The Vancouver Canucks announced on Thursday the promotions of franchise icons Daniel and Henrik Sedin to the roles of co-presidents of the team.
Additionally, Ryan Johnson was named the 13th general manager in the team's history.
In a news conference introducing the three, it was revealed that the Sedins were already hard at work in their new roles before Thursday's official announcement as they had final say on the hiring of Johnson as the team's new GM.
"Ownership came to us when it became clear that the team was going to step away a little bit," Henrik Sedin said. "We had a lot of great discussions with them where they saw this was going and they did a big search for the next GM and we stepped in and they gave us two very good candidates. One external and one internal, and it was up to us to make that decision."
The Sedins replace the long-serving Jim Rutherford, who will be stepping down as president of the Canucks after announcing his decision last week. Johnson replaces Patrik Allvin as the Canucks' new GM.
Vancouver finished with the worst record in the league this past season and will presumably have a long way to go to return to competing for Stanley Cups.
When asked about what a timeline would look like, Johnson was non-committal.
"I think to put any type of timeline on it is unfair to the process," Johnson said. "It's more about building the environment first and making sure that the staples are there, the things that we believe in, and creating a safe environment where players can improve, can make mistakes, that have resources. We're gonna do this step by step. We're not gonna race through it.
"We're gonna be very strategic with everything that we do. We're gonna be aligned on everything that we do so that we know, as a group, that we're sticking to the vision that was talked about in May of 2026 and not ever getting outside of that vision."
One of the paths that Johnson said that will be part of this vision the Canucks have for themselves will be to build through the draft.
"That is where our vision is. To build through the draft," said Johnson. "Obviously, we've got 10 picks right now in this year's draft ... those are going to be massive selections in this process."
The topic of current head coach Adam Foote's future with the team also was brought up. The Canucks didn't set a timeline for an answer on his future, iether.
"I think if you look at last year as a whole it's really tough to evaluate a coach or anyone with all the adversity and injuries, the goaltending and everything that went on. There are so many variables that can change the course of the season," Johnson said. "So, to evaluate Adam just based on that is unfair. This is Day 1 on the job, we're going to talk about things top to bottom in the organization, areas where we can improve, but that's going to take us some time."
