- Canucks hire Ryan Stewart into a director role that did not exist before Monday
- Adam Sergerie joins the pro scouting staff after a record-setting year in Penticton
- Read below for what GM Ryan Johnson said about both additions
The Canucks built Ryan Stewart a job that did not exist a week ago.
Vancouver announced Monday that Stewart is the club’s new director of hockey strategy and player evaluation. Adam Sergerie also joins the organization as a pro scout.
General manager Ryan Johnson laid out what the new title is supposed to do in the team’s release:
“Ryan brings a championship pedigree and a wealth of hockey knowledge to this brand new position. He is someone we will lean on internally to help provide insight and information for our front office.”
Stewart spent the last four seasons in San Jose as a senior advisor, running the Sharks’ pro personnel staff across North America and Europe.
Before that came 16 seasons in Chicago. He started as a video coach and finished as an assistant general manager, with stops as director of professional scouting, pro scout, amateur scout and assistant coach in between. Two Stanley Cup rings came out of it, in 2013 and 2015.
He also played 325 pro games, mostly with the ECHL’s Greenville Grrrowl, then ran that same club as its assistant GM and later its GM.
Sergerie’s path is shorter and a lot more recent.
Penticton put him in charge of its scouting department last season. The Vees went 44-14-6-4 in their first WHL year, setting a CHL record for wins by an expansion team and taking the B.C. Division crown.
Dave Dawson had the move back on July 22, weeks before Vancouver made it official:
Four years with the Sherwood Park Crusaders came before Penticton, where Sergerie worked as an assistant coach, general manager and president of hockey operations across the AJHL and the BCHL.
Both hires land in an offseason where nearly every seat in the Vancouver front office has changed hands. Johnson got the GM chair in May, the same day Daniel and Henrik Sedin were promoted to co-presidents of hockey operations:
Patrik Allvin was fired in April after a 25-49-8 season that left the Canucks last in the NHL by 14 points. Johnson has spent the months since reshaping the coaching staff and the management group underneath the Sedins.
Stewart steps into a title the Canucks wrote from scratch, on a team that finished dead last.
