Jim Rutherford gets back in the game with a big challenge in Vancouver

Over the years we’ve had many occasions to chat with Jim Rutherford, the new head of hockey operations and interim GM of the Vancouver Canucks.

We’ve hung out in his office and he’s joined various podcasts we’ve hosted over the years. We’ve spoken on the phone and talked at GM and Board of Governors meetings.

One morning in a small community rink in Pittsburgh, we ran into Rutherford as we were both watching our sons play hockey.

And our opinion is likely no different than the hundreds of hockey folk who have interacted with Rutherford over the years. That he is a gentleman, a forward-thinking, thoughtful, big-picture person, who is quick to laugh and generous of spirit.

But — and again this is pretty much universally known by those who have interacted with the Hall of Fame GM — don’t ever mistake his intrinsic good nature for a lack of competitiveness. There is a line of steel that runs the length and breadth of Jim Rutherford’s being.

And don’t ever, ever bug him on a game day.

Rutherford gets his game face on early and it stays on, win or lose.

Rutherford, 72, was at his gregarious best last Monday as he was introduced formally to the Vancouver fan base. He joked that it is true that current coach Bruce Boudreau, hired a week ago, scored his first NHL goal on Rutherford because they were pals and Rutherford felt bad Boudreau wasn’t scoring much.

And he joked that he came out of self-imposed exile from the game – he left the Pittsburgh Penguins less than a year ago – because he missed the stress.

But the jokes suggest a real truth about this hiring.

Rutherford takes on this post not because he needed this job, but because he loves a challenge and the Canucks are nothing if not a challenge.

“There’s holes in this lineup,” Rutherford said. “There’s areas that need to be worked on.”

The GM prefers a fast team and the Canucks are not as fast team. But Rutherford’s hoping they can learn to play with more quickness to make up for that.

He believes in Thatcher Demko as an elite goaltender around whom the team can grow. He also likes the potential in foundational defenseman Quinn Hughes and underachieving forward Elias Pettersson.

The challenge for Rutherford will be in determining just where the Canucks fit on that spectrum between rebuild and contend.

The Canucks have responded to a new head coach, introduced exactly a week ago, with four straight wins.

But even with that, the Canucks remain in seventh place in the Pacific Division with a .448 points percentage while the second wild card team in the Western Conference, Vegas, is at .593. In short, the Canucks’ ability to climb into the playoff discussion remains a longshot proposition.

He promised that he won’t be looking at trading high draft picks and that he’s not looking to make an early trade, even though he acknowledged other GMs have already been on the phone with him since news of his new post broke.

The reality, he said, is that he won’t really have a handle on exactly where the Canucks are at until the end of January.

“I understand it’s a challenge,” Rutherford said. “We all know that. There’s a lot of work to be done here. That’s why I’m here. I’ll give it my best.”

Social media was alive with folks who pointed out moves that Rutherford made in the past that didn’t pan out, such as acquiring Jack Johnson and Erik Gudbrandson.

Guess what? Stuff happens when you’ve been a GM since the mid-1990s.

For us, the big question is not specific trades Rutherford made or didn’t make– or may or may not make in the coming days in Vancouver — but how does he approach rebuilding the structure of this team, starting with the hockey operations department.

“My focus immediately will be to get this restructured,” Rutherford said of the hockey department.

He’s got a list of about 40 people from which a new GM might appear. He expects to begin making calls, collecting information perhaps as early as this evening. Later this week he hopes to bring in an assistant GM to help him with the ongoing machinery of the Canucks.

For us, that’s been Rutherford’s strength and it is proven in the three Stanley Cup rings he owns, including back-to-back Cup wins in Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017 and the plaque bearing his likeness in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Those are the measures of the man — not whether he had personnel missteps among the literally hundreds of transactions he’s made over the decades.

Tom Fitzgerald, the GM of the New Jersey Devils, worked for Rutherford when Rutherford took over for Ray Shero as GM in Pittsburgh in June of 2014.

Fitzgerald recalls that Rutherford was quiet and very funny.

“And very complimentary,” Fitzgerald said Monday.

Whether it was a signing or having a prospect that had been brought along by a member of the hockey ops department, he always made sure to share his praise.

“He treated me great,” Fitzgerald said. “He treated me like I’d worked with him for 10 years and not just one year.”

What made Rutherford an important figure for a young executive like Fitzgerald and his colleagues, Jason Karmanos, Jason Botterill and current Wild GM Bill Guerin, was that Rutherford created clear roles for his staff and then he let them do their jobs.

“Jimmy’s a mentor of mine,” Fitzgerald said. “I learned a lot from him.”

Guerin felt that Rutherford would be back in the game sooner than later and like Fitzgerald, believes Rutherford’s experience will be a boon to whomever comes in as GM and to those already in place in the hockey ops department in Vancouver.

“For me, the one thing about Jim is he didn’t micromanage you,” Guerin said. “He let me do my job and what I felt I needed to do to get better.”

Rutherford would ask what his staff were doing and he would offer his opinion if required. But otherwise, staff had autonomy to learn and grow in their roles.

“It was like just make sure you’re getting the job done and I thought that’s a great way to do it,” said Guerin, whose Wild are one of the surprises of the season sitting in first place in the Central Division. “You don’t want somebody hovering over you all the time.”

That part of Rutherford’s nature will be critical to his success in Vancouver.

At some point Rutherford will bring on board a GM with whom he will work in trying to chart a course forward for a Canucks team that has been adrift for much of the last decade.

He’ll be tasked with helping Henrik and Daniel Sedin find their footing and their voice within the organization.

He is a consensus builder and that should create a welcoming place for the Sedins.

Rutherford also comes from an organization in Pittsburgh where his mandate was to make sure that superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin had a supporting cast that gave the Pens at least a fighting chance at playoff success every single year.

“Jim’s not afraid to pull the trigger,” Fitzgerald said. “He knows what his team needs and he goes out and gets it. I don’t expect that to change in Vancouver.”

“He’s a Hall of Famer for a reason,” Fitzgerald noted.

He built a Stanley Cup winner in Carolina and then endured years of having to build a team under severe financial restrictions before changing gears and helping the Penguins to a rare championship repeat This job in Vancouver feels like it’s somewhere in between and it looks like Rutherford is ready to get his game face back on, even if most of the early heavy lifting will be internal as opposed to on the ice.