Patrick Roy is suddenly available, the Vancouver Canucks just fired Patrik Allvin, and there is a connection that makes this worth taking seriously.

The Canucks finished dead last in the NHL this season. Last place out of 32 teams. A record of 25-49-8, 58 points, and a goal differential of minus-100. That is not a rebuild. That is a crater.

Allvin is gone. And the question in Vancouver right now is: who do you trust to dig this franchise out?

Roy spent years running the Quebec Remparts in the QMJHL, not just as head coach but as general manager. He won two Memorial Cups there, building rosters, making trades, developing prospects. The man genuinely loves the GM chair. Probably more than he ever loved the bench.

His NHL head coaching tenure with the Colorado Avalanche ended in 2016, and his more recent stop as head coach of the New York Islanders ended when he was dismissed earlier this month. Peter DeBoer has since taken over behind the New York bench.

But here is the thing: Roy was never really a coaching hire waiting to happen again. He was always a front-office guy in disguise.

Running a junior franchise is not the same as running an NHL team, obviously. The contracts are different, the salary cap does not exist, and the trade market operates on completely different logic. Critics will point that out immediately.


The Adam Foote factor could make this work in Vancouver

And yet, the Canucks have something that changes the calculus. Adam Foote is the head coach in Vancouver, and Roy and Foote were teammates on the Colorado Avalanche when they won the Stanley Cup in 1996 and again in 2001. These are not two strangers trying to build a working relationship. That trust already exists.

It is like handing the keys to someone who already knows the neighbourhood. Most new GM and coach combinations spend their first year just figuring out each other’s language.

Vancouver scored only 216 goals this season while allowing 316. The team went 9-27-5 at home, one of the worst home records in recent memory. This roster needs a complete re-evaluation, cap decisions, draft strategy, and a clear identity. That is a general manager’s job from the ground up.

Roy’s ability to identify and develop young talent in Quebec is legitimately impressive. Two Memorial Cups as a GM-coach is not an accident. Whether that translates to navigating the NHL trade deadline and managing a $80-million cap sheet is a different question entirely.

The Canucks’ ownership will weigh that uncertainty. And it is a real risk. But the alternative is hiring another front-office candidate with NHL experience who arrives with zero connection to the bench staff already in place.

Elias Pettersson carries an $11.6-million cap hit and posted 51 points in 74 games this season, a number that felt like a step back for a player expected to be the franchise cornerstone. Whoever takes this GM job inherits that conversation on day one.

Roy has never shied away from hard conversations. That much was obvious in Quebec, and it was obvious in Colorado, and, fairly or not, it was obvious on Long Island too.

Whether Vancouver’s ownership sees a legitimate NHL executive candidate or a legendary name looking for a new role, that distinction will determine everything.

Should the Canucks hire Patrick Roy as their next general manager?

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