After losing a game handily to sworn enemies at home, it’s probably fairly low on the list of priorities for a president of hockey operations to go on live television and answer questions.
But that’s exactly what Vancouver Canucks president Jim Rutherford did on Saturday night, sitting down on After Hours with Ray Ferraro and Scott Oake following a 5-1 thumping by the Boston Bruins.
Predictably, the questions quickly turned to the team’s most high-profile pending free agent in Brock Boeser, and though not giving any specifics, Rutherford was non-committal when asked about the future of last season’s 40-goal scorer.
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Right now, we’re evaluating his situation,” Rutherford said.
Boeser crashed into the league in the 2017-18 season as a goal-scoring force, potting 29 in an injury-shortened rookie season — a performance which landed him second in Calder Trophy voting.
Though the talent was always there, Boeser didn’t truly break out until the 2023-24 season, when his 40 goals and 73 points registered career-highs.
Is that enough for Rutherford and the front office to pull the trigger on a long-term extension that will keep the Burnsville, Minn. native a Canuck for life?
“The key is going to be what that contract looks like, what the term looks like. All those things. It’s like all contracts; the player’s going to have a different opinion than what the team has. We’ll continue to monitor the situation closely.”
For his part, Boeser has indicated he wants to remain in Vancouver, noting after his 500th game on Thursday how special it felt to do it all with the same club.
“It means a lot,” Boeser said to Sportsnet’s Dan Murphy on Thursday. “I’m a pretty loyal guy so, just to be able to do it with the Canucks means a lot to me and hopefully there’s a lot more to come.”
The decision the Canucks must make before this season’s trade deadline — which falls on March 7 — gets much trickier if the team is in a playoff position. Boeser, who was playing in just his second post-season, was stellar for the Canucks in the 2024 playoffs, scoring seven goals (including a game-changing hat trick) and 12 points in 12 games.
Unlike this time last year, however, when the team was dominating most nights and sat comfortably atop the league standings, this season’s Canucks are just barely sticking around the playoff race. That has much to do with their perplexing home record.
The team is a baffling 5-7-4 at home compared to 10-2-1 on the road. For that reason, the Canucks sit fourth in the Pacific Division and second in the Western Conference wild-card race.
“We beat ourselves at home sometimes, I’d say probably two or three games this year. We don’t play with the same urgency at home,” Rutherford said. “Most teams like to put on a little more of a show at home, and I think we try to do that sometimes.
“We didn’t practise yesterday, we’ve had a couple of other home games where we didn’t practise and we didn’t play well. So, we have some adjustments to make, obviously, but they’re fixable. We’d better fix them quick because you can’t be a playoff team with the record we have at home.”
Unlike slow starts in years past, this time around, Rutherford reiterates that the coach isn’t in jeopardy.
“(Rick Tocchet) does a terrific job,” the president said. “He’s been dealt a different hand this year than he was last year, he’s had a lot more things to deal with and I believe he’s done a very good job and he’ll figure this out.”
Though the Canucks haven’t been great at Rogers Arena, tarnishing their overall record, the team has a few bright spots — the brightest of which is Kevin Lankinen, who is also a pending free agent.
The training camp signee, who missed Saturday’s game with an illness, has posted a .912 save percentage and 2.52 goals-against average and has been a game-changer in his 21 appearances serving as interim starter.
Signed to a discounted one-year, $825,000 contract, Lankinen is surely due a raise next season an could have very well priced himself out of Vancouver.
But when Rutherford was asked whether it’s possible to keep both Lankinen and Thatcher Demko next season, he point-blank said, “yes.”
“We know what Demko’s going to make next year, we don’t know what Lankinen’s going to want, but man… you need goaltending to win.”
With 53 games remaining in the Canucks season and plenty of decisions to be made along the way, Rutherford will continue to be a busy man.
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