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Getting to know the 7 names linked to the Canucks’ vacant GM position (so far)
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Photo credit: Vancouver Canucks
David Quadrelli
Apr 23, 2026, 16:00 EDTUpdated: Apr 23, 2026, 15:30 EDT
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Basically right from the moment they relieved Patrik Allvin of his duties as general manager on Friday, all anyone has been able to think about in Vancouver is who the Canucks will hire to be their next GM.
As Jim Rutherford said they would when he spoke on Friday, the Canucks have begun their first round of interviews for the vacant position via Zoom this week. As a result, a number of names have begun to surface this week. Some have been mentioned by reporters as “names to watch” for the position, while others are candidates who the Canucks have needed to get permission in order to interview. We’ve compiled those names here, with a bit about each candidate.

Ryan Johnson

First, we start with the candidate who was a candidate before anyone else on this list. We’re of course talking about Canucks AGM and Abbotsford Canucks GM Ryan Johnson.
There will be multiple names on this list who have less experience in an NHL front office than Johnson does, and every name on this list will have less knowledge about the Canucks’ processes and inner workings at just about every level of the organization than Johnson does. It’s no wonder many people out there think conducting a search in the first place is foolish when the Canucks might already have the best person for the job currently under contract.
As is always the case, it’s hard to know the inner workings of front offices and what each individual brings to the table. All we can really say about RJ with confidence is that players in Abbotsford and even dating back to the Utica days have spoken glowingly about him and his leadership capabilities.
Johnson has been working with the Canucks since 2013-14, when he came aboard as a development coach. Johnson worked his way up the ladder with the Canucks and has garnered interest from other NHL organizations and has real “one that got away” potential if the Canucks let him go after years of growing with him.

Kevyn Adams

On Tuesday, Thomas Drance and Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic reported that the Canucks requested and were granted permission to interview ex-Buffalo Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams for their vacant GM position.
After 10 seasons playing in the NHL, Adams first worked with the Sabres as a development coach beginning in 2010, and held various roles within the organization before being named GM in the 2020-21 season. Adams held that role until he was fired on December 15th, 2025. The Sabres held a 14-14-4 record and were tied for last place in the Eastern Conference the day they fired Adams. Buffalo then went 36-9-5 the rest of the season and would go on to win the Atlantic Division.
One big question to ask Adams in an interview for the Canucks GM job would be “Why?”
Why did the Sabres turn the season around basically right after he was fired? Why did the team struggle so mightily in his previous seasons there? Why did the team struggle to develop some of its young talent? What would he have done differently if he could go back in time, and why didn’t he do it when he still had the chance?
In any conversation about a potential GM hire — particularly when its someone who has had a previous stop as an NHL GM — it’s important that they have at least some theory on and understanding of what went wrong for them before.

Shane Doan

Now, we’re not entirely sure if Shane Doan is being interviewed for the role of Canucks GM, but we do know that the Canucks want to talk to him about some role in Hockey Ops.
On Wednesday, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that the Canucks were seeking permission from the Toronto Maple Leafs to speak with Doan, who currently serves as a special advisor to the GM with the Leafs. Friedman did specify that this isn’t necessarily the Canucks looking to hire Doan as their next GM, and that they might be looking to add him elsewhere in the front office. But we don’t know that for sure.
What we do know is that Doan doesn’t think he knows everything, and seems to have a real desire to keep learning about the game. That dates back to his playing days, too. We also know Doan loves the Vancouver restaurant Italian Kitchen. In a 2020 article with Thomas Drance, Doan spoke about his experience as a free agent getting courted by the Canucks. Here is an excerpt from that article that stands out:
“We ate at Italian Kitchen and it was beautiful,” Doan recalled this week. “I’ve eaten there 4-5 times since, man, I love that place.”
…The Doan dinner went well beyond the customary pitch between a team and an unrestricted free agent. Doan recalls quizzing management on everything from their farm system to how best to compliment the Sedin twins on the power play. It was, to hear Doan tell it, a uniquely detailed dinner meeting.
“At the time the Coyotes were really struggling financially with the lockout and everything else that was going on and it felt like it was in a different league,” Doan recalls of hearing the Canucks’ pitch. “It was like everything they could possibly do to make your player experience better, it was done… I remember that night we talked about analytics, we talked about cameras, we talked about technology that Manchester United and Arsenal were using and how they were tracking players, trying to find every advantage possible,” Doan says. “They had sleep doctors, all these things. I was chuckling, like, ‘Man this feels like a different league almost.’ We had things to keep us competitive in Phoenix, but we weren’t going that extra mile.
“The easy part for them, honestly, was selling Vancouver. It’s a world class city. There’s only so many cities that can be in that category, but Vancouver is one of them.”
Doan is well-regarded in league circles, and we dove further into him as a candidate earlier today. Check it out here.

Ray Whitney

Shortly after the Friedman report about Doan came out, Paul Bissonnette of TNT and Spittin’ Chiclets shared that on top of Doan, Ray Whitney is talking with the Canucks as well.
“So Ray Whitney and Shane Doan are talking with the Canucks,” Bissonnette said. “I would love to see those two guys work together. I just feel like you would want those two guys at your roundtable and bouncing ideas off of. They’ve obviously been around so long. Part of it too is how you treat the players coming in when you draft a kid, like setting them up for success. There’s a lot that goes into running an organization, so you need people like those two guys involved as well. Hey, I’m not like anti-analytics…But to me, you need more hockey minds. Like, even if it was those two guys and like get Chris Pronger in the mix, like, [expletive] get, get all the old hockey guys who have been around and done it a long time. But it should be interesting.”
Obviously, Bissonnette played with both Doan and Whitney during his time with the Phoenix Coyotes.
Whitney, who put up 1,064 points through 1,330 NHL games, last played in 2013-14 with the Dallas Stars. After his playing career, Whitney joined the Carolina Hurricanes as a pro scout, but moved back to Phoenix to coach his son Hudson on the Jr. Coyotes in 15U, 16U, and 18U. Whitney then served as an assistant general manager for Team Canada at the 2023 Spengler Cup.
It would be a bit of a surprise if the role the Canucks and Whitney are discussing is to outright become the GM of the team, but could they be looking to bring him in for another non-GM role alongside Doan? That’s what it would seem like.

Sam Ventura

Sam Ventura is currently the Vice President of Hockey Strategy and Research for the Buffalo Sabres, joining the organization in July 2021. He’s widely regarded as the primary brains behind the team’s modern analytics and data-driven approach to hockey operations. Before joining the Sabres, Ventura worked his way up in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization under Jim Rutherford.
Ventura started out as a team consultant with the Penguins in 2015-16 before a promotion to Director of Analytics in 2017. He also held the role of Director of Hockey Operations in 2020-21 before joining the Sabres as their Director of Analytics in 2021-22. Ventura, 38, holds three degrees. A PhD in Statistics, a Master of Science in Statistics, and a Bachelor of Science in Computational Finance and Statistics.
It was Elliotte Friedman on a recent episode of 32 Thoughts that linked Ventura to the Canucks, although Friedman was more so speculating, and nothing has been reported about the Canucks even asking the Sabres for permission to talk to Ventura about the position just yet.

Ryan Bowness

Speaking of candidates that Jim Rutherford has connections to…
Rick Dhaliwal of Donnie and Dhali — The Team linked Ryan Bowness, son of ex-Canucks assistant coach Rick Bowness, to the Canucks’ vacant job on Tuesday. Again, though, there hasn’t been any word as to whether or not the Canucks have asked the New York Islanders for permission to interview Bowness for the role.
Bowness has been involved in hockey for much of his adult life, starting out with the Atlanta Thrashers/Winnipeg Jets from 2009-10 to 2015-16 before joining the Pittsburgh Penguins as a pro scout in 2016-17. The Rutherford-led Penguins promoted Bowness to director of pro scouting back in 2019. Bowness then worked with the Ottawa Senators as an assistant GM and AHL GM (basically the same role Ryan Johnson has with the Canucks) from 2022-2025.
He currently serves as an AGM and director of player personnel for the Islanders.

Tom Fitzgerald

Finally, ex-New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald, who is currently in the running for the vacant GM job with the Nashville Predators, “would be a strong candidate and will almost surely be interviewed and considered for the Canucks’ GM vacancy in the event that he isn’t the choice to take over the Nashville Predators.”
More from Drance:
“Fitzgerald, 58, worked with Rutherford in Pittsburgh for a few years before following Ray Shero to the Devils and ultimately succeeding him as general manager. His work with the Devils was mixed; he had a strong run rebuilding the organization’s young core, but got bogged down under an avalanche of inefficient contracts to depth players, gave away too much no-move protection and compromised his ability to win the bidding for Quinn Hughes.”
There will no-doubt be more than these names that come out over the next little while, but as we near the end of week one of the Canucks’ search, these are the ones to keep an eye on so far.

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