{"id":122389,"date":"2021-12-09T16:53:07","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T21:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=122389"},"modified":"2021-12-09T16:53:07","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T21:53:07","slug":"vancouver-canucks-hire-jim-rutherford-as-president-interim-gm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/12\/09\/vancouver-canucks-hire-jim-rutherford-as-president-interim-gm\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver Canucks Hire Jim Rutherford as President, Interim GM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Vancouver Canucks have announced the hiring of Jim Rutherford as President of Hockey Ops and interim General Manager, the team announced via Twitter. The deal is reportedly for three years. <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Introducing our new President, Hockey Operations: Jim Rutherford. <br \/>Welcome to Vancouver, Jim. <\/p>\n<p>DETAILS | <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iIXe4qJMow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/iIXe4qJMow<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TWw8gvcZIE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/TWw8gvcZIE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Canucks\/status\/1469022553075183620?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 9, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><b>Jim Rutherford Hired As Canucks President, Interim GM<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rutherford, 72, was previously General Manager of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/penguins\/\" target=\"_self\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a>. He held the position from 2014 to January 2021, where he abruptly resigned. During his tenure, the Penguins won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2016 and 2017.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before his stint as Pittsburgh GM, Rutherford spent nearly two decades with the Hartford Whalers\/<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/hurricanes\/\" target=\"_self\">Carolina Hurricanes<\/a>. After the team moved to Carolina in 1997, Rutherford guided the team to three Eastern Conference Finals appearances in 2002, 2006, and 2009. The team won the Stanley Cup in 2006 in an exciting seven-game series against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/oilers\/\" target=\"_self\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>What It Means For Vancouver<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/12\/07\/vancouver-canucks-clean-house-with-recent-firings\/\" target=\"_self\">Vancouver cleaned house earlier this week<\/a>, relieving long-time GM Jim Benning of his duties, along with assistant GM John Weisbrod. The same night the Canucks fired head coach Travis Green, but immediately replaced him with Bruce Boudreau. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;It is time for a new vision and a new leader who will set a path forward for this team,&#8221; Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini said in a statement. Rutherford will continue the search for a full-time GM.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rutherford brings a winning pedigree as well as decades of experience to a Canucks team that has seemed to have lost their way of late. The goal is for Rutherford to lend a stabilizing hand to an organization that was in chaos just a week ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He inherits a young core that includes centre <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/petteel01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elias Pettersson<\/a>, defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hughequ01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Quinn Hughes<\/a>, and goaltender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/demkoth01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Thatcher Demko<\/a>, a solid foundation to build a team around. However, the Canucks are bogged down financially by the bloated contracts of under-performing defencemen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/ekmanol01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oliver Ekman-Larsson<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/myersty01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyler Myers<\/a>. Both players carry huge cap hits for several more years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a lot of pressure and years of disappointment built up in Vancouver. It is known as one of the most passionate markets in the NHL. A change was needed to give an increasingly disenchanted fanbase hope. In the hiring of Jim Rutherford as well as Boudreau, the Canucks may have finally provided that hope.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"Ts9PL85hR-Z1bcTaRrdt5g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/689400466\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Ts9PL85hR-Z1bcTaRrdt5g',sig:'gMLwHLeTCkxiBAWqxtGAScWvCqgmb1u1JS3cujtfU00=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'689400466',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Vancouver Canucks have announced the hiring of Jim Rutherford as President of Hockey Ops and interim General Manager, the team announced via Twitter. The deal is reportedly for three years. Introducing our new President, Hockey Operations: Jim Rutherford. Welcome to Vancouver, Jim. DETAILS | https:\/\/t.co\/iIXe4qJMow pic.twitter.com\/TWw8gvcZIE &mdash; Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) December 9, 2021 Jim [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4044,"featured_media":122395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4548,4547,34,26],"tags":[416],"class_list":["post-122389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl","category-hockey","category-news","category-canucks","tag-bruce-boudreau"],"modified_by":"Brandon Higley-Blair, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}