Where’s that instruction manual? Ah, found it:

How Not to Perform Major Surgery on your NHL Roster.

Directions:

1. Sign promising KHL star to cost-efficient contract on an AAV capped at an entry-level figure.

2. Marvel as he delivers on his potential in his debut NHL season, producing at a 75-point clip while humming along with a hilariously unsustainable shooting percentage of 24.7.

3. Having just fired your coach and teetering on the edge of true lottery contention during the most exciting NHL Draft year since 2015, opt not to sell off this expiring asset who, at 26, is theoretically at the peak of his physical prime.

4. Sign that player, who has half of one great NHL season under his belt, to a two-year contract paying him until he’s 29 years old.

So, yeah. Everything about Andrei Kuzmenko’s two-year extension signed Thursday, carrying a $5.5 million AAV, contradicts the philosophizing Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford offered up less than two weeks ago, when he admitted the roster needed “major surgery” and that “between now and the start of next season, we’re going to have to make some changes.”