like Brock Boeser and Teddy Blueger, Filip Hronek and Marcus Pettersson, and Kevin Lankinen talked amongst themselves and agreed that the dressing room needed to be a more positive and supportive place for the team’s many young players.
But beyond the environment, it can’t be acceptable if Elias Pettersson or other veterans report to training camp with conditioning scores that can’t be posted inside the dressing room for younger teammates to see.
“Here's my initial thought on Elias,” Johnson said, “I want to wipe away all the expectations... not just our players, but our staff. We're asking them to come in September the most prepared that they could be, and for our players, that's going to be physically and mentally ready to make a decision. I'm looking forward to talking to him and just letting him know that that's what's important to me out of the gate. And like I just said, and I'll reiterate again, I'm going to challenge these guys to be as good teammates that they can be for each other. And if we commit to those little things, everybody’s going to be better for it, including him.”
Johnson noted a couple of times during the 40-minute press conference that Thursday was “Day 1,” so he could not offer substantive answers to questions about the future of head coach Adam Foote or incumbent assistant GMs Cammi Granato and Emilie Castonguay or what hockey-ops departments he needs to improve.
“To evaluate off of last season, I think is pretty unfair,” he said of Foote.
But the new GM, lauded for his respectfulness and decency, made it clear he can make difficult decisions.
“You can talk to players or coaches or trainers or staff that I've had a lot of difficult conversations with and some hard, honest conversations,” Johnson said. “I think it's a false narrative, (that) because I'm empathetic that I can't make tough decisions. People that work alongside me know that's far from the truth.”
Aquilini began the press conference by introducing his new hockey operations team before retreating and leaving questions to Johnson and the Sedins.
But the owner pledged full support and said for fans: “We appreciate this rebuild will require patience. But we will ice a team that competes hard every night. Rebuilding and competing hard are not mutually exclusive.”
No one would be trapped into providing a timeline for the rebuild.
“I think to put any type of timeline on it is unfair to the process,” Johnson said. “I think it's more about building the environment first, it’s making sure that the staples are there, the things that we believe in — creating an environment, a safe environment, where players can improve, can make mistakes, that have resources.
“But we're going to do this step by step, and we're not going to race through it. We're going to be very strategic with everything we do.”
Henrik Sedin said: “To do this as fast as possible, we’ve got to be very careful and go slow. I think that's the fastest way to get to where we want to be.”
We don’t think he was trying to be funny, and what he said made sense.
When Rutherford started the GM search four weeks ago, Johnson was the soft favourite to get the job. But nobody expected then he would be answering to two of the greatest and most respected figures in Canucks history.
The 45-year-old Sedins to the Canucks are not Mats Sundin to the Toronto Maple Leafs; they have remained closely connected to the hockey team and have a first-hand understanding of all that has gone wrong and needs to be fixed.
“I think it's a strength that we've been a part of all aspects of the organization,” Henrik said. “I think we see what's needed.”
Importantly, it was the twins’ decision to hire Johnson.
“I think my journey here has been very organic,” the new GM said. “I started as a consultant with Mike Gillis and Stan Smyl and that group. And so I've spent a lot of time, very early, just listening, spending a lot of time observing, trying to take in information. And as you go from (player) development and into managing an AHL team and working with amateur (scouting) staffs and pro staffs, it's been an organic journey. I haven't skipped or jumped the line. I never had an agenda to work my way (up). I just wanted to do good work, do it with good people. And it's led me to this.”
