Vancouver Canucks President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford met the media following Tuesday evening’s draft lottery, which saw the team learn they would be picking third overall in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft.
Rutherford began the media availability by discussing the draft lottery results.
“Despite the fact that the Canucks aren’t going to pick number one, it doesn’t mean that we have to be all upset about this. This is a really strong draft. You really don’t know how the draft is going to fall. You’ve got a number of good defencemen in there. Don’t know how high they’re going to go, and so until we get to the draft, it’ll just be speculation how it ends up falling,” said Rutherford.
“But whatever way it falls, we feel very strong that we’re getting a really good player. And who that player is, we’ll just have to wait and see. So, with the disappointment of all the excitement that goes with picking number one, number three is still going to be a great building block for the Vancouver Canucks.”
He did not give any names when discussing some of the top prospects in the draft, but did mention that some defencemen are good enough to go number one in the draft, while also mentioning that when you are building a championship team, you’ve got to be strong down the middle.
Rutherford went on to discuss the Canucks’ vacancy at General Manager. He said he has spoken to over 15 candidates but has narrowed the list to five.
“I’ve been through this process before. I don’t think [I have] ever interviewed as many people as we did this time, but this has been as good a process as I’ve seen. A lot of interesting people, a lot of interesting ideas [on] how they would approach things. So, it is going to be a tough decision,” said Rutherford.
He later discussed the team’s future and how the organization wants to gradually keep moving forward to being a playoff team.
“Does that take two years? Three years? Four years? I don’t think anybody knows. It wouldn’t be wise for somebody to think they know,” said Rutherford. “But within that period of time, keep adding those young players, and if we can add the type of players that are already in there that have got good character, it’ll happen sooner than later.”
At the conclusion of the availability, Rutherford confirmed that, moving forward, following the draft, he will step into an advisory role and remain with the organization as an alternate governor.
He is confident in putting together a really good staff moving forward. Rutherford would not confirm if a President of Hockey Operations will be put in place with the new General Manager, but the team will be able to announce their plans when the GM is announced in the near future.
