BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Vancouver Canucks have a large contingent of scouts and management in Buffalo, N.Y., this week for the NHL Scouting Combine.The team’s new leadership triumvirate, meanwhile, is scattered across the globe. General manager Ryan Johnson was in Buffalo, but is now en route back to Vancouver to formally introduce head coach Manny Malhotra in a Thursday morning news conference.The Canucks have a lot on their plate at the moment. There’s a critical draft getting closer, a front office staff to add to, trade talks and free agency to prepare for and a coaching staff to fill out.So, as combine week opens in Western New York, let’s unpack some of the news around the Canucks.The Manny Malhotra negotiationsThere were moments last week where Vancouver’s always fated hiring of Malhotra appeared to the public to drag.“I know perception was maybe that this was a long, drawn-out process, but from our standpoint it really wasn’t,” Johnson said Tuesday. “At the same time, I’m navigating draft and free agency and in-house decisions with finding support for myself, the impact of coaches, and how that might impact the Abbotsford staff. I wanted to go through this process and make sure I was clear with Manny. And that’s when he jumped into it, he jumped into it with both feet.”Asked later on whether he could confirm the financial terms of Malhotra’s agreement, Johnson declined to comment.CHEK TV’s Rick Dhaliwal has reported that Malhotra signed a three-year contract. To this point, The Athletic has been unable to confirm the precise dollar figure.What I have heard about negotiations between Vancouver and Malhotra, however, is that Malhotra’s camp had pegged his former Toronto Maple Leafs colleague Spencer Carbery’s first contract with the Washington Capitals as a comparable. Carbery’s exact compensation was never released or reported, but he signed a four-year deal.According to a league source, the Canucks upped their offer to Malhotra in terms of compensation late last week. It would stand to reason that once Vancouver came up a bit on the money, the two sides were able to reach a compromise on the term.Three big-picture reactions to Ryan Johnson’s commentary this weekThe Athletic took part in the video briefing that Johnson held this week, as he walked the local media through the team’s decision to hire Malhotra.It was a meaty session, and three big-picture takeaways leapt off the screen as Johnson discussed the organization’s process in hiring Malhotra and touched on a variety of offseason hot-button topics across over 30 minutes.Let’s unpack them one by one.1. Vancouver will go to bat for Elias Pettersson now, but isn’t necessarily committed to himJohnson, of course, was asked about having a preliminary conversation with struggling Canucks centre and significant local flashpoint Elias Pettersson. The incoming Vancouver general manager didn’t mince words or hide that he’d taken the opportunity to speak directly to Pettersson.The message, at least in terms of what Johnson communicated to the media, presented something of a fascinating dichotomy. On the one hand, it was probably the most supportive message the team has publicly communicated about Pettersson in years — and that includes Daniel and Henrik Sedin’s commentary about Pettersson’s preparation, comments which echoed some of the club’s criticism of its fading star centre during the Jim Rutherford era — on the other, the message also felt decidedly noncommittal about the organization’s plans for Pettersson.“I think the biggest thing, whatever happens here moving forward,” Johnson said, offering up a significant qualifier that was very easy to read into, “is I just wanted him to know that I am very comfortable with him just being himself. I told him, whatever communication, I’m not going to ask him or put an expectation on him to be something other than what he is, and that’s OK. And that he and I can work together in any capacity. We may ask things of him, but we’re not going to ask him to do anything outside of (who he really feels he is at the core).”