VANCOUVER — It wasn’t the prestige and lustre of the title that led Henrik and Daniel Sedin to become co-presidents of the Vancouver Canucks, but the message that came with the job offer.

“It’s the vision that we want to follow, something that we can really buy into,” Henrik said Tuesday of the Canucks’ commitment to rebuild. “If you had to fight that battle first (to get a rebuild), then there's no way we would have stepped on. But it was very clear that this was going to be a process of a few years, at least, where we're trying to build something good. That's No. 1.”

The message to the Sedins came in a phone call from Francesco Aquilini and later in a meeting with the managing owner’s family.

It wasn’t until departing president Jim Rutherford told reporters at a May 6 press conference that he planned to step back into an advisory role after the National Hockey League draft in June, that the Sedins were seriously approached about taking over hockey operations.

But the bigger surprise must have been ownership’s embrace of a rebuild, something the Sedins had long believed was necessary but saw little appetite for during 26 years on or near the team, the last five years as advisors to former general manager Jim Benning and player-development coaches under Rutherford and ex-GM Patrik Allvin.

When this disastrous season ended with Rutherford firing Allvin in April and hinting at his own imminent retreat from power, the Sedins weren’t even sure they’d be back. 

But having witnessed the Canucks’ competitive collapse, enabled by an erosion of dressing-room standards and culture that the Sedins built as Hall of Fame players, the twins leaped at the........

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