The Vancouver Canucks are now focused on the future and developing their young players. And with a brand new regime now at the helm, all players in the organization will be handed clean slates and have the same opportunity to make an early impression in training camp – even the young, unproven players.

That said, General Manager Ryan Johnson is not a fan of what he referred to as “Yo-Yo-ing” young players up and down from the American League to the NHL. Johnson believes that a player will make it abundantly clear when they deserve the promotion to the NHL, and once they make that jump, they stick. He further clarified that on Wednesday morning to the assembled media ahead of Canucks training camp:

“And if there’s one thing that I’ve really learned in this game over the course of the last 10 years, it’s that it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to go backwards with a player,” Johnson said. ‘Once you commit to something and realize maybe you’ve done it too soon, it is really, really hard to reimagine not for the organization, but what the player now sees himself in their own mind.

“So we have to protect a lot of these young players in their process. I do not believe in the Yo-Yo up-and-down American League/NHL of a young player. I feel I’ve said it earlier: when they get in, they step in; if they’re in the American League, I often see it as there’s one call-up. They kick the door down, there’s one call-up, and they never go back. And for me, there are elite players that never play in the American League, but it is a rarity. And I think it’s our job to protect those young players and doing right by them.”

While the Canucks have yet to release their full training camp roster at the time of this writing, there are plenty of young players who will be on the ice in Penticton who have a chance to impress: Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Braeden Cootes, Riley Patterson, Adam Novotný, Ilya Safonov, Ty Mueller, Kirill Kudryavtsev, and Sawyer Mynio.

Whether or not those players make a big enough impression to earn an opening-night roster spot, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear the general manager believe in that philosophy. If players such as Lekkerimäki or Cootes, for example, don’t completely knock the door down and earn their spot on the NHL roster through training camp and preseason, then GM Johnson will not hesitate to send them to the American League.

And that may not even mean they performed poorly. This isn’t a situation that’s going to be turned around quickly. If Johnson believes it’s best for the players’ long-term development to start the year in the AHL, where they can play a much larger role, then that’s what he’ll do. It’s a lot better than previous regimes, when young players were often rushed into an NHL lineup before they were truly ready to make the jump, and that stunted their growth.

It’s nice to hear that this regime has a futuristic view on how to turn the Canucks around, rather than looking for an immediate fix.