As the Vancouver Canucks opened the unofficial start of their 2026-27 season, the message from the top was clear: this year is about the process, not the scoreboard.
General Manager Ryan Johnson, Head Coach Manny Malhotra, and Co-Presidents of Hockey Operations Henrik and Daniel Sedin met with the media on the eve of training camp, and the conversation quickly turned to how a team in a rebuild defines progress when wins and losses aren’t supposed to be the measuring stick.
Malhotra put it plainly when asked how he plans to handle that balance.
“Well, it’s something that I’ve thought about over the course of the summer, and for me, there’s a very big difference between losing games, which is inevitable; every team is going to do it, and playing losing hockey,” Malhotra said. “The measure of our group will be on playing the right way, doing the things that we’re talking about, having details to your game, which is going to give us an opportunity to win.
Those are the measures that, when you look back on a game, did we check the boxes? That’s where the pride or the joy will come from: knowing that we are learning, we’re doing the things that we’re asked, and it’s getting better.
“But for us to ride the wave of the course of a season, of the highs and lows - we won a game; it’s great; we lost a game; it’s bad - is going to be no longer. It’s going to be about maintaining the focus of what we’re trying to do, and the daily improvements we’ve talked about over the course of summer. Just getting better every day, creating an environment where guys feel confident and strong, and want to come to the rink is going to be where we measure our group.”
That outlook fits the new direction in Vancouver, where the emphasis has shifted toward development, growth, and building the right environment. The results still matter in the sense that the team wants to play well enough to give itself a chance, but the internal standard is tied to habits and progress rather than the final score.
Daniel and Henrik Sedin echoed that same idea, stressing that the organization wants to see a group that competes for one another and shows a clear foundation in how it plays.
“I think we want to see a team that plays for each other,” Henrik said. “The fans walk into the building and they see a group that fight for each other.
You see a foundation, you see a plan in everything they do, and some of them are going to take steps this year. There’s going to be some of them who might not take the step this year, but at least you see that foundation in place, and that’s all we’re going to ask for.
And we’re not going to talk about wins or losses. It’s a process, like Manny said, and we’ll take it day-by-day.”
For the Canucks, the season ahead is being framed as a rebuild where losing is part of the reality. The standard, though, is supposed to come from whether players improve, meet the daily goals being laid out for them, and show the kind of structure the new management group wants to establish.
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