The Vancouver Canucks have done a lot of reshuffling this summer, and the moves have created as many questions as they’ve answered on the player-development side.
Daniel and Henrik Sedin are now co-presidents of the organization. Ryan Johnson has been promoted into his first general manager role. Manny Malhotra, after rising from the farm team to the NHL bench, has added Jason Krog as a full-time assistant and also brought Jordan Smith with him from Abbotsford, where Smith had been an assistant coach.
On paper, the logic is easy to see. The Sedins bring Hall of Fame resumes, Johnson has spent a decade in management, and Malhotra’s work in Abbotsford made him a natural fit to take over as head coach of the NHL club.
But the turnover has also left some major gaps, and for a team still in the early stages of a rebuild, those holes matter.
Last season, the top three people with clearly defined on-ice player-development roles were the Sedins and Krog. None of them will be doing those same jobs next season.
All three spent time at practice, and before and after practice, working directly with players. That one-on-one work often covered details that don’t get enough attention in full-team sessions.
In the Sedins’ case, they split their time between Vancouver and Abbotsford. Now they’ve moved into business suits, or at least button-down shirts and sweaters, while they oversee the hockey side of the company on a day-to-day basis.
Krog will still be involved on the ice, but in a different role as one of Malhotra’s assistants. The exact division of responsibilities hasn’t been made public, but Krog’s background as a high scorer suggests he could be leaned on for offense and maybe the power play. Even so, he won’t have the same one-on-one development time he had as skills coach.
The Canucks also still need to replace the jobs Malhotra and Smith left behind in Abbotsford. Those openings are important ones, especially with prospects in the pipeline depending on that kind of hands-on instruction.
There’s still time. It’s only the second week of July, and organized team activities don’t begin until mid-September.
But these are not small vacancies. They’re significant pieces of the development structure, and they need to be filled carefully.
With budget concerns being raised around the organization, the Canucks need to be willing to spend where it counts. That means replacing the skills coach and finding a way to cover the loss of the two greatest players to ever wear the uniform now that they’ve moved into the top jobs.
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