Why Manny Malhotra should be the pick as head coach for rebuilding Canucks

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Within the NHL, the prevailing assumption is that Abbotsford Canucks bench boss Manny Malhotra will eventually be named as Foote’s replacement. Even Johnson wasn’t exactly mincing words that this process begins with Malhotra. There may be some negotiating to do — Malhotra is a top prospect to graduate to an NHL head coaching job, and there are reportedly other teams that would be interested in interviewing him — but Malhotra should be named Vancouver’s head coach in short order. The fit is obvious. Malhotra formed a championship-winning partnership with Johnson in Abbotsford, delivering the Calder Cup in his first year as head coach during the 2024-25 campaign. There’s a deep rapport and a lot of trust between those two. Malhotra, additionally, is a former teammate of Canucks co-presidents Henrik and Daniel Sedin. The twins have spent a lot of time working with players in Abbotsford and have had a front row seat to observe Malhotra’s leadership style and maturation as a professional bench boss. The rebuilding Canucks will likely ice a young, inexperienced team next season (and the year after that, and probably the year after that too). They’ll be overmatched more often than not from an on-ice talent perspective. Vancouver has also filtered through an embarrassment of coaches since moving on from Travis Green early on during the 2021-22 season. Over the last five seasons, the Canucks have cycled through Green, Bruce Boudreau, Rick Tocchet and Foote. This level of churn isn’t unprecedented in an NHL environment where the average lifespan of a head coach is extraordinarily short. There are only three NHL head coaches who have been in their current job for five complete seasons or more (Jon Cooper, Rod Brind’Amour and Jared Bednar), and only five who have been in their current job for more than three complete seasons. In Vancouver’s case, however, the chronic instability the club has endured behind the bench over the past half-decade has been emblematic of a level of organizational dysfunction that the Sedins and Johnson are intent on putting to an end. The conclusion of Green’s tenure, for example, was marked by an awkward lame duck season and a multi-week stretch in which hockey operations leadership attempted to fire him (only to be dismissed before getting the opportunity to do so). Bruce Boudreau was hired as a band-aid fix before Vancouver formally hired a new head of hockey operations, which led to 12 months of behind-the-scenes discomfort and a level of dysfunction that repeatedly spilled over into public view. Tocchet, meanwhile, was offered a massive bag to remain in Vancouver, but cautiously regarded the club’s trajectory and effectively said: “Thank you, but no thank you.” Foote simply wasn’t ready for a head coaching gig at the NHL level. In naming Foote’s replacement, the Canucks require someone capable of developing young players and selling the aligned, stable vision for the future of this team that Johnson and the twins have outlined. That latter point is key. Whether you’re in a hot Canadian market or in the Sun Belt, the patience of fans with any head coach wears thin in the absence of results, and the Canucks’ next head coach is unlikely to have the benefit of wins to fall back on over the medium-term. Selling the process, and selling progress — as opposed to results — isn’t impossible. In Montreal, a ravenous market in which the team is frequently criticized in two languages, Martin St. Louis has provided a playbook that the Canucks, and Malhotra (or whoever their next coach is) would be wise to study. On both of these fronts, Malhotra is clearly the most credible candidate for the Canucks job. His track record developing players in Abbotsford — Linus Karlsson, Elias Pettersson (the defender), Max Sasson, Kirill Kudryavtsev — speaks for itself. He’s also quick on his feet, well spoken, and his name carries weight with hockey fans in Vancouver. Malhotra is also at the stage of his career where he’s gained the experience as a professional head coach and as an NHL assistant to be a very good profile bet to succeed at the NHL level based on his track record. The 46-year-old has now been coaching professionally for nine seasons, since he joined Green’s staff in Vancouver during the 2017-18 campaign. Across three seasons working with Green, culminating in the Edmonton bubble, Malhotra served as an eye-in-the-sky assistant. During the 2020 offseason, partly as a result of Vancouver’s pandemic-related budget crunch and partly because he was offered a spot working on the bench on Sheldon Keefe’s staff, Malhotra joined the Toronto Maple Leafs. He remained with Toronto for four years, working in a variety of roles — including running the power play (which, it should be noted, didn’t play to his strengths or go very well), and as an eye-in-the-sky again — ultimately departing the organization for the Abbotsford job after Keefe’s dismissal in the summer of 2024. By this point, Malhotra had amassed a significant resume as an assistant, but he’d never served as a professional head coach at any level. It was a pretty significant leap of faith for the Canucks to replace an experienced, high-end AHL coach in Jeremy Colliton with Malhotra, but it was a bet that proved to be a smashing success. In Malhotra’s first season, Abbotsford won 44 games and the first and only professional hockey championship in Canucks history. And Abbotsford won that championship without an especially stacked roster filled with high draft picks or high-pedigree prospects. To win a very difficult championship in your first season as a professional head coach at any level is a stunning accomplishment. The rarity of it, in fact, shouldn’t be ignored or understated. It was a result that established Malhotra as something of a wunderkind. Obviously, Malhotra’s second season wasn’t quite as successful, but context is critical to keep in mind here. During the 2024-25 campaign, the veteran core of Abbotsford’s roster remained largely intact throughout the season. Thirteen Abbotsford players appeared in 50 games, and 11 of those 13 players were on NHL-standard player contracts. During the 2025-26 season, in contrast, Abbotsford had 10 players appear in 50 games, and only five of those 10 were signed to NHL-standard player contracts. Effectively, when an NHL team gets sick, its AHL affiliate often gets a cold. In addition to the talent drain in the wake of Abbotsford’s Calder Cup win, that’s what occurred for Malhotra and Abbotsford last season. Weighed against what was accomplished in Malhotra’s first season and looked at in the context of successful NHL coaches and how their AHL teams performed, it’s of relatively limited concern. One thing I’d thought in an off-hand way in considering Malhotra’s presumptive ascension to the Canucks job is that his overall coaching track record and experience were still a bit light for an NHL head coach, even if his work product has generally been very impressive. In looking over current NHL head coaches with AHL experience, however, most highly successful AHL head coaches are very quickly given the opportunity to run a bench in the NHL. Green, Ryan Huska and Bednar worked four seasons in the AHL, and Bednar is a bit of an odd case, since he worked for two AHL franchises that relocated almost immediately after his tenure concluded. Marco Sturm, Cooper and Spencer Carbery spent three seasons as AHL head coaches, but that requires further qualification, too. Cooper really spent parts of three seasons with Syracuse before the Tampa Bay Lightning promoted him, while two of Carberry’s three seasons with Hershey were truncated by the pandemic.  Carberry’s 171 regular-season games coached in the AHL don’t really represent a full season of experience more than Malhotra’s 144 AHL regular-season games coached. Elsewhere, Glen Gulutzan worked two seasons as an AHL bench boss before the Dallas Stars promoted him, as did Ryan Warsofsky before signing on with the San Jose Sharks. And Mike Sullivan only ever spent a year and a half total as an AHL head coach. Even beyond his career as a player, if we focus solely on Malhotra’s seven years as an NHL assistant and two years as an AHL head coach and factor in his track record at those levels, Malhotra’s experience is consistent with that of a candidate who’s ready to run a bench in the NHL. And it’s consistent with that of a candidate that’s a good bet to be an average or better NHL bench boss right off the hop. Malhotra seems ready to coach in The Show. In fact, he was probably the right choice for the Canucks job last summer. This time, it’s on Vancouver’s new management team to get the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, and land the right guy for the job. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms