The Vancouver Canucks have made even more additions to their hockey operations department, making it one of the most robust in the entire NHL.
Scott Young is the most intriguing hire, stepping in as director of player personnel after five years as director of player development for the Pittsburgh Penguins and two years as an assistant coach with Team USA at the Olympics.
The Penguins have been highly-lauded for their ability to develop prospects in the AHL and turn them into legitimate contributors at the NHL level and Young played a significant role in that. It’s the latest in a string of hires in the team’s player development department, with development rightfully a major concern for Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin.
As a result of the hire, Ryan Johnson will retain his position as general manager of the Abbotsford Canucks but will see his front office role with the Canucks changed to assistant to the general manager.
The Canucks also hired Dylan Crawford, son of former Canucks coach Marc Crawford, as video coach to replace Darryl Seward. Crawford was video coach for the Chicago Blackhawks last season and assistant video coach with the Blackhawks for three seasons before that.
Frank Golden was also hired as a college free agent scout after eight years as an amateur scout with the Penguins. The Penguins have also had some success with undrafted free agents out of the NCAA, so that's also an intriguing hire.
But the hiring that will garner most of the attention is that of Dale Tallon.
Tallon's reputation has taken a beating
Tallon has a long history with the Canucks. He was the team’s first-ever draft pick, taken second overall after they lost their first-ever draft lottery. Tallon played three solid seasons for the Canucks before he was traded to the Blackhawks.
Now, of course, Tallon is more well known as a hockey executive. He was the general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks for four seasons, then won the Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks as the team’s senior advisor after being ousted from the GM role by Stan Bowman.
Tallon then worked for the Florida Panthers for a decade as their general manager and, first, vice president of hockey operations, then president of hockey operations. The Panthers made the playoffs just twice in his ten years as GM.
Tallon’s reputation as a hockey executive took a beating in that time. He already had one massive gaffe on his record from his time with the Blackhawks. He infamously failed to get qualifying offers to his restricted free agents on time in 2009, which would have made all of them — including rookie-of-the-year finalist Kris Versteeg — unrestricted free agents.
Tallon did manage to re-sign all of those free agents but for far more money given their sudden increased leverage. Just days later, Tallon was no longer the GM of the Blackhawks.
In Florida, Tallon’s unforced errors continued. Panther’s fans can make a long list of grievances with Tallon — his distaste for analytics likely didn't help — but what is most illustrative of his time with the Panthers is how he handled the Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft.
Gift-wrapping a top line for the Golden Knights
Wanting to hang onto such luminaries on his defence as Alex Petrovic, Tallon made the choice to protect four defencemen in the expansion draft. Tallon had the option to protect seven forwards, three defencemen, and one goaltender, but his desire to protect four defencemen meant he could only protect nine players instead of 11 — eight skaters and one goaltender.
What Tallon really wanted was for the Golden Knights to take Reilly Smith and his $5 million cap hit. To make that happen, he made a deal with the Golden Knights — take Jonathan Marchessault, coming off a 30-goal season on a $750,000 contract — and he would trade them Smith.
That one move gifted the Golden Knights two-thirds of their top line, which became one of the best lines in the NHL. Smith put up 60 points in 67 games as the Gold Knights’ first-line centre, while Marchessault had 75 points in 77 games. The two were instrumental in the Golden Knights’ run to the Stanley Cup Final in the team’s first year.
The Panthers missed the playoffs that season, of course.
Oh yeah — Tallon also gave the Golden Knights a fourth-round pick in that trade. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter much, but it certainly ices that particular cake nicely.
"Thank God I'm back," indeed.
Allegations of racism dismissed by NHL
Tallon was eventually fired by the Panthers after allegations arose of him using inappropriate racial, religious, and ethnic comments in the 2020 playoff bubble in Toronto. While a subsequent investigation by the NHL found the allegations were “neither corroborated nor substantiated,” Tallon was still done in Florida.
Those allegations may have prevented him from being hired by the Canucks much earlier. Tallon was rumoured to be in the running for the president of hockey operations role that was subsequently filled by Rutherford but the hiring was reportedly blocked by the NHL.
That was just one month after the allegations against Tallon had been dismissed. The league was already in the midst of dealing with the fallout from investigations into the sexual assault of Kyle Beach and a year removed from Calgary Flames coach Bill Peters resigning after admitting to using a racial slur against Akim Aliu. Perhaps the NHL wanted to avoid drawing any further controversy.
Tallon's role with Canucks
Tallon won’t be in a decision-making role with the Canucks, however. Instead of president of hockey operations, Tallon has been hired as a senior advisor and professional scout. Tallon certainly has a lot of experience in the league and can hopefully, at the very least, advise the Canucks’ management group on what not to do.
It’s still an interesting choice to hire one of the more polarizing figures in the league. It certainly engendered less enthusiasm than many of the teams’ other front-office hirings.
