Jim Rutherford is dangerously close to turning the Vancouver Canucks on their heads, and not in the good kind of way.
Rutherford and Co. tried to convince head coach Rick Tocchet to stay with the Canucks. They failed, but that is now the least of their worries as their ramshackle operation heads into an unknown future.
Tocchet, the Canucks' hand-picked coach to replace Bruce Boudreau, left on his own. Will Quinn Hughes do the same? It seems highly likely after Rutherford's comments that came in the immediate aftermath of Tocchet's departure.
"I hope he's playing golf because he usually returns my calls right away and I called him within half-an-hour of talking to Rick and he hasn't called me back," says Jim Rutherford when asked if he's talked to Quinn Hughes about Tocchet's departure. #Canucks
— Noah Strang (@noahstrang_) April 29, 2025
Hughes, 25, advocated heavily and publicly for Tocchet to stay. Rutherford has no idea how his captain has taken the news,
"I hope he's playing golf because he usually returns my calls right away, and I called him within half an hour of talking to Rick, and he hasn't called me back," Noah Strang of Daily Hive Vancouver quoted Rutherford as saying about Hughes.
Those are not words you want to hear or imagine your team president saying about your franchise player. And this comes roughly a week after Rutherford and the Canucks already admitting to Hughes having a strong desire to play with younger brothers Jack Hughes and Luke Hughes, which is overwhelmingly likely to happen with the New Jersey Devils.
The Canucks already missed the playoffs after a long-term clash between Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller maturated into a PR nightmare in the public sphere, and Hughes's favorite coach, Tocchet, is off to greener pastures. Can the Canucks honestly say Hughes has any incentive to stay on board beyond 2027? Or beyond this month, at this point? I don't think so.
Time is ticking on July 1, 2027, and everyone already knows what comes next for this motley Canucks management crew.