Vancouver Canucks fire general manager Patrik Allvin after last-place finish

VANCOUVER –  Jim Rutherford admits he has to shoulder some of the blame for how the Vancouver Canucks tumbled to the bottom of the NHL standings this season.

The club’s president of hockey operations is keeping his job, though, while his right-hand man, general manager Patrik Allvin, was fired on Friday. 

Allvin made his own decisions as GM, Rutherford said.

“He was in charge of most of the things in hockey, making the trades, deciding who was getting called up and down and working with the coach and all those things,” he said. 

“I take full responsibility for the season. I head up the hockey department. But I don’t make decisions for other people. And Patrik had the opportunity to make his own decisions.”

Allvin’s dismissal comes a day after Vancouver ended its campaign with a 6-1 loss to the Oilers in Edmonton. The result punctuated a season where the Canucks finished 32nd in the standings with a 25-49-8 record. 

“It’s unfortunate. He’s a friend of mine. I think Patrik’s a great hockey guy,” Rutherford said. “But we felt it was time to make a change and let someone else sit in that chair, that GM’s chair, and make the decisions going forward.”

The Canucks will conduct a wide search for Allvin’s replacement, he added, and already have a “very good” candidate in Ryan Johnson, currently general manager of the American Hockey League’s Abbotsford Canucks and an assistant GM with the NHL club.

Vancouver’s next general manager will have a lot of responsibility, Rutherford said, including deciding on whether Adam Foote will stay on as the team’s head coach. 

“It obviously sucks,” veteran Canucks winger Brock Boeser said of Allvin’s firing. “I definitely think we have to take part of the blame, too, because it obviously wasn’t good enough this year. And it’s just unfortunate. And it’s part of the business. He’s been great to me and to a lot of people. And I wish him nothing but the best.”

Hopes were once again high for the Canucks at the start of the season but the team sputtered and quickly slipped down the standings, seemingly unable to curtail its defensive woes amid a heavy dose of early injuries.

Management made a drastic move on Dec. 12, dealing captain and star defenceman Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild for a trio of young players and a first-round pick in the 2026 draft. 

The Canucks had known for about a year that Hughes was unlikely to re-sign in Vancouver long term, Allvin said, and that forced the team’s hand.

“Obviously, a deal like this doesn’t come through in just one day,” the GM said at the time. “It’s been going on for a couple of weeks here, where we felt this was, unfortunately, where we were heading with Quinn. And trying to maximize the return for Quinn Hughes.”

Allvin helped orchestrate an era that saw the Canucks go from playoff outsiders to Pacific Division winners and back again.

Hired in January 2022, he replaced Jim Benning and became the first Swedish GM in the NHL. 

Allvin previously worked with Rutherford in Pittsburgh, serving as the team’s director of amateur scouting before he was promoted to assistant GM there in 2020.

Rutherford admitted in January 2023 that turning the Canucks around was a bigger job than he’d expected. 

“When I came here, I knew it was going to be a big challenge. And I thought ‘You know, we’re going to have to do minor surgery,'” he said. “Have I changed my position? Well, yeah. We have to do major surgery.”

Weeks later, Vancouver fired Bruce Boudreau as head coach in January 2023 and brought in Rick Tocchet, who guided the team to a Pacific Division title the following season.

After missing the playoffs in seven of eight seasons, the Canucks beat the Nashville Predators, then fell to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of a gritty second-round matchup to cap their 2023-24 campaign. 

Allvin was named a finalist for that year’s Jim Gregory Award, given annually to the league’s top GM. 

The Canucks couldn’t repeat the feat, though. The 2024-25 season was marred by injuries, infighting and underperforming stars. 

Star goalie Thatcher Demko missed much of the year recovering from a knee ailment, and star centre Elias Pettersson failed to live up to his new eight-year, US$92.8-million contract. A lingering feud between Pettersson and fellow centre J.T. Miller grew so problematic that the Canucks dealt Miller to the New York Rangers. 

Vancouver struggled to a 38-30-14 record and missed the playoffs by six points before Tocchet parted ways with the team at the end of April.

The Canucks went on to promote Foote to head coach. The former NHL defenceman had served as an assistant coach under Tocchet for more than two years. 

Heading into training camp in September, Rutherford said he thought the Canucks had a chance at another post-season run. 

“I do believe, if everything goes right, and as we go along, make an improvement here and there, that this team can be in the playoffs,” he said. 

Everything did not go right.

Another wave of injuries swept through the roster, and by the end of November, the likelihood of the team making the playoffs already appeared distant. 

“It is what it is. And I think the players and the coaches have dealt with it,” Allvin said on Jan. 19 after trading bruising winger Kiefer Sherwood to the San Jose Sharks. 

At the time, the Canucks were mired in a 10-game losing skid (0-8-2) and had not won a game in 2026. 

“I’m not happy standing here with the points we have,” the GM said. “I believe when we were healthy early on, we were capable of better.”

The team made more moves in early March, shipping out veteran defenceman Tyler Myers and feisty winger Conor Garland for draft picks ahead of the NHL trade deadline.

That allowed young players to find their roles within the team, and improved the culture in the locker room, Rutherford said. 

“Now with that team chemistry, this team has a chance to move forward and let every player enjoy coming to the rink, and not have to worry about somebody barking at them in practice or picking on them in the room or whatnot. This group is tightly knit,” he said. “So this team is going in the right direction. How long that takes, I don’t know. I’d only be guessing.” 

Whether Rutherford will be around to see the end of the rebuild remains to be seen. 

“I gotta tell ya — like anyone else thinking about this team this year, I had a lot of thoughts about my future,” he said Friday. “But right now, my focus is on getting a new GM and getting through the draft. And when I do that, I will think a lot more seriously about what makes sense.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2026.