According to CanucksArmy’s own Irfaan Gaffar, the Canucks have offered Ryan Johnson the opportunity to be the next head of hockey operations.
Shortly before Gaffar’s report, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said that momentum was moving in Johnson’s direction to be the Canucks’ next head of hockey operations.
Prior to the post above, Friedman also talked about Johnson on Sportsnet 590:
“I’m hearing is that there’s momentum going behind Ryan Johnson in Vancouver. I’ve been hearing a lot about that over the last hour or two, that the momentum is getting behind him, and we’ll see where that takes us over the next few hours. But I’m starting to think that Ryan Johnson has a good shot of being the next head of hockey operations there.”
Johnson spent two seasons with the Canucks towards the end of his playing career, and rejoined the organization as a development coach in 2013-14. He worked his way up to Assistant Director of Player Development two years later, and two years after that, he was put in charge of the AHL Utica Comets as GM and became the club’s Director of Player Development in 2017-18. Johnson held those titles over Utica’s move to become the Abbotsford Canucks, and oversaw a Calder Cup-winning Abbotsford roster last season.
It’s unclear whether or not the Canucks plan to hire Johnson as their next President of Hockey Operations with a GM working under him or if Johnson will be the General Manager, but one thing is for sure: Ryan Johnson will be the man in charge of the Canucks’ hockey operations department moving forward if he chooses to accept the offer.
It will be interesting to see where this leaves Evan Gold — who was rumoured to be a finalist for the Canucks’ GM job — and the Sedins,
who we reported earlier this week accepted larger roles in the Canucks’ front office over the weekend.
More to come.
