[Here is the source.](https://triblive.com/sports/jim-rutherford-wishes-his-penguins-tenure-had-ended-different/)
* “In Vancouver, we have a CFL football team, but we don’t have NFL or Major League Baseball like you do in Pittsburgh,” Rutherford said. “And a big thing here — and I totally understand it — is the frustration of having a franchise for as long as they have, getting to the (Stanley Cup) Finals a few times but not winning the Cup. And then of course, even worse than that, is a number of years without being a playoff team.
* “There’s a lot of frustration, and I understand it. We have a wonderful fan base. They understand the game. I like being in a Canadian market. I was born and raised in Canada. Quite frankly, I like being in this market.”
* “I knew it was going to be a challenge,” Rutherford said. “We had some work to do to improve the team. It’s probably been a little bigger challenge than I expected in trying to unravel the cap situation here. The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can move forward and improve the team.
* “We have a lot of good players here. We certainly show signs of that at different times with this group. We haven’t totally come together as a team, which would give us a chance to be more consistent. We’re working and looking at what we can do better.”
* “I have a lot of respect for (Allvin),” Rutherford said. “He’s really good at what he does. The roles are different with me being president and him being the (general manager). I don’t do the phone calls to other (general managers) and things like that. He does the day-to-day stuff that I would have done in the past. That’s a little bit of an adjustment for me. And an adjustment for him in his new role.
* “But overall, our working relationship is real good. We’ve built a very strong hockey (operations department) here. We just have to work hard. We’ll never get as good as we should be as soon as everybody wants. But I think the opportunity is going to be there at some point in time that we can put a pretty good team together here.”
* “I thought I was going to retire 10 years ago, and I didn’t. I would think I would probably retire in the next 10 years,” Rutherford said with a chuckle. “At this point in my life, the stress is harder to handle. But I’m not doing the day-to-day general manager stuff. So that should relieve some of the stress. But we have our challenges here. And I feel a big responsibility to try to make the Canucks better. I still deal with stress. If at some point, that stress gets too hard to handle, that will probably be where I’ll be retired somewhere.”
by PaperMoonShine
26 Comments
Not super encouraging. Doesn’t sound like the big changes we need are coming.
I just want to see some change for the positive. No more signing veterans until they are 38 for 56 million dollars.
“It’s probably been a little bigger challenge than I expected in trying to unravel the cap situation here”
Well no shit Jim, maybe don’t hand out long term contracts like candy on Halloween further complicating our status in Cap Hell.
Yeah sorry but you really can’t be saying “oh woe is me I have to untangle this cap mess” when all you’ve done is hand out panic contracts that have caused that cap mess starting on first day of free agency and peaking once you’ve realized the trade market sucked for miller. Like I would trust you more if you just owned up and said yeah we actually realize this was a fuck up we will have to change course, not just pass on blame. Benning passed the Blame to Gillis for 8 years, no thanks.
I have a very prevailing logic here. It’s easier to replace a coach than a player but rumours are AF does not want to pay 3 coaches at a time. Given they don’t love Brucey boy as much as fans I wonder if the thought of blowing it up is dependent on results of a systems-heavy coach next year. This year is status quo.
You can’t deny that last year, post Travis, this team did well. Lots of the troublesome players this year were there last year…they didn’t simply lose their skill. Before they commit to several years of a rebuild, they probably are not confident in Bruce is making the most of our staff, so why sell low on them?
Blaming having to “unravel the cap situation” when they spent money like Lloyd Christmas buying just the bare essentials certainly is a take.
As I did through the Burke, Gillis, and Benning regimes I’m just going to enjoy hockey and hope the team wins (or just has fun, should the tank be official), but man this doesn’t inspire confidence. Going to be an interesting 2-month leadup to the trade deadline. There’s no way they could just hold the course… right?
If management/ownership just followed one principle they’d be fine: don’t sacrifice long-term success for short-term gains
> “I knew it was going to be a challenge,” Rutherford said. “We had some work to do to improve the team. It’s probably been a little bigger challenge than I expected in trying to unravel the cap situation here. The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can move forward and improve the team.
…I think you made it worse with Timothy Jimothy.
On a side note: the Pirates are barely a MLB team lol.
Collecting some retirement money
A whole lot of nothing. Embarrassing, especially that quote about having to unravel the cap. give me a fucking break. Get rid of these clowns. If Aquilini is not giving them full autonomy, then say it and leave. Blast this shitty owner into the moon.
Did Rutherford really just try to compare the Canucks to a team that only missed the playoffs once since Crosby’s rookie year?
No shit we don’t have patience, this franchise hasn’t done anything worth shit since 2011
I’m so tired of out of market media and management here thinking fan frustration is because we all want that wild card seed.
Its either lazy, uninformed or both. And to hear it coming from the guy who makes your clubs decisions just reinforces everything wrong with this team for 10 years.
Well, I. Am. ***Concerned***.
I am impressed he didn’t find a way to criticize the coach for the cap issues.
JR has said the same thing since he got here. Nothing has changed on that front… minus the “revelation” the flat cap situation being tougher to navigate than he originally anticipated. Not a lot of wiggle room for *any* team and nobody is really trading this year… basically except for us! But tey’ve been trying. Not much you can do but wait it out.
More talk, pass.
Good insight. Bennings cap mistakes continue to haunt vancouver
This regime is worse than the last
It’s like management and ownership live in an alternate reality..
Pretty much what they’ve been saying since they got here. A whole lot of nothing.
The no plan, plan rolls on.
He made the cap situation worse by signing JT. 🤬
The first step in recovery is to admit you have a problem.
If you don’t understand the problem, how could you possibly admit it?
You know like signing a player who’s going to be well into his 30s for the majority of a massive contract?
And you didn’t think that this was going to be an issue in a hard salary cap league?
Or did you think the team was ready to contend? You know after missing the playoffs all but one time over the past 8 years?
Did you think magically they were ready to take five steps forward?
Or how about you just admit the truth that the owner is playing fantasy hockey with a real NHL team and has been doing so since Gillis left.
Looking at these quotes, I don’t see anything of real substance here. Probably not going to get super insightful answers out of JR/PO leading up to the deadline.
One thing I’ve liked about Rutherford/Allvin is they haven’t tried to convince fans that this is a “real good team”. Team needs to untangle the cap, they need to get younger, needs better structure, better habits.
They’ve got a big test coming up for them in less than 2 months. That hard work JR talks about needs to produce some meaningful changes soon.
Reading the clip about respecting Allvin and it being an adjustment to not be the GM makes me think there’s conflict between them. That’s the kind of thing you say to make it sound like there’s not an issue when there’s actually an issue.
“I don’t do the phone calls to other (general managers) and things like that.”
This is why the Miller trade didn’t happen. I wrote this before and people didn’t respond well to it but I wish Rutherford being a hall of famer would relegate rookie Allvin (the four rookie GMs in a row thing) and take over the GM duties and save this franchise.
It’s what Pat Quinn would have done because shit is not getting fixed. He was 3-hat Pat and if someone else couldn’t get the job done he’d do it himself.
His interview seriously sounds like a person who realized: “I’ve made a huge mistake”.
Cue the Arrested Development memes.