Just Another Rutherford Victim

There's no doubt that the world feels that Bruce Boudreau deserved better than how he was treated by the Vancouver Canucks. Boudreau was doing his best with what he had to work with in a roster that was littered with contractual mistakes as much as it is solid talent. I'll be surprised if new head coach Rick Tocchet can get anything more out of a listless Canucks squad compared to what Boudreau was getting, but that will be the question time will answer as we move forward in yet another debacle that Jim Rutherford is overseeing. If we're being honest with ourselves, the crux of the problem wasn't Boudreau or the flawed roster, but it is the man who is overseeing the path on which the Canucks find themselves, and there are reasons to be worried that Jim Rutherford's guidance is and always will be the problem in this era of the Vancouver Canucks.

Jim Rutherford was hired by the Vancouver Canucks on December 9, 2021 as the president of hockey operations while also serving as the interim general manager as he was to eventually hire someone to fill that role as well. At the time of his hiring, people pointed to him guiding the Pittsburgh Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017 as positives while others had suggested his 20-year tenure with the Carolina Hurricanes that saw the North Carolina NHL franchise win the Stanley Cup in 2006 as evidence of his longevity in the league, thus giving him instant credibility.

While both of those facts are true - he was in charge of the Penguins for their back-to-back championships and he did oversee the Hurricane for 20 years including 2006 when they won a Stanley Cup - we might want to look deeper into Rutherford's history because there's a vast number of years where he didn't win, leading one to believe that his Stanley Cup victories may be less to do with his abilities as a roster architect and more to do with people succeeding in spite of Rutherford's decisions.

When one looks back at Rutherford's two decades with the Hurricanes, what stands out? The 2006 Stanley Cup is certainly a highlight, but there were a lot of misses to go along with that one major achievement. After all, Rutherford was the man in charge when the Whalers made the deal with St. Louis that resulted in the Brendan Shanahan situation, he was the guy who dealt away Chris Pronger to get an unhappy-to-be-there Shanahan, he was the guy who used the third-overall pick in 2005 on Jack Johnson only to pick eight more players in that draft who never played a game in the NHL, and he was the guy who hired and fired Paul Maurice TWICE.

I can't deny that there were some highlights as Rutherford had drafted key players of that 2006 team such as Cam Ward, Eric Staal, and Erik Cole, but he never was one to resist the big name in a trade as he swung deals for players like Rod Brind'Amour, Ray Whitney, Doug Weight, and Mark Recchi en route to that Stanley Cup. After winning the 2006 Cup, Rutherford's deals became increasingly questionable as he dealt Erik Cole to Edmonton on July 1, 2008 only to reacquire him on March 4, 2009 in exchange for Justin Williams. He traded Cory Stillman to Ottawa on February 11, 2008 only to reacquire Stillman from Florida on February 24, 2011. It was hard to understand the contract he gave to Tuomo Ruutu. It was insanity to overpay for Alexander Semin.

There's no arguing that the 2006 Stanley Cup was the pinnacle of Rutherford's tenure in Carolina, but his departure from the Hurricanes in 2014 had left the Hurricanes with a number of bad contracts connected to players past their primes, a farm system with few blue-chip prospects, and very few tradeable assets. Two general managers later, the Hurricanes are finally putting the Rutherford tenure behind them.

His departure from the NHL lasted just two months as Rutherford was back in the league with the Pittsburgh Penguins in May 2014, and he immediately began making deals as James Neal was the first player traded by Rutherford in his Pittsburgh era. And the questionable deals started that season as well as he dealth Philip Samuelsson to Arizona for Rob Klinkhammer on December 5, 2014 only to flip him and a first-round pick to Edmonton on January 2, 2015 for David Perron.

While that's actually a good trade in my books, I noted the first-round pick because in six years of running the Penguins, Rutherford managed to trade away ten picks in the first and second rounds of drafts. For all the work Ray Shero did to build up the prospect pool for the Penguins, Rutherford absolutely decimated it with his inclusion of draft picks in trades. While some were absolutely worth the price - bring Kessel to Pittsburgh cost the Penguins a first-round pick - one has to wonder how a second-round pick for Ron Hainsey was even close to "fair market value". Or sending two picks for Daniel Winnik was worth the value.

Of course, Rutherford also orchestrated the entire Marc-Andre Fleury debacle that saw the beloved netminder become a Vegas Golden Knight. He was the man who signed Jack Johnson to a ridiculous contract in Pittsburgh. He was the guy who traded for Erik Gudbranson. He was the guy who couldn't find someone to replace Nick Bonino to center the third line. Players who have shown talent in other cities - Perron, Tanner Pearson, Daniel Sprong, Jared McCann - all wore Penguins colours under Rutherford.

Just as he had done in Carolina, Rutherford made a few big splashes that paid off with Stanley Cup successes, but his tinkering and tweaking of the roster following the Stanley Cup wins resulted in the franchise being worse off than when he arrived. What he did in 20 years in Carolina, he managed to do in just six in Pittsburgh despite him having two franchise centerman and a likely Hall-of-Fame defender on his roster for those six years.

And that leads to Vancouver where Rutherford took over a franchise who was already in shambles, and has done nothing except leave those shambles tattered and torn through poor decisions, bad signings, questional personnel moves, and rather bizarre management since accepting the position of president of hockey operations.

Narrowing our focus to Bruce Boudreau, I'm not sure what the Canucks expected after the circuses surrounding Bo Horvat's contract negotiations, JT Miller's bizarre behaviour, the underperforming Conor Garland, and a defence that struggles to move the puck anywhere, but Rutherford's ongoing foreshadowing of a coaching change had to weigh heavily on Boudreau and it caught up to the Canucks three days ago as well based on comments after the game.

"The mindset and mood got to us tonight," Tyler Myers said to reporters following a 4-1 loss to the Avalanche. "The most noise I've experienced in my career."

That noise to which Myers referred was the ongoing saga of the Canucks letting Boudreau hang in the lurch after making it clear his days were numbered. That was also noticed by the entire hockey world with Colorado's Andrew Cogliano weighing in.

Cogliano's been around this league for a while and has had a number of different coaches, so seeing a player step up and defend a coach from the opposing team is a pretty big thing. I don't know if the Canucks or Rutherford took notice, but if the players are noticing that things in Vancouver are a debacle... good luck convincing players to re-sign or signing free agents this summer.

He wasn't the only one to speak up.

• Former Hurricane Jeff O'Neill on TSN's Overdrive: "That's flat out disgusting, I can't believe that garbage."
• Overdrive co-host Brian Hayes: "This is a complete embarrassment.... this is 10 times worse than the Gallant situation."
• Former HNiC host Dave Hodge: "Obviously, the Vancouver Canucks know how bad their treatment of Bruce Boudreau makes them look. Just as obviously, they don't care."
• Winnipeg Sun scribe Scott Billick: "The Canucks organization deserves every bit of criticism they've gotten and will get after the way they treated Boudreau."
• NHL analytics guru Jeff Veillette: "What an embarrassment of an organization. Hope you're happy, Francesco."
• Former NHL official Tim Peel: "This should not be happening to a man that has given everything he has to professional hockey for over 40 years."

It doesn't matter if you're a player, a radio host, a TV host, a reporter, a front office guy, or an official, everyone holds Bruce Boudreau in the highest respects, and his class and dignity is forever-endearing in the face of an NHL franchise and a president of hockey operations in Jim Rutherford who hung him out to dry on January 16 when Rutherford told reporters, "All I can say is that Bruce is our coach right now." That "now" lasted another full week.

Shifting our focus back to Rutherford, we shouldn't forget that he left the Carolina Hurricanes franchise in shambles, he walked away from the Pittsburgh Penguins after decimating that organization's depth, and his work with the Vancouver Canucks thus far has led to front office personnel suing the franchise, a beloved coach being canned for a man who has twice been charged with white-collar crimes, and players questioning all decisions made by the franchise on a number of fronts. While not all of those decisions have been directly made by Rutherford, the president of hockey operations likely has some say or input on a lot of those decisions.

I believe that Bruce Boudreau will land another NHL job when he's ready. We can debate when and where that may be, but Bruce Boudreau is one of those guys for whom franchises are always clamouring - a guy who cares about the players, makes them better through coaching, and a guy who instills a culture where players and coaches want to be. The fact that Vancouver had him under contract before dismissing him and he was doing that in their locker room might be enough evidence to prove the Canucks are the worst managed team in the NHL.

However, if we look back on the last 30 years of Jim Rutherford's work, it would seem this result was inevitable. The only question was how long it would take for the franchise to implode before he walked away from another team. Being that Vancouver was already in dire straits, that process to complete collapse seems to have sped up under Rutherford's watch.

In saying that, the hockey world is right: Bruce Boudreau deserves better. Not because of the treatment he received in the last month - albeit that's part of it - but because Boudreau shouldn't have to put up with Rutherford's ability to decimate a franchise. He's a free man now, and he'll be better off for it. Unfortunately, Canucks fans will be forced to watch the franchise burn for a while longer.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!