While his brother Daniel has already headed over to Switzerland for the IIHF World Championship, Vancouver Canucks co-President of Hockey Operations Henrik Sedin has stayed put in Vancouver as the Canucks prepare to make a few key decisions in the lead-up to the NHL Draft and Free Agency in a little over a month.

One of those decisions will be on the future of Canucks head coach Adam Foote.

Speaking on Sportsnet’s 32 Thoughts, Henrik (can we still call him Hank?) touched on that, along with a number of other pertinent topics. First, Henrik said that he’s been in communication with Canucks General Manager Ryan Johnson “almost every hour” to go over what needs to be done for the Canucks over the next little while. On Foote’s future, Henrik said:

“That’s something we’re discussing right now. We had a press conference on Thursday, so we’re going through a lot of different parts of our organization. We’re discussing [it] on a daily basis here, so I think that’s something that I think you’ll hear more [about] next week.”

At management’s introductory press conference on Thursday, Ryan Johnson said it was unfair to judge Foote based on the circumstances he dealt with last season, but added that they would evaluate all departments in the coming days.

Henrik also once again answered the question on everyone’s mind: “Why?”

Why did now feel like the right time for them to step in and take on such a big challenge?

“I think there’s two things,” Henrik said. “Number one, like you said, we retired in 2018, stepped away for three years almost, got back into it slowly with a little bit of an advisor role to management at the time. And then Patrik stepped in, and when he took over, we had kind of somewhat looked at being closer to the team. So being on the ice, helping out with the development, the younger guys, and also be a bridge between Abbotsford and [the Vancouver] Canucks. So we spent a lot of time with both teams. We’ve been kind of in the background. We haven’t really wanted to be seen or anything, but we spent a lot of time on the ice. I mean, we were at every game at home. We watched every Abbotsford game to get an understanding of the players. And so I think that helped. And then number two is ownership came to us with their vision and plan, and that was something we could fully support. And so we felt strongly about stepping into this role this time.”

Right after that answer, there was an interesting question from Friedman, and an illuminating answer from Henrik as well.

Friedman: “Henrik, I will tell you that when Francesco Aquilini came up and used the word rebuild at the media conference, some people I know fell over. They never thought they would hear the day where he would say the word rebuild. So I’m curious, did you and Daniel say to him you weren’t taking the job unless there was an understanding that that needed to happen?”

Henrik: “Well, I can put it this way: If they wouldn’t have come to us with their plan and how they see this being done — if he would have said something different where we need to win tomorrow, that was not something we could support and feel that we could do a good job of. So that he used the word rebuild was surprising [to others], but for us, talking to him and the [other members of] ownership for a couple of weeks, we knew that that’s what he was going to say.”

There have been plenty of fans already concerned about whether or not ownership would actually be supportive of a long-term rebuild, and everything we’ve heard from the Sedins and Johnson so far suggests that this organization won’t be taking shortcuts along the way.

Lastly, a fun one. Friedman asked Henrik if he would refuse to draft a player if they couldn’t manage to beat him and Daniel up the Grouse Grind. Henrik, without skipping a beat:

“Then we couldn’t draft anyone. It’s impossible. We can’t do that.”

You can listen to the full interview with Henrik Sedin by clicking here!