Welcome Matt: Allvin, management now at inflection point with Canucks fan base
Jim Rutherford should’ve owned this town. Instead, it’s owning him.
Those boos you heard for Rick Tocchet at Rogers Arena Tuesday night were a function of Rutherford and chairman Francesco Aquilini botching the firing of Bruce Boudreau. They weren’t about Tocchet, but they illustrate what Tocchet and the Canucks now must overcome.
Rutherford assumed some responsibility Sunday and signalled things have to change with his messaging to the fan base.
Canucks fans were so stoked to get Rutherford as president of hockey operations and in just 13 short months, he’s blown all the equity and goodwill he was gifted. He’s now tied to this despised ownership group as someone who will do its bidding, not lead the Aquilini family down a more enlightened path of team-building and people-treating.
It’s really sad, too, because Rutherford stood up to a failing owner in Carolina and was thought to be at the stage of his career where he was immune to pressures from on high. That he was a my-way-or-the-highway guy with owners.
But one thing he has realized is that right-hand man Patrik Allvin has to ascend from this point forward. He’s been on the general manager job for a year and it’s now time he sinks or swims.
The Bo Horvat trade is a big test, but so is communicating with the fans, which sounds like it will be left more and more up to him.
Allvin is terrific talking about subjects he’s passionate about. He needs to improve on the more uncomfortable subjects, but that can and should come with reps.
Because right now, this management group is at an inflection point with the fan base. Canucks Nation wants to believe it is headed in the right direction, but there have already been too many misses from the J.T. Miller re-signing, over Horvat, the belief that they could fast-track a contender, and the fumbled Bordeau firing.
It’s up to Allvin to pull it from the fire. That’s what this franchise needs right now.
An Allvin that is more candid than he has previously been, but less cruel than this direct superior was with Boudreau.
He’s got to carve out a niche that stands apart from Aquilini and Rutherford, where fan perception is that he’s not one of them, but that he’s leading them.
Big ask. I wish him luck.
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