New Vancouver Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson has a lot on his plate.
“It’s been an all-out sprint, and it’ll continue to be,” Johnson told The Athletic on Wednesday morning during a brief telephone call.
“We’re trying to staff,” Johnson continued. “I’m trying to surround myself with the help that I think can make us the best organization we can be. I still have two coaching staffs to effectively hire in Vancouver and Abbotsford. Then there’s expiring contracts in different departments that I’ve had to be attentive to, all while trying to talk to 31 other teams and 50 or so agents.
“I’m not going to lie to you and say it hasn’t been a sprint and a lot. It has been. I’m just focusing on making each day as productive as I can.”
Johnson is approaching the end of his first month in the general manager’s chair. And as busy as he’s been, the pace of his responsibilities is only going to accelerate over the next three and a half weeks.
By this time next month, the Canucks will have gone through free agency and navigated any number of different player contracts. They’ll have fleshed out and filled in the front office staff and the NHL and AHL coaching staffs. Hopefully, they’ll continue to dismantle their NHL roster, too.
And most importantly, they’ll have made at least 10 picks at the 2026 NHL Draft — including a critical selection at No. 3, which is the most valuable draft pick the Canucks have owned in over 25 years.
For the first time in a generation, the Canucks have entered an intentional rebuilding stage. Now this nascent, overdue rebuild is going to reach a critical phase over the next few weeks, and it’ll be Johnson at the controls guiding what comes next.
With this in mind, we caught up with Johnson and asked him some big-picture rebuilding questions to try to get a sense of what to expect from the Canucks this summer. His message: above all else, expect the club to be extremely patient in determining where the next step falls.
You’ve hired Daren Hermiston as a director to this point, and the widespread expectation in the market is that you’ll be further fleshing out your staff — and presumably Manny Malhotra’s coaching staff — in the weeks ahead.
Are you close to hiring an assistant general manager, and what can you tell us generally about the state of that process?
Yes, I’m getting there. I’ve got some good names and some good people.
It’s a priority, Abbotsford has to be shaped, and I only have so many hours in the day while I’m focused on working on our team in Vancouver. I’m working to get it in place as soon as I can, but I’m trying not to rush anything, because I also want to make sure I’m doing it the right way.
It’s important, though, there’s a lot to figure out with players and personnel down there. It’s all stuff that I’m trying to work through daily.
What sort of profile of an executive do you think you need to identify as an assistant general manager to round out your staff?
I’ve always been an advocate for not just going with the person who’s done it before. I’m not against trying to find the next really good person in the game, and I’ve given that a lot of thought.
At the same time, there’s value in the experience aspect. Someone who knows the American League, knows the importance of development at that level and knows how to accomplish that. So that’s what I’m keeping in mind.
At the end of the day, any of our hires will have to have a certain skill set and bring value. The top priority for me is that they’re good people. They have to check that box first.
You were just in Buffalo at the NHL Draft Combine, and it’s obviously been well-reported that you had several live viewings personally of Caleb Malhotra during his OHL season and in the playoffs. What stands out to you about him as a player?
There’s so much that he brings to the table. One of the most enticing aspects for me, and I think you can say the same thing about Chase Reid, is the level of improvement from viewing to viewing, or from month to month. It’s the way the momentum picked up in his game. Every time you saw the player, you could see that massive step forward.
So you have to start projecting. ‘OK, what is this going to look like in two years, or four years, or in six years?’ It’s a pretty scary thought when you consider all of that, with all of the components of his game that are there already.
It was impressive to see that, and to see how even on a really good team surrounded by first-round picks, the game still ran through him. When you’ve got teammates of that quality and experience, and they’re deferring to the 17-year-old, that’s pretty impressive.
There’s a saying, I think it’s Kevin Cheveldayoff’s, and the idea is that in amateur scouting, “A general manager sees just enough games to be dangerous to the process.” You’ve personally been running amateur meetings even before being officially hired as GM. Do you have to be careful in managing your own involvement?
Absolutely. There’s a level of shaping guidance and setting the foundation of what the organization values and what you want to see in your team moving forward, but you can’t influence a staff that has 50 viewings of a player by outlandishly forming an opinion based on just a couple of views.
The important thing is to bring an aspect of conversation. You try to make sure that everything is talked about and that every stone is turned over.
You give your thoughts about the direction you want to see the team go in, and how you’d like to see it, but you have a director of amateur scouting for a reason. I trust him to make the best decisions based on the information they’ve gathered and the information that I’ve given them.
Obviously, every interview you or anybody else does, the questions circle back to Elias Pettersson. I’m more curious to ask the general question about having seven players in their late 20s or early 30s, all locked up long-term with various forms of no-move or no-trade protection.
Given the patient timeline that you’ve discussed and the ages of these players, there’s a high probability that they’ll age out as you assemble a new, younger core. Is continuing to shed commitments and get younger a priority for you this summer?
Those are things we have to consider. I’ve only been in this position for a short period of time, but I think I’ve been very clear about the direction that we will go.
That said, I don’t want to make any knee-jerk reactions. I have to consider everything, consistent with the vision and the plan that we’ve laid out. And that’s not just about the commitments that we’ve made to older players.
It’s like I’ve said since day one: there’s nothing I won’t take into account if it’s consistent with the vision and the build, and the way we want this team to play and function. And the environment that we will be creating and making a commitment to as well.
Shedding salaries is one component of this process, but I’m considering all aspects as we move forward here.
The CBA expires on Sept. 15, and various contract structure rules will be tightened thereafter, somewhat limiting your ability to front-load contracts beyond this summer. Will you consider that deadline, and have you worked through potentially engaging in extension talks with some of your younger, second-contract players — Liam Öhgren and Zeev Buium would be who I name check — this summer, or before Sept. 15?
I had the chance to sit down with agents in Buffalo and begin to just talk through our players. For now, I wouldn’t say it’s something that I’ve told them I’m going to look to get done right now.
I’m in the process of having conversations with some of these players, and it’s been great. I’m trying to help them understand what we’re going to help them do.
So I’ve talked to the players and some of the agents, but we haven’t gone in-depth on the subject of extensions just yet. I’m still more focused on the more immediate future, and focused on the draft and free agency, and the items that are quickly approaching. That’s where my attention needs to be right now.
Understanding that you’re not able to specifically discuss players on other teams, there’s a lot of local interest in Brendan Gallagher. The player has specifically name-checked the city, and his agent — who has permission to facilitate a trade — has noted that there appears to be some level of interest.
Now that I’ve set you up, to ask a general question, how would you view the strategic notion of acquiring veteran players with inefficient contracts for their leadership ability, or potentially as reclamation project-type bets this summer?
It’s an option that we have to consider, but we have to take into account budgeting and where we sit with contracts and with the players on our current roster. We can’t just go out and add any number of players without understanding that we first have to subtract.
This is all stuff we’re working through as a group and talking through. These are all things that will go into the puzzle.
How quickly can we do some of these things with where we sit right now? I’d say that’s the bulk of what I’m trying to sort through.
With the cap going up, some of the devices that rebuilding teams like Montreal or even Arizona (before they moved to Utah) utilized to “weaponize cap space” to gain additional draft picks during the flat cap era appear to be closed to your team as you enter this rebuilding phase.
How do you think through the different nature of the bets you’ll need to place to gain the sorts of futures and draft picks required to fuel a rebuild in this environment?
The landscape has certainly changed. It’s not the way it used to be, where 10 teams needed support from throughout the league in regards to shedding salary just to ice a competitive roster.
That’s no longer an issue for teams, and so along the journey here, you have to be aware of the assets that you do have and how they’ll fit in when you start to step out of this phase that we’re in and start to see the light of improvement. And, of course, seeing not just that you’re getting better, but that the improvement will be sustainable with the roster that you have and the young players and assets that you have in your organization.
Things will be different; the landscape has changed. The key is that you’ve got to be creative and aware of what you do have and how those pieces will fit in when you get to where you want to be.
What role does free agency play in your rebuilding project this summer?
It depends on what we’re able to do. Moving forward, as things play out over the next two or three weeks, that’ll determine how active we are and where we will be active on July 1.
Are we going to be a major spending team? Or are we going to be trying to do different things?
What we look to do on July 1 will be determined by what the full picture looks like. At this point, it’s difficult to say what free agency will look like for us, based on what could possibly change between now and then.
If the question is, with what we’re trying to do and where we want to go, are we going to be trying to get there through free agency? Then I’d say the answer is probably not.
In a recent podcast appearance, you expressed some admiration for Montreal’s patience at the trade deadline this past season. What rebuilding models from the past 5-6 years have you looked at that stand out to you, or reflect the type of direction you’d like to steer this club in as general manager?
There’s many examples, but I think the biggest thing that you have to be is patient.
You have to be making sure you’re strategic in everything that you do. There’s been great examples of teams that have headed in a good direction, but have maintained patience, and I think that extra bit of patience, that acknowledgement that we’re getting there, but we’re not there yet, that’s the commonality I see in all of the successful rebuilding examples over the years.
It’s hard, and it’s long, but once it’s there, if it’s done the right way, then you can be there for a while. That’s the sort of path that I intend to stick to.