Somewhat lost in the shuffle of Thursday’s festivities was the opening statement delivered by Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini. It was the first time he’s spoken publicly since the Canucks signed Jim Rutherford to a contract extension back in January 2024. Here’s part of what Aquilini said on Thursday:

“Today’s about the future. It’s a great day as we turn the page and begin an exciting chapter for the Vancouver Canucks… First, I want to say thank you to Jim Rutherford, who answered the call to come to Vancouver four years ago. Jim had an immediate impact, leading the team to within one game of the Conference Finals. And while that trajectory changed due to unexpected personnel challenges, Jim leaves us with a roster of promising young players and numerous draft picks. The rebuild is underway. I’d also like to thank Patrik Allvin. Patrick is a terrific person, and we appreciate all his efforts here, and we wish him the best on his future moves. Most importantly, I want to say thanks to our loyal fans who supported the Canucks through a very difficult season. I share in your disappointment. We expect to be better, need to be better, and we will be better.
“We are 100% committed to rebuilding the roster into a championship-caliber team. We’re excited about our young players our future picks we will add, including the 3rd pick overall in this year’s draft. Every expert agrees that we will get a terrific player with this selection.”
cont’d
“To our fans, we appreciate this rebuild will require patience, but we will ice a team that competes hard every night. Rebuilding and competing hard are not mutually exclusive.”

There were a couple of key points for me in there. For starters, any lingering questions about whether Jim Rutherford is still going to be meaningfully involved in this team’s decision-making processes should now be answered. The Canucks did it in a bit of a roundabout way, but this is full-blown regime change.

Second, the distinction of rebuilding into a “championship calibre” team is noteworthy. Ownership has absolutely heard the criticisms of their shortcuts over the years leading the Canucks to top out as nothing more than a flash-in-the-pan playoff team, and sound like they want to get it right this time around. Can they actually be patient enough to do that? We’ll find out in about 2-3 years. Fingers crossed.

Aquilini didn’t field questions from the assembled media, but a Canucks spokesperson did say that we would get a chance to talk to him sooner rather than later.

Perhaps that day will be when the Canucks are officially ready to announce their new practice facility at Britannia? We can’t be all that far away from an announcement on that, you’d think.

Higgins doesn’t mince words about “preparation”

Preparation was a big theme once again when Elias Pettersson’s name got brought up on Thursday. Both Sedins and Johnson were careful with their words when answering questions about the Canucks’ 11.6 million dollar man, but they did allude to Pettersson needing to do more to prepare for the rigours of an NHL season. It’s a criticism of Pettersson we’ve heard from Jim Rutherford, Patrik Allvin, Rick Tocchet, and Adam Foote.

And for Chris Higgins — who played with the Sedins and Johnson in Vancouver and also worked with them in hockey ops for a number of years not that long ago — he’s heard just about enough.

Speaking on Sportsnet 650‘s Canucks Talk, Higgins didn’t mince words when asked a question about if top players can develop an obsession to get better even if they’ve been in the league for a number of years. You be the judge for yourself. But to me, the question is mainly about Pettersson, and so is the answer.

Question: “That point about your best players have to be obsessed with getting better, and we, and we heard the Sedins talk about it similarly as well. Like, their preparation was so important, the summers where they had their best summers, lo and behold, those are also their best seasons. If you’re at a certain point in your career as a top player in the NHL, or, you know, looked at as a top player, and you don’t have that drive, you’re not obsessed with getting better, can you develop it? Like, can the team help you get there, or does it have to come from within?”

Answer from Higgins: “I think if you spend a couple years and it takes you a couple years to figure it out, yeah, of course there’s that, but if we’re into year four, five, six, seven, and we’re still talking about preparation and your practice habits, it’s time to get rid of those guys. Like, straight up. That’s too long, now that’s a character issue.

“I think we’ve let this go on, hoping that next year is going to be the year for a lot of guys, and I don’t know, the guys that have played the game and have looked at some of the players, in the whites of their eyes, like I didn’t see it with a lot of guys. I didn’t see the fierceness. I don’t know, it’s hard to describe when you look in somebody’s eyes as a competitor. You know what those predator eyes look like, those obsession to get better, those gamer eyes look like, and those are hard to get, but those are the guys we need to find. These are the guys we need to find in the draft and through free agency is those predator eyes to get better. I talk like I’m a little despondent right now, but like, I finally believe in some of the guys that are making decisions now that will find those types of guys. You know, it’s going to be a long, long process. It’s going to be a roster that turns over a little bit. But, you know, finding those guys with the predator eyes is of the utmost importance.”

Sportsnet 650

@Sportsnet650

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🗣️ If we are into year 4,5,6,7, and we're still talking about your preparation and practice habits it's time to move on. That's a character issue. 👉 Chris Higgins joined @jamiedodd & @randipjanda to talk about your best players having to be obsessed with getting better.

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8:10 PM · May 15, 2026

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Brock Boeser, the last current Canuck to play with the Sedins

Not only was Brock Boeser teammates with his new bosses, but he also made his NHL debut on the Canucks’ top line alongside Daniel and Henrik in a game against his hometown Minnesota Wild on March 25th, 2017.

The Sedins’ appointment as co-Presidents reminded me of this fact and quickly led me to this wonderful video of Brock’s late father, Duke Boeser, reading out the starting lineup for that game, with some help from his wife, Laurie Boeser: