Vancouver Canucks extending President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford: reports

According to Elliotte Friedman, the Canucks have been discussing a three-year extension with Rutherford, whose contract was set to expire later this year. This morning, the Canucks sent a note to all credentialed media that they would be holding an “important media conference” at 11 AM today.

We’ll have full coverage of that press conference up on the site later this morning.

Rutherford, 74, joined the Canucks in December of 2021 after the team had a massive changing of the guard from Jim Benning’s management regime to the Rutherford-led era.

Shortly after his hiring, Rutherford hired Patrik Allvin to be the club’s general manager. In the following season, Rutherford’s regime brought in Rick Tocchet as head coach and made a sharp deadline acquisition to bring Filip Hronek into the fold.

At the time of this writing, the Canucks sit 1st place in the NHL standings and are in a prime spot to win the Pacific Division. Tocchet is the odds-on favourite to take home the Jack Adams Award for NHL coach of the year, and Patrik Allvin is among the favourites to take home the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year award. Additionally, the club has a record five players going to the All-Star game in Toronto later this month.

This is all to say that the Canucks have been overwhelmingly moving in the right direction since owner Francesco Aquilini persuaded Rutherford to join the organization just over two years ago, and the team is certainly hoping that will continue over the next three years.

More to come.