That the 2025-26 season would end with the Vancouver Canucks in last place was all but certain by about halfway through the year. But what happened after that was always more up in the air.

And still is, in many ways. The organization parted ways with GM Patrik Allvin the day after the regular season concluded, but that’s the only move they’ve made so far. POHO Jim Rutherford is expected to stay on to at least oversee the hiring of the next GM, as well as the draft in June. Head coach Adam Foote is still in place for the time being, with the reasoning being that the new GM will have to decide Foote’s fate.

It seems as though there is a distinct possibility, then, that Foote will remain as coach into the 2026-27 season. That would be a controversial outcome, to say the least, for a multitude of reasons. Our own Daniel Wagner probably said it best when he wrote: “If a prospective GM wanted to keep Foote as head coach, it ought to be immediately disqualifying.” But there are other factors at play, including Foote’s contract, that may make for a less-than-objective decision on his position in the end.

The real controversy will arise if the Canucks both keep Foote and manage to lose Manny Malhotra, the current head coach of Abbotsford, to another NHL opportunity. The longer this search for a new GM goes on, and the longer the head coaching position remains in limbo as a result, the more likely a Malhotra departure becomes.

And, really, from the perspective of a rebuilding team, that should be unacceptable.

Malhotra has done some incredibly fine work in his two seasons as head coach in Abbotsford. Obviously, the 2024-25 Calder Cup Championship gets a lot of the attention, and Malhotra deserves plenty of praise for the immediate and continual buy-in he achieved with those players. But the truth is that success in the AHL is heavily dependent on roster factors far outside of the coach’s control, and that was evidenced by Malhotra’s team falling all the way out of the playoffs in 2025-26.

Far more relevant to the discussion of Malhotra as a future NHL coach, and a potential coach of these Canucks in particular, is the impact he’s had on individual players. Simply put, Malhotra has had a knack for positively affecting the arrival and continued development of the players put in his charge, and especially those players most important to the franchise as a whole.

Under Malhotra’s watch, folks like Elias Pettersson II, Linus Karlsson, Max Sasson, Aatu Räty, and Kirill Kudryavtsev have all built themselves up to a more NHL-ready state. Prospects arriving in the AHL for the first time, like Jonathan Lekkerimäki and Ty Mueller last year and Sawyer Mynio this year, have adapted to the pace of the pro game a lot quicker than prospects of years’ past.

There’s never any guarantee with something like this, and so there’s no way to know for certain whether Malhotra’s approach would carry over successfully to the NHL. But it definitely seems to have the potential to do so. There are signs that Malhotra might be a good developmental coach, specifically, and that’s where we can really get into the concept of thinking about him as a “future-based asset,” as mentioned in the headline. What is he, ultimately, but a coaching prospect? And everyone knows what a rebuilding team should be doing with their prospects.

In fact, simply comparing Malhotra to any given prospect might be selling his potential impact short. A good developmental coach has almost immeasurable value to a rebuilding and youth-laden team. Think of it this way: any ol’ draft pick has the potential to, maybe, turn into a player that is useful at the NHL level somewhere down the line. But a good developmental coach has the potential to make multiple players into more useful NHLers down the line. Drafting talented prospects is a vital part of any rebuild, but developing those players is just as vital to ensuring that rebuild has long-term success, and coaching is an enormous part of that.

If we were to compare this more directly to a draft pick, it becomes even clearer. The Canucks and their fans have coveted those early- to mid-round picks of late, meaning second- and third-rounders. But what is really going to have more value to this rebuild in the long run: a singular third-round pick that might turn into an NHLer in a few years, or a “coaching prospect” who might spend the next few years imparting lessons and fostering growth in the likes of Zeev Buium, Braeden Cootes, Tom Willander, and the rest? From where we’re sitting, it sounds like the coach has the greater potential to make a difference.

Now, imagine if the Canucks were willing to throw away a third-round pick just to keep Adam Foote on for another year. Imagine the reaction.

And yet, in keeping Foote on the table (has anyone else done that pun yet?), that’s the exact unnecessary risk the Canucks are running. It’d be frustrating in almost any scenario, but perhaps especially so with Foote, specifically, who reportedly clashed with outgoing GM Allvin over Foote’s preference for playing veterans over youth. Foote is very plainly not a development-oriented coach. But that’s what the Canucks need, and they’ve got one on hand.

It seems there is, or was, a compromise option here. Removing Foote would have officially opened the head coaching position and officially made Malhotra a prime candidate to replace him. A new GM could still be hired, and come in to make that final decision themselves, as a new GM probably should. But at least Malhotra would have an open job available to consider, and a guaranteed interview on the way. As of now, even that isn’t certain, and that’s got to make him more likely to consider any other opportunities that come his way in the meantime.

Malhotra isn’t the only coach out there with potential. But he is the one who seems most directly prepared to foster growth and development on this roster over the next few years, and if not that, then definitely the developmental coach with potential most likely to actually sign on with the Canucks due to those pre-established ties.

To risk losing Malhotra to another NHL franchise – perhaps another rebuilding NHL franchise, at that – really reads as an unforced error in the making.