“We’ve gotta show up every day and lead by example,” Henrik Sedin said at a Canucks press conference on Thursday, an event that introduced him and his brother Daniel as the club’s new Co-Presidents, and Ryan Johnson, a.k.a. “R.J.”, as the franchise’s new general manager.
“Culture is huge,” Henrik continued. “You cannot win without it; that’s impossible. And you cannot be sustainable without it. For us, the culture piece is our main thing to fall back on over the next little bit here. And that’s starting with us. We’ve got to come in every day, and we’ve got to show up and we’ve got to do the things that took us to this position. It’s the same as players — preparation, preparation. We’re going to do everything it takes to do this job well.”
The Swedish twins are well known to have integrity and work ethic. On the ice, they sit 1-2 on the all-time scoring list in Canucks history; Henrik with 1,070 points and Daniel with 1041. By the way, the next closest is a fellow Swede, Markus Naslund, with 756.
The Sedins completed their 17-year NHL playing careers in 2018.
In true twin-like fashion, they began their portion of the media availability delivering a speech together while alternating back and forth. They then introduced Johnson, who’s seen practically every element of the organization over the last 14 years, including building the Abbotsford Canucks into an American Hockey League Calder Cup champion last season. An assistant GM with the big club, R.J. also served as the GM with the AHL team.
Johnson survived an interview process that included 17 GM candidates, and takes over an NHL team beginning a full-on rebuild.
“I think to put any type of timeline on it is unfair to the process,” Johnson said. “I think it’s more about building the environment first, it’s making sure that the staples are there, the things that we believe in — creating an environment, a safe environment, where players can improve, can make mistakes, that have resources.”
He pointed out that evaluations continue and that no decision has been made yet on the future of Canucks head coach Adam Foote.
Earlier Canucks:
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The press conference, with the initial introduction by Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini:
