Ryan Johnson outlines how Canucks plan to pick a new captain
Under the old Vancouver Canucks management team, Filip Hronek was beginning to look like a shoo-in to be named team captain for next season.
“He would be on that very short list for sure,” former Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford said last April. “He has all the qualities to be a very good captain. He’s a ‘What you see on the ice is what you see off the ice.’ He’s a leader.”
But with Rutherford no longer in charge, has the plan changed?
New Canucks GM Ryan Johnson shared his philosophy in naming a captain on Tuesday, one day after hiring Manny Malhotra as the team’s new head coach. Judging by the way Johnson answered a question posed by Daily Hive, all options are on the table.
“Through my time in managing teams, I am a firm believer that the captain presents itself,” Johnson said. “The captain, it eventually rises to the surface, where you just don’t have a choice. It’s in your gut; everybody can feel it.
“I don’t like forcing that position on someone that might change the dynamic of your team, or it might change that player when it’s not that obvious or that accepted by the group. I’ve seen it in my time as a player [and] as a GM in the AHL.”
The Canucks don’t have an obvious choice to wear the C right now. Hronek checks a lot of boxes, but being a team spokesman with the media is not something he has embraced in the past.
And if it’s not Hronek, then who?
Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Marcus Pettersson wore letters last season, but none of them scream captain material.
“I’ve been very strategic, even about assistant captains,” Johnson added. “I don’t think those are things you just hand around. I think they’re earned.”
It would not be unprecedented to go without a captain next season. That’s what the Canucks did in 2018-19, after Henrik Sedin retired. Instead, the team went with four alternates before Bo Horvat was named captain the following season.
“Obviously, myself and a coach are coming in here with kind of a clean slate. Daniel and Henrik, same way. Nothing is just going to be assumed at all… We’ll go through the initial parts of training camp and make some decisions on people that we think are here and that are able to deliver the environment that we intend to build.”
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