The 2011-12 Canucks campaign began with a shuffled deck. Mike Gillis and the front office were unable to come to terms on a new contract with Christian Ehrhoff, so his negotiating rights were traded three days ahead of the beginning of the free agency period to the New York Islanders in exchange for a fourth round pick in 2012 (Ehrhoff would reject NYI GM Garth Snow’s offer and sign with the Sabres instead, believing them to be a challenger for the Stanley Cup and headed in a good direction, a decision which aged poorly). Early into the year, Mikael Samuelsson and Marco Sturm (the former of whom proved to be a flash in the pan as he never replicated his form shown in his 30 goal campaign and was often unavailable due to health issues, which required season-ending surgery during the 2011 playoff run, and the latter being someone who the org took a gamble on despite injury/surgery history based off of Ehrhoff’s recommendation) were traded to frequent trade partners the Florida Panthers (with whom Samuelsson spent the 2003-04 campaign) in exchange for David Booth, Steven Reinprecht, and a 3rd rounder in 2013. Most notably, however, this was another campaign beginning on a somber note due to the death of former enforcer Rick Rypien over the summer as part of a wave of deaths of NHL tough customers that also claimed the lives of Wade Belak and Derek Boogaard. The season began with a ceremony honoring Rypien’s life and career and the team wore a decal adorned with RYP 37 for the entirety of the year.

The Canucks struggled in the opening ~20 games, playing what felt like “dog days of summer in the baseball season”-esque perpetual .500 hockey. The team began to click in the late stages of November and were dominant in the following couple of months, going a combined 35-11-7 from the beginning of November to the end of February. They sent both Henrik and Daniel Sedin to the All-Star Game as well as Alex Edler, with Cody Hodgson as a rookie representative on Team Chara. Much success was had by Roberto Luongo and Corey Schneider between the pipes, with the two forming more of a tandem with Schneider making 33 appearances in contrast with the previous season’s 25 (with Schneider therefore qualifying for a share of the William M. Jennings Trophy the pair won together by the minimum). The most noteworthy game of the season was the 42nd on January 7th, as they returned to the TD Garden to exorcise some demons. The game was hard-nosed and closely contested and tense as you would expect between the Bruins and Canucks, who would be interconference rivals for a number of years after the previous seasons intense Stanley Cup Finals. This matchup notably featured a hit on Sami Salo by Brad Marchand which resulted in a suspension for the latter. The Canucks would have the last laugh, as they won 4-3 in regulation. Revenge for a lost championship generally cannot come in a regular season win; however, this was an important game for the Canucks as they made the league aware of the fact that they were coming back out for blood after sputtering out as an unhealthy group at the last hurdle in last year’s postseason.

Before the deadline, Gillis did some work on the organizational depth by sending Hodgson and Alexander Sulzer to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Zack Kassian and Marc-Andre Gragnani, as well as Taylor Ellington and two fourth-round picks in that year’s draft in exchange for Samuel Pahlsson from the Columbus Blue Jackets and trading Sebastian Erixon to Anaheim for Andrew Gordon. The results cooled somewhat in the final stretch for Vancouver, as they went a combined 11-6-1 between March and the brief remaining regular season action in April. However, it was enough for them to win a second straight Presidents’ Trophy, edging out the New York Rangers and St. Louis Blues by two points. They would be matched up with the Los Angeles Kings, who, as it turned out, would be a team of destiny. The Kings, anchored by a sound defensive system and goaltending by Jonathan Quick, as well as the hunger of recently acquired ex-Philadelphia Flyers stars Mike Richards and Jeff Carter (Richards directly from Philadelphia, Carter by way of Columbus, as the two were dealt out in separate deals in part as an attempt to clear out cap space for perceived franchise goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov) amongst many others quality pieces such as Anze Kopitar, captain Dustin Brown, and Drew Doughty, won Games 1 and 2 in Vancouver by identical 4-2 scorelines. The Kings then took Game 3 at home by a score of 1-0, with Brown scoring the sole goal. The Canucks managed to avoid an ignominious sweep by winning Game 4 in Los Angeles by a score of 3-1. However, their season would be ended on home ice by a 2-1 overtime victory by the Kings, who would subsequently defeat the Blues, Phoenix Coyotes, and New Jersey Devils (in a matchup that, ironically, had some Canucks flavor to it as Willie Mitchell was an important veteran presence for the Kings and Steve Bernier featured for the Devils, committing a boarding penalty on Rob Scuderi in the deciding Game 6 that blew the game wide open) to win their first-ever Stanley Cup and become the first ever eighth-seed in North American pro sports history to win a championship. The Canucks had a difficult marker on them with this result: For the third straight year, they had lost in the postseason to the eventual Stanley Cup winner – Falling to Chicago in the semis in 2010, Boston in the finals in 2011, and Los Angeles in the quarters in 2012.

Prior to what ended up being a truncated 2012-13 campaign due to yet another NHL lockout (the third in league history, preceded by the 1994-95 season being reduced and the 2004-05 season being eliminated), Gillis largely did not make significant moves, prioritizing extending essential players such as Schneider, Mason Raymond, Dale Weise, goaltender Eddie Lack (not super relevant at the time, it would seem, but would become so), Alex Burrows, and Edler (the lattermost signed the day before the league’s postponed opening night). A notable addition came by way of signing ex-Florida Panthers blueliner Jason Garrison to a six-year deal worth $27.6M. The team saw Pahlsson, Salo, Aaron Rome, Mark Mancari, and Gragnani depart in free agency. This team still had a competitive core and performed reasonably well, though they saw a sharp dropoff in power play production. Gillis attempted to add offensive firepower by acquiring ex-Sabres star forward Derek Roy from Dallas in exchange for Kevin Connauton and a second round pick in that year’s draft. The team, however, was not in their dominant phase anymore. While not in the Presidents’ Trophy race, the Canucks did win their division yet again but were swept out of the first round by the San Jose Sharks. With Gillis promising change, Alain Vigneault (who became the winningest head coach in Vancouver Canucks history over the course of his tenure) was terminated, along with assistant coaches Rick Bowness and Newell Brown. Luongo would be the subject of trade speculation, though in time, Schneider would have his name inserted in said rumors, and would indeed be the one that was shipped out of town. The goaltender was traded to the New Jersey Devils for the ninth overall selection in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, which the front office used on Bo Horvat. The dynamics of the room had indeed changed quite a bit in Vancouver with yet another disappointing ending to a season.

The Canucks and New York Rangers would effectively conduct a head coach swap in the coming times, with Vigneault taking the reins at Madison Square Garden starting in the 2013-14 season and John Tortorella, a fiery personality and old school defensive-minded coach who had won a Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2004 that was simultaneously notably eccentric and private at the same time (see: his decision to live in Point Roberts, Washington during this campaign), would become head coach at the house FKA General Motors Place/now known as Rogers Arena. Fitting the vibe of the coaching hire, the arc of the 2013-14 season was chaotic, unusual, and disappointing for the Vancouver Canucks. The teams fortunes seem to flounder from month-to-month in the 2013 portion of the campaign. Essential pieces missed time with injury and consistency woes did not seem to go away. Top stars were not producing well and the team seemed to not excel under Tortorella’s system. The month of January featured the worst, as well as most bizarre, sequence of events. Luongo was injured in this time and Lack struggled in relief of him. The team suffered their worst loss of the year, 9-1, to the Anaheim Ducks, lost Henrik Sedin to injury in the next matchup against Phoenix, a 1-0 loss before the most puzzling game of the year on January 18th, with Luongo returning to the net but being an effective footnote in what would occur. Facing rivals the Calgary Flames (themselves a floundering club going into the matchup) at home in Vancouver, Calgary HC Bob Hartley opted to start his tough guys, which Tortorella responded to in kind by starting his own, which led to a line brawl immediately upon the opening faceoff. Disgusted with Hartley’s actions, Tortorella stormed down the Calgary tunnel during the first intermission and got into a shouting match with their coaching staff, which resulted in a near fistfight. Vancouver would go on to win the game in a shootout, 3-2. It was a pyrrhic victory, however, as Tortorella was suspended by the league for 15 games and assistant coach Mike Sullivan was unable to provide much help in “emergency relief”, with the team going 2-4-0 for the remainder of the month.

On a more positive note, eight Canucks participated in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Luongo and Dan Hamhuis took home gold medals won with Canada, while Daniel Sedin and Alex Edler took home silver medals won with Sweden. However, with his NHL club, Luongo increasingly became discontent with his lack of playing time, which included him being benched for the 2014 Heritage Classic at BC Place (home of the CFL’s BC Lions and MLS’s Vancouver Whitecaps) on March 2nd against the Ottawa Senators. The Canucks lost that game 4-2 after taking a 2-0 lead, making the decision to start Lack over Luongo even more unpopular in-game and causing media scrutiny to fall upon Tortorella. Luongo had been pressing for a trade and this request would be granted just two days after the Heritage Classic, with him returning to the Florida Panthers in exchange for Shawn Matthias and Jacob Markstrom. Lack then assumed the mantle of starter. A poor performance would fall upon the Canucks when they surrendered 7 goals in the third period to the New York Islanders to lose 7-4 after entering the final stanza with a 3-0 lead on March 10th, but Lack mostly looked solid the remainder of the month, including posting a 4-3 shootout win over the Panthers in the “reunion game” between the Canucks and Bobby Lu in Sunrise on March 16th. Their overall record in March, however, in which Lack started every game, sat at just 6-7-1. The Canucks lost their opening game of April, 3-1, to the New York Rangers, as Vigneault returned to the city he called home for seven seasons, which was a major dash to their postseason hopes. They would go 2-4-0 in the final stretch, finishing with 83 points and being eight points short of the final Western Conference wild card spot, missing the postseason for the first time since 2008. Within short order, Mike Gillis, John Tortorella, and Mike Sullivan would all be relieved of their duties, with Trevor Linden being appointed president of hockey operations and Jim Benning, ex-assistant GM under Peter Chiarelli of the 2011 Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins, being named new general manager and Willie Desjardins the new head coach.

It is perhaps reflecting on the Gillis tenure now and what it said about his executive prowess. While he did make some good supplementary moves that paid off for their Stanley Cup run and perhaps earned his GM of the Year Award that season, the success that happened under him perhaps was not of his own doing. A good chunk of the core had been drafted by Brian Burke and Luongo was the result of a trade made by Dave Nonis. How much credit did he really deserve for the decorations the Canucks put to their name (which also did not include a Stanley Cup as he was not quite able to push them over the edge) under his management? Only so much, really. Gillis has since taught at the University of Victoria and worked as a business development consultant for the NHLPA for just under two and a half years, departing upon the expiration of his contract in December 2023 after having been passed over for the executive director position in favor of former Boston mayor, U.S. Secretary of Labor, and Mass State Rep/longtime local union leader Marty Walsh that February upon the resignation of Donald Fehr, with the NHLPA having been seeking change and Fehr having been under criticism of his handling of the Chicago Blackhawks sexual assault scandal. With regards to his direct predecessors, Nonis is now assistant GM and senior VP of hockey operations for the Calgary Flames and Brian Burke serves as executive director for the PWHL’s player association.

In the following decade since the end of the Gillis era, the Canucks have undergone plenty more transformations. They have seen the Sedin twins era wind down in the next few seasons, experienced the emergence and breakthrough of 2017 NHL Entry Draft selection Elias Pettersson, recruited a new brain trust by hiring Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin as POHO and GM respectively, and had Quinn Hughes establish himself as one of the best defensemen in the league quite quickly. Since the Torts firing, they have seen Desjardins, Travis Green, Bruce Boudreau, and Rick Tocchet stand behind the bench. Tocchet has been quite a surprise. Far from a thinking man’s coach, he did deliver some impressive results nevertheless in his inaugural season. This past year caught everyone by surprise and saw Hughes take home the Norris and Tocchet win the Jack Adams. Perhaps this season will see yet more success for them. Who knows? Christian will have more on that in time when his entry on the Canucks happens in the return of our NHL offseason reviews. Meanwhile, though, while there are remnants of old times in the Canucks organization as it exists today, with Aquilini still owning the club and the Sedin twins involved in player development, it feels as though, over the last ten years, the team has cultivated a new soul in contrast with its somewhat consistent identity that persisted through three different GMs’ tenures. One that felt capable of great things, but never achieved the ultimate goal and always felt chaotic and frenetic off and sometimes even on the ice. It’s not just something that inevitably changes over time, either, with players and personnel coming and going. The character and personality the organization emits now feels vastly different, which says something considering how stagnant organizational identities can be. Whether or not this translates to another successful run of seasons or the first Stanley Cup victory in franchise history, only time will tell, but the Vancouver faithful should be excited for what direction their favorite team seems to be headed in.