EDMONTON — It’s a fair debate, which job presents a more difficult task for a National Hockey League general manager:

Is it starting at the bottom, the way the next GM will be in Vancouver, charting a course that can take the Canucks from 32nd place all the way to the top?

Is it John Chayka’s new gig in Toronto, home of what Connor McDavid would call “an average team with high expectations” — and no leeway to get worse before the product gets more competitive?

Or is it the guy wearing Stan Bowman’s loafers, whose tenure will be considered an abject failure if he does not deliver a Stanley Cup in one of the next two seasons?

We’re not sure there is another market in the NHL where a GM could get his team to a Stanley Cup Final in 2027, lose, and have a market asking for his head. But that’s where Edmonton is at now, with the end of the Connor McDavid era in plain sight.

So it starts now for Bowman, with four key areas of improvement that need to be met in Edmonton this summer.

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