Trevor Linden has his work cut out for him as Canucks' new president

Today the Vancouver Canucks joined a trend in NHL management: hire the favourite son. The idea of an ex-player turning into a front-office suit is as old as Lester Patrick, but more recently we’ve seen club after club install a former “face of the franchise” player at the top of its executive ranks. Cam Neely in Boston, Joe Sakic in Colorado, Pat Lafontaine (for about five hours) in Buffalo—and now Trevor Linden, who was introduced to the media as the Vancouver Canucks’ new president this morning at Rogers Arena.

The media conference itself gave few insights into the hiring. That’s because it was a media conference. You could have written much of the transcript beforehand—all of the statements about the importance of “fundamentally sound hockey” and the need to “fully assess the situation moving forward” and the commitment to “do what we have to do to make this a winning organization” and “at this juncture” and “full evaluation of how we get better” and “I want to thank” and so on.

But one of these clichés also happened to contain the main truth about this latest episode in the Canucks’ strange tale. When asked by TSN’s Farhan Lalji whether his new gig is in fact a PR move to prop up the club’s declining box-office figures, Linden reached for more word-putty to fill the time hole and managed to hit on a make-or-break fact about his position: “I think it’s one of those things where you need to surround yourself with good people,” he said. “Ultimately, that’s what this is—it’s about building a team, not just on the ice but off the ice.”

Sakic would agree. Around this time last year, Burnaby Joe rolled the dice by picking ex-teammate and noted loose cannon Patrick Roy as his rookie head coach—and won big. The HR decisions facing Linden, not only about coaching but about general management, are equally at the mercy of luck, and even more difficult than what Sakic faced during the last off-season.

At that time, the Avalanche had just finished bouncing off the bottom of the NHL standings, with plenty of slack cut by well-established fan apathy (not to mention distraction provided by things like Peyton Manning). Their most pressing issue was which blue-chip prospect to take with their first-overall pick in the draft. The Canucks, on the other hand, are something much closer to the current Toronto Maple Leafs: dragging a bunch of heavy old long-term contracts through the desert, with reserves running dangerously low and no clear idea of how they got out here in the first place, kept sleepless at night by the baying of media and fans.

The possible solutions to their problems seem countless, but that’s because their problems keep multiplying. What to do about goaltending that has been magically transformed from one of the league’s most solid tandems into one of the league’s most inexperienced? What to do about Ryan Kesler, who never really bothered to deny trade-deadline rumours that he wants out of here? What to do about the fact that most of the team’s youth, such as the 19-year-old Bo Horvat and the 19-year-old Hunter Shinkaruk, are actually way too young at this point to be of much help? Also: how to work a trade with a team other than the Florida Panthers?

This city desperately wants to continue its love affair with Trevor Linden, which peaked 20 years ago during a heroic playoff run. But as Johnny Thunders once sang, you can’t put your arms around a memory. Not like you can around, say, the Stanley Cup.