Canucks Make It Official: The Sedins Are Back!

It was an announcement we all knew it was coming, but it was still pretty nice to see this pop up today, as the Vancouver Canucks officially announced the addition of Daniel and Henrik Sedin as advisors to GM Jim Benning.

So now that we know it’s done, and they’re back, this is where the questions start. What exactly is their role as ‘Special Advisors’? How much say do they have in the direction of the team? And most importantly, are they going to be able to help a team that is quite honestly a bloody mess? The Sedins were able to thrive with just about anyone on their line, but it wasn’t until they teamed up with Alex Burrows that we saw their finest moments. Is Jim Benning their managerial Burrows, or is he Trent Klatt?

And with all due respect to them, are they going to be able to be as dynamic and effective off ice as they were on it? Wayne Gretzky was the greatest scorer of all time, but his post-retirement hockey jobs were a far cry from the dominance he showed as a player. I think we forget he was a coach for the Phoenix Coyotes at one point.

We all saw what happened with Trevor Linden, and if you thought people were upset after he was unceremoniously dumped by the team, it would be infinitely worse if the Sedins are shown any disrespect by the club.

There’s a lot of work awaiting the twins from Ornskoldsvik, Sweden. The team needs to deal with the upcoming expansion draft as the Seattle Kraken prepare for their inaugural season as the Canucks newest rivals. There’s the 2021 entry draft, free agency and the contract offers that need to be made to Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes. The defence is still a mess, the bottom six have been letting this team down for years, and they have to move their AHL farm club to Abbotsford. No big deal, right? They’re used to shouldering the load, but that’s a big ask out of the gate. It may take some time before we truly see what impact they have on the club, and if this isn’t just a way to take some of the heat off Jim Benning. I hope that’s not the case, but they’re not the kinds to back off from a challenge.