[2] One day later, ownership hired former Canucks captain Trevor Linden as team president,[3] to assist in the search for a new general manager.
[7] The next major tasks facing Benning were dealing with the trade request of Ryan Kesler, and preparing for the draft on June 27.
[11] As a result of trading away Roberto Luongo in March, the Canucks were left with a goalie tandem of Eddie Lack and Jacob Markstrom, who together had combined for 88 games of NHL experience.
Thus, Benning's first move on July 1 was to sign free-agent goalie Ryan Miller to a 3-year, $18 million contract, in order to bring a veteran presence to Vancouver's goaltending position.
[12] Benning's next major transaction occurred only one day after acquiring Miller, as he signed former Phoenix Coyotes winger Radim Vrbata to a 2-year, $10 million contract.
[14] On July 5, the Canucks re-signed defenceman Christopher Tanev to a 1-year, $2 million contract, only hours before the deadline to file for salary arbitration.
On November 20, Bo Horvat scored his first NHL goal against the Anaheim Ducks, the Canucks went onto lose the game 4-3 in a shootout.
The Canucks tied the series with a 4–1 win, as goalie Eddie Lack made 22 out of 23 saves and Alex Burrows recorded two assists.
With 1:17 left to play, a fight broke out that resulted in 132 penalty minutes, with the Flames' Deryk Engelland given a game misconduct for instigating it, but eventually the league rescinded Engelland's penalty and instead fined Calgary head coach Bob Hartley $50,000 for his responsibility for the incident.
Ryan Miller replaced Lack to start the second period, but Hiller made 28 total saves en route to a 3–1 win.
In Game 6, Hartley pulled Hiller after he allowed two goals on his first three shots, and put Karri Ramo in net.