Vancouver Canucks announce several new hires including coaches

General manager Ryan Johnson named Ryan Mougenel, Jordan Smith and Jason Krog as assistant coaches, with Andrew Shaw as assistant to the video coach. Read as four fresh hires, that undersells what actually happened here.

Smith, Krog and Shaw all worked under Manny Malhotra when he ran the AHL's Abbotsford Canucks. When Malhotra got the big chair in Vancouver, he brought his people with him rather than starting cold.

Only Mougenel is a true outside hire, arriving from Providence after his Bruins posted the AHL's best record and he won the 2026 coach of the year award. It is the first NHL job of the 50-year-old's long minor-league career.

The other three extend a development group that spent two seasons learning Malhotra's voice and systems. Johnson has openly stressed wanting his staffs to speak the same language across both levels, and this is what that looks like in practice.

That matters because the prospects Malhotra inherits in Vancouver are largely the same ones Smith and Krog were teaching in Abbotsford last winter. No young player has to decode a new coaching language mid-rebuild, and no coach has to relearn who these kids are.

Krog joined the organization in June 2024 as a skills and skating coach, not a bench coach. Bumping the Hobey Baker winner into a full assistant role is a real promotion, and a clear signal of how much Malhotra trusts his read on young players.

Shaw, for the record, is a Chilliwack native on his second pro jump - not the former Blackhawks agitator of the same name. This is not a splashy staff, but it is a deliberate one, built for teaching over headlines.

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