Malhotra reveals new roles for revamped Canucks coaching staff
The new coaching staff has to be better than the old one, right?
Manny Malhotra is set to embark on his first foray as an NHL head coach this month. After being hired by the Canucks back in May, Malhotra finished filling out his coaching staff in July.
One of the biggest knocks was that there’s no one on the Canucks coaching staff, outside of Malhotra, with any NHL experience.
That’s a storyline to follow heading into the season. For now, the staff of Ryan Mougenel, Jordan Smith, and Jason Krog are out to prove that experience isn’t all it’s chalked up to be.
While we count down the days until training camp begins, Malhotra has been preparing with coaching meetings throughout the summer. And this week, he outlined the exact roles for his staff in an interview with Canucks.com’s Lindsey Hortsing.
Mougenel, the most experienced of the Canucks assistants, will run the offence and the power play.
Ryan Mougenel was head coach of the Providence Bruins for five seasons before joining the Canucks. (@TheAHL/X)
Although the Providence Bruins always had one of the AHL’s best records under Mougenel, the power play was a bit of an issue early in his tenure. Providence finished 28th and 26th in the 32-team league on the man advantage during Mougenel’s first two seasons as head coach. They moved up to 17th in 2023-24, before finishing third in 2024-25 and ninth in 2025-26.
On offence, Providence has been a powerhouse. They scored more goals than anyone else in the AHL last year, and they’ve been a top-10 goal-scoring team in each of the past four seasons.
āThe most important thing is how we come [break out],” Mougenel said in November last season. “We want to have depth in how we attack. We believe in ice balance too, so off the rush we want balance, so thatās really important.”
Jordan Smith, who was one of Malhotra’s right-hand guys in Abbotsford, will unsurprisingly run the penalty kill and defence.
Smith worked wonders with the Abbotsford Canucks during the 2024-25 Calder Cup run, successfully relying on a top-pair of Guillaume Brisebois and Victor Mancini throughout the run. While Abbotsford’s PK was middle-of-the-pack during their Cup-winning season, the penalty kill clicked at 88.2 per cent in the playoffs.
Krog’s role appears to be more fluid, with his role defined as helping Mougenel on offence and attacking off the rush, while he’ll continue to work with players individually on skills and video. He previously spent the last two seasons working as a skills coach in Abbotsford and Vancouver.
While understanding who runs what is an important detail for the Canucks, Malhotra suggested that it’s not the most important thing.
“This staff is able to talk to players, not just on a hockey level, but to relate to them as people,” Malhotra said.
“Once you get into that level of conversation with guys, once you get into that level of relationship, then itās much easier to teach and get your point across.”
After two seasons of drama in Vancouver, some visible relatability between coaches and players would be a welcome sight.