In the Norm Jewison media room in the bowels of Rogers Arena Tuesday morning, Vancouver Canucks president Trevor Linden perched casually at a workstation for visiting media.

Linden is the ultimate decision maker in Vancouver, the executive with final say who meets with ownership. Yet, he didn’t take the podium. Instead, he watched passively as his handpicked head coach Willie Desjardins and general manager Jim Benning fielded questions from the media for nearly an hour.

The marathon press conference served as a bookend for a miserable campaign during which the Canucks underperformed rather dramatically. On occasion it got a bit messy.

In one-on-one conversations, Benning comes across as forthright, kind and smart. He is not, however, the most gifted public speaker and so this particular format doesn’t do him any favours.

He appeared to contradict earlier statements, like when he quibbled with a comment he made last summer about how the club had an opportunity to deal starting goaltender Ryan Miller. He insisted that he couldn’t really begin to account for a potential expansion draft in his planning until the event was announced officially. He laid out the quagmire the club is dealing with as they await a signing decision from top goaltending prospect Thatcher Demko, and did so in a way that didn’t inspire confidence.

Benning even seemed eager about the prospect of using the club’s treasure chest of salary cap space to pursue win-now pieces – a defenceman who can play on the power play or scoring depth on the wings – in unrestricted free agency.

“We’ve got some money this summer in free agency where if we can look to add a piece that’s better in that 22-28 age range, we’re going to look at all of our options and everything that we can do to make our group competitive,” Benning said.

Ultimately though, the GM’s enthusiasm for signing a big-ticket free agent was tempered by the club’s overall future-leaning posture.

“But keeping in mind too,” Benning added, “that we’re in a transition and we need to get our young players up and going and part of the future of this team.”

As for Desjardins, he waxed poetic about the improvement of the club’s young players. The second-year head coach’s job security has received repeated public endorsements, but history would suggest that he’s still in a tough position. During the Aquilini era, only one Canucks head coach has kept his job after missing the postseason, and that was only after Mike Gillis vouched for Alain Vigneault following weeks of one-on-one meetings during the summer of 2008.

There remains some skepticism about whether Desjardins’ job is as secure as the organization insists, something that the Canucks bench boss appeared to hint at in an eyebrow-raising moment during Tuesday’s season-ending availability.

“Our business is a tough business and it’s always changing,” Desjardins said. “Not to put Trevor on the spot, but I just think he’s a quality guy – when he says things I believe him…. I know he’s in a spot where things may change for him, but we have quality people.”

Moments like this peppered the initial press conference and had the assembled media gallery whispering in conspiratorial unison. All of which begged the question: “why was Linden in the back?”

SIGN UP FOR SPORTSNET’S FANTASY PLAYOFF POOL FOR A CHANCE AT $50,000!

As the press conference concluded, the Canucks president walked out of the media room and into the hallway. He’d scrum with media there.

Surrounded by barking reporters, Linden leaned comfortably against the wall. When asked questions about what message he had for fans, he confidently addressed the cameras directly. He laughed about watching people play around with the draft lottery simulator and anointed Auston Matthews the player he thought the club would pick if they won the lottery.

It was a confident, polished and compelling performance. Against all odds, Linden managed to project control and confidence and stability. He was presidential.

On Desjardins, Linden claimed not to have any idea why Vancouver’s head coach would hint that the situation might change.

“I think he did a good job and he’ll definitely be back this year,” Linden offered, definitively.

When the topic of free agency was broached, Linden suggested that the club could opt to take a slow approach to internal player development.

“We have to be mindful, obviously, it depends on who we decide to bring back,” Linden said. “We also have to consider [possible expansion] and what that looks like with [Bo] Horvat and [Ben] Hutton and [Jacob] Markstrom. We’re in those planning stages now and looking at how all of that comes together.”

On whether he’d done enough to manage expectations and lay out a consistent plan in his two years on the job, Linden jumped in front of the bullet. He did so while also pointing out that the organization’s actions were internally coherent, even if the communication wasn’t as clear as it was externally.

“When we came in in 2014, perhaps I didn’t explain it properly, (but) we knew the challenges in front of us,” Linden said. “We think the fan base did. We had to draft and develop the next group of core players.

“We’ve had our eye firmly on the future and we’ve never traded young assets for older assets that set us back. We knew that eventually we would get younger and this was the year that it took shape. And we’re going to continue to go down that path.”

By the time Linden was done talking, he’d assured the public that he wasn’t actively looking to expand his management team and that ownership was on board with his plan. In a city that’s waiting for the fireworks to start, he successfully lent his organization a veneer of calm and steadfastness.

That sense is the takeaway here. Despite what was said on Tuesday, there remains some uncertainty about how the next few weeks will play out.

Somehow though, at the tail end of a campaign in which the club finished 28th despite insisting throughout that the playoffs were the goal, the organization as a whole managed to convey a sense of solidity and even optimism. It’s an impressive feat.

It also explains, perhaps, why Linden may have the leverage to continue rebuilding his way.