- Vancouver has asked Toronto for permission to speak with Leafs special advisor Shane Doan, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman
- Doan has worked in Brad Treliving’s front office since June 2023 and has never held a GM role at the NHL or AHL level
- Read below for Doan’s executive resume, his BC ties, and where this fits in Vancouver’s widening GM search
Another name just landed on the Canucks’ GM candidate list.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Wednesday that Vancouver has asked the Toronto Maple Leafs for permission to speak with Shane Doan, the team’s special advisor to the general manager. The exact role Doan would fill in Vancouver hasn’t been specified.
Friedman had tipped this kind of move on last Friday’s “32 Thoughts” podcast, saying he expected multiple organizations to come in for Doan. Vancouver is clearly one of them.
Doan has been in Treliving’s front office since June 2023. Before Toronto, he spent three seasons as Chief Development Hockey Officer with the Arizona Coyotes, the franchise he captained for over a decade before retiring after the 2016-17 season.
He’s never run a front office at the NHL or AHL level. He isn’t green at the work, though. Doan was Team Canada’s GM at the 2022 Winter Olympics, the 2022 World Championship, and the 2022 Spengler Cup, with Canada taking silver at Worlds.
The backdrop is last Friday’s shakeup in Vancouver. The Canucks fired GM Patrik Allvin after a franchise-worst 58-point season. President of hockey operations Jim Rutherford kept his post but made it clear a new voice was coming into the GM chair.
Doan isn’t alone on the radar. Vancouver was granted permission earlier this week to interview former Sabres GM Kevyn Adams, and assistant GM Ryan Johnson is considered a serious internal option. The NHL.com report on the Allvin firing noted Rutherford wanted a wider search this time around.
There are BC ties in Doan’s corner, too. He’s a franchise owner of the Kamloops Blazers, the WHL club he broke in with as a teenager and where he met his wife Andrea. Doan also took a recruiting dinner with former Canucks GM Mike Gillis and owner Francesco Aquilini back in 2012 before re-signing in Phoenix.
Whether Vancouver sees Doan as a GM-level candidate or as part of a larger management group isn’t public yet. The search is clearly getting wider by the day.
