Once upon a time, the Vancouver Canucks were a rising team in the Pacific Division and Western Conference. Captained by a perennial Norris Trophy-candidate defenseman in Quinn Hughes, backstopped by Thatcher Demko, and with an offensive core that included players like JT Miller, Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser.
Currently, the Canucks are a team on the decline. They went from Stanley Cup contender in 2023 to completely lost in the wilderness in the summer of 2025. The only blame to place has to go on the management team, starting and ending with general manager Patrik Allvin and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford.
Allvin and Rutherford arrived in Vancouver with a blank check to bring the team back to championship contention. Both were instrumental in the Pittsburgh Penguins winning back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017, and their reputation was at an all-time high when they joined the Canucks.
Since arriving in Vancouver, their unhinged approach hasn’t worked at all. Instead, they’ve made bold and brash decisions that have cost the organization in the short and long-term.
Look at the Elias Lindholm trade in 2024. The Canucks gave up a 2024 first-round pick, two prospects, and Andrei Kuzmenko to bring Lindholm to Vancouver for half a season. It was clear art the time of the deal that Lindholm would hit the free agent market, but the Canucks risked it under the guise of Allvin and Rutherford taking a calculated risk for a championship.
This past season was a definitive sign that Allvin and Rutherford have lost their control on the Canucks. The JT Miller debacle was ruinous. Not only could they not find a way to keep their best offensive players coexisting and happy, but they lost the leverage they needed to get a solid return for him. Instead, they sent him to the New York Rangers for two young players in Victor Mancini and Filip Chytil, and a first-round pick that they flipped immediately to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Marcus Pettersson and Drew O'Connor.
So, to summarize, the Canucks lost their 100-point scorer and replaced him with Filip Chytil and Drew O’Connor, two middle-six forwards who have never sniffed the 30-goal mark.
They had a chance to do things right with winger Brock Boeser, but unsurprisingly, the Canucks’ management botched it. Now, the former 40-goal scorer is set to hit unrestricted free agency. Instead of keeping one of their best wingers, they will lose him for nothing.
His replacement is 34-year-old Evander Kane. The polarizing winger who has been injured more than he’s played the last four seasons. He didn’t appear in a single regular season contest this past season, debuting in the postseason. The 2023-2024 season, he played 77 regular season games, but the previous two campaigns he didn’t play more than 43 contests.
Not only that, Kane has brought issues to every organization he’s gone to. Whether it’s inner-locker room drama or the complexities of his personal life, there’s always something with him.
The bottom line is this: the Canucks are in a dangerous position. Their core is woefully insufficient to win a championship, but they lack the high-end prospects to justify planning for the future. They are a team stuck in limbo, and that’s all due to the choices of management. If it continues, there’s no doubting that they will absolutely ruin the Canucks.
