VANCOUVER — In about the time the World Cup of soccer has been on, new Vancouver Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson hired a head coach, hired an assistant GM to manage the minor-league team, hired a head of player development, made his first big trade and key changes to the team’s identity, and oversaw the most important draft in franchise history.

Imagine what he might do over an entire season.

With the rush of free agency over, Sportsnet caught up with Johnson on Wednesday to discuss what has happened and what comes next. We talked the Marcus Pettersson trade, the Elias Pettersson trade rumours, Filip Hronek, fending off offer sheets, a coaching staff that will have limited National Hockey League coaching experience, lineup spending limits (he hasn’t any) and exhaustion.

Sportsnet: You said the other day you’ve been sprinting since you took the job in May. With all that has been coming at you, we gather the last few weeks have been like drinking water from a fire hose. How hectic has it been?

Ryan Johnson: I knew that it was going to be a sprint. I knew a lot of decisions were going to have to be made with the draft and free agency, and the environment that I wanted to kind of implement right from Day 1. But as the days went by, the to-do list kept getting longer and the amount I was checking off was getting shorter, so I had to really just ... start prioritizing. At the time it was like, ‘How do I ever get to July 8?’ There's still lots to get done, but I was happy with the draft and what we were able to accomplish around and through free agency. We’ve given this group a different look and different feel. I expect in the next day or so to (finalize) our coaching staff. So it's just, you know, slowly checking these boxes off.

SN: Have there been any big surprises?

RJ: No, there's nothing that has really surprised me. I was very well aware it was going to be a tall task, short term and long term. I came into it with a lot of humility and not, ‘Hey, I know everything, this is going to be simple.’ I feel very good with the (hockey operations) group around me, and feel like we've been able to make some small and big decisions that were true to our word of what the vision is and how we want to treat people. We've stayed on task with that.

SN: The rebuild will be measured in years. But with the initial roster changes you’ve made, trading defenceman Marcus Pettersson and allowing three other veterans to leave in free agency while adding Jamie Oleksiak, Brendan Gallagher, Luke Schenn and Paul Cotter, are you happy for now with where the roster is — at the start of the rebuild?

RJ: I like a little bit of the facelift and the addition of some size and speed, and some........

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