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And, as of Friday afternoon, there’s no timeline on when that might cease to be the case.
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Asked about whether there was any timeline to be shared on when he might announce who his head coach would be, Canucks GM Ryan Johnson said, simply: “Not right now.”
And so we go into the weekend continuing to wonder if it will be Manny Malhotra who will be named as the team’s next coach or, perhaps, someone else.
Malhotra is the presumed heir apparent to Adam Foote as the Canucks’ bench boss, the fifth man in five years to hold the title. Malhotra has been head coach of the Abbotsford Canucks the past two seasons, working directly for Johnson.
He guided the minor-league Canucks to the Calder Cup title a year ago and is widely considered one of the best coaching prospects out there. Malhotra has been a coach for a decade; he first joined the Canucks as a development coach in 2016 after retiring as a player, and worked with Johnson at the time. He was then an assistant coach on Travis Green’s Canucks staff from 2017 to 2020, then joined the Toronto Maple Leafs as an assistant under Sheldon Foote.
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He returned to the west coast in 2024.
Although Malhotra grew up in Toronto, he has deep roots in Vancouver. His wife, Joann, is from B.C. (she is the sister of brothers Steve and Martin Nash, star athletes in their own right) and one of the reasons they signed with the Canucks in the first place was to see what life in B.C. would be like. Their son, Caleb, is a top prospect in this summer’s NHL draft and is believed to be of great interest to the Canucks. Vancouver is drafting third overall.
There are a few reasons why announcing Malhotra as the new coach could be on pause. The Canucks will have to hire a whole new coaching staff for him, so filling out that list could be taking time. Presumably, he’s also looking to be well-paid as the new coach, so perhaps there’s still some negotiating over salary. One even wonders if Canucks management is debating how to handle the father-son dynamic if they were to hire Manny as coach and draft Caleb as player. It’s widely acknowledged that no matter how well-prepared the team and the Malhotras might be for having father and son on the same team, it will present a lot of challenges.
Despite Johnson’s demurral to Postmedia, Friday morning CHEK-TV’s Rick Dhaliwal reported he believed a new coach would be announced early next week, along with a new assistant general manager.
And so we wait.
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