The Vancouver Canucks have filled their coaching vacancy, hiring Jason King as an NHL assistant coach. King previously served as an assistant with the Utica Comets, Vancouver’s AHL affiliate. The team has also hired Chris Higgins as a skills and development coach.
Both should be familiar for Canucks fans, given they each played for the team during their on-ice careers. King, 39, was drafted 212th overall by the Canucks in 2001 and made it all the way to the NHL, recording 12 goals and 21 points in 47 games during the 2003-04 season. His career never took off after that, instead taking him through several stops in the AHL and some overseas adventures in Sweden and Germany, but he returned as an assistant coach for the St. John’s IceCaps in 2013. He has been with Utica for the last four seasons and will now take the next step in his coaching career.
Higgins meanwhile was a much more successful NHL player, who spent parts of six seasons with the Canucks at the end of his career. A veteran of more than 700 games, he scored a career-high 27 goals and 52 points during the 2007-08 season with Montreal. Higgins retired in 2016 and will now start the next chapter of his hockey story.
Vancouver lost Manny Malhotra this offseason to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who hired him away to serve as an assistant on Sheldon Keefe’s staff. Malhotra had been a development coach for the Canucks and was the “eye in the sky” assistant for them in recent years.