Rumor: 'Dark horse' candidate emerges for vacant GM job in Vancouver

The Vancouver Canucks finally cleaned house earlier this month when they made sweeping changes to the team's front office, firing general manager Jim Benning, and behind the bench, firing head coach Travis Green. Since those changes were announced the team has hired head coach Bruce Boudreau to step in and fill the vacancy left by Green and have brought in former Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford to take over hockey operations in Vancouver.

In spite of those big moves however the Penguins have curiously not elected to appoint a new general manager, seemingly preferring to wait for the best available candidate before making any sort of commitment in that regard. There have been a number of names linked to the vacancy in the Canucks organization but thus far no announcement has been made, and now a new contender may have emerged.

During Saturday night's broadcast of the National Hockey League games north of the border, NHL insider Elliotte Friedman revealed that a former close confidant of Rutherford is currently being rumored as what he describes as a dark horse candidate.

"There's gonna be a lot of talk about panel favorite Jason Botterill who is currently in Seattle and has a history with Rutherford, but one dark horse name to keep an eye on is Patrik Allvin from Pittsburgh," said Friedman. "He work with Rutherford with the Penguins, was the interim GM after [Rutherford] left and before Ron Hextall took over."

Although he may not be a household name around the NHL there is no question that Allvin would bring with him a wealth of experience to the role. He initially joined the Penguins organization all the way back during the 2006 - 2007 season as a European scout and would work his way up the ranks, eventually becoming the organizations director of amateur scouting from 2017 until 2020. Following that he was promoted to assistant general manager where he worked closely with Rutherford before taking over as interim GM when Rutherford suddenly and unexpectedly left the organization.

His lack of experience as a general manager would likely be mitigated by the fact that he would once again be working closely with Rutherford, although whether or not the Canucks will choose to go with a relatively inexperienced GM remains to be seen. Allvin returned to his role as assistant general manager when Ron Hextall was hired, so the Canucks would also need to permission from the Penguins to speak with Allvin regarding this role.