Why is Jim Rutherford stepping down?
It’s a new era for the Vancouver Canucks, as president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford announced that he would be stepping down from his post following the draft in June.
Rutherford, who constructed Stanley Cup champions during his tenures with the Carolina Hurricanes and Pittsburgh Penguins was not able to come close to similar success at the helm of the Canucks, who now own the third overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft after finishing last in the league and not having the draft lottery go their way.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL defenseman Colby Cohen were joined by NHL insider David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period to discuss the timing around Rutherford’s announcement.
Colby Cohen: Vancouver, man. I just shake my head every time there’s a report coming out of Vancouver… There’s no GM… I just hate how screwed up it is in Vancouver right now for a multitude of reasons. I just wonder, like, why would Rutherford step down in the middle of the search? Is it because they’ve already made the decision, and why are they keeping him on? The whole thing, like, what is going on with the timing of Rutherford stepping down?
David Pagnotta: Well, he’ll officially step down after the draft, which means he’s not running free agency. So that’s going to be, and presumably not running the draft, so if you’re a new GM, you’re going, ‘Great, I can actually do this without him micromanaging everything.’ He’s also under contract for another year, so this is basically him just stepping aside and still collecting a paycheck, a pretty hefty one… But it sounded like when he spoke the other day, and he mentioned they’re down to five candidates now, there were around 20-something when they started. It sounds like they want to get this shored up in the next few days. Going into next week… something like that, that they’re in and around a week away, 10 days at the time… to making that decision. Then whoever comes in, and this may be a Toronto type of deal, this may be a GM and executive VP, senior advisor or something else beyond Jim Rutherford. They want to do that relatively quickly now, because Colby, to your point, they’ve got to figure out the coaching staff… and then what their plan is for this re-tool. There are going to be teams that are looking at Jake DeBrusk. There’s no secret that he’d prefer to be in an environment that’s not a rebuild. They have other assets that they’re going to want to maneuver and figure out ahead of free agency… a good opportunity to make moves, so they want to make sure all their ducks are in a row. They can’t start to execute this plan, and then whatever other changes they’re going to do. Most of their scouting staff, I believe their contracts run out at the end of June, so they’ve got to figure that out as well. There’s a lot of other work that has to happen there, and I think because of the rebuild that they’re going on, this is going to be extensive… and Rutherford wasn’t going to stay for the duration of this.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…