Ryan Johnson just made several key hires, and they reveal a bigger plan for the Canucks

General manager Ryan Johnson just handed head coach Manny Malhotra three new assistants with zero NHL bench experience.

The Vancouver Canucks announced Friday that Ryan Mougenel, Jordan Smith, and Jason Krog are joining as assistant coaches, with Andrew Shaw added as assistant to the video coach.

Not one of them has run a shift behind an NHL bench.

Malhotra himself was hired on June 1, 2026, and now he's building his entire staff the same way ownership seems to like it. Cheap and untested.

That's the pattern fans keep circling back to. It's the same blueprint the front office used with the management hires, and now it's showing up again on the coaching side.

Here's the thing about betting on unproven coaches. It's a little like handing the keys to a brand new car to someone who just got their license. They might drive fine. They might not.

Canucks bottom out the standings as staff turnover continues

Vancouver finished the season 25-49-8, good for 58 points and dead last in the league at 32nd overall.

The goal differential tells the story on its own. The Canucks were outscored 316 to 216, a minus-100 mark that ranked among the ugliest in hockey this year.

Their last 10 games went 4-6-0, and they dropped their most recent outing 1-6 on the road against the Edmonton Oilers.

Elias Pettersson finished with 51 points over 74 games, but his plus-minus sat at minus-30, and his production dried up down the stretch with just six points across his final 10 appearances.

Brock Boeser led Vancouver forwards with 22 goals, though his own rating fell to minus-48 on the season, the kind of number that raises questions no matter how many pucks go in.

So now the front office is betting that a coaching staff without a single game of NHL experience among the assistants can turn that around.

Maybe Mougenel, Smith, and Krog develop into sharp NHL coaches. Maybe this whole approach ages badly by December. Either way, Vancouver just doubled down on inexperience at the exact moment it needed answers.