Mike Gillis Re: Canucks "We're Going to be all Right"; Aquilini "2014 Canucks are NOT the REAL Canucks"

[Mispelled]

This deadline will mark a critical (no pun intended) year of Gillis's assessment of the team during a period of obvious misadventure, met with little roster change, but bold NTC rewards. The weight of his ass on his hands is clearly in question, minus minor depth, and essentially, cast-off signings. The NTC obstacle guarantees little change to the top 6, top 4 and top goalie. Considering that the bottom 6, bottom 3 and back-up goalie are not the core, the NTC issue, the problem, or the reason AV was fired, I look forward to poster responses if nothing changes by the deadline. I mean, what can he do, now? Wait? At some point, defending his patience and faith in the roster must change to one of, inability, to manage it. *Cue the, "I will wait until the off-season to..." posts, for those who seem to think in geological time when it come to assessing Gillis. I think, like many do, that MG has screwed himself, and the next guy as well, but I doubt he will be fired for another year. And that is the worst part!

[Capt.Awesome]

We will see a couple depth moves nothing major... We will get the same speech, "we are healthier now, I think you will see what we have here, I'm not going to trade the future or our top players, it's a tight market and teams just aren't willing to make moves"

Then everyone will come on here and bitch..

[rawkdrummer]

True, but Botchford made a point of claiming that "they've lost the confidence their most devoted fans have in them."

Therein lies the audacity imo. It's typical Botchford though. Why bother say something reasonable when you can say something inflammatory? Regardless of generalizations, there are a whole lot of people that haven't lost confidence in this team - and Botchford has pretended to speak for them as well. I think it would take much more than one month and a 7 game losing streak to get that result - particularly given the reality of the health of the roster.

Botch should speak for himself, he certainly doesn't speak for me.

He botched up!

[canucksnihilist]

whatever - it's obvious this team isn't close to really competing for a cup. even when they were healthy they were getting owned by the CA teams.

they can't afford high paid players who are not contributing. not this year with the cap so low. last few years it made us not as competitive (and showed up last 2 playoff appearances), but his year it means we have no depth. ergo we miss playoffs.

real issue: is owner/management trying to make the playoffs, or win the cup? If we make a move at the deadline - a significant one - and pay the price to help make the playoffs this year ... well you will have your answer. if you are out of the playoffs come deadline time you should sell. cause even if you might make the playoffs you won't have a chance.

delusions...

[BigRedMachine]

As has been repeated countless times, this season was always going to be a write off. New coach, new system. Takes time to not only get used to it, but then evaluate your talent based on what your coaching staff has to say and then make the necessary changes.

The right people will be unloaded in the off-season. Once the necessary changes are made, then people can correctly judge the new direction the team is on. For the time being, we'll have to wait it out.

Since when do you get to write off an entire season just because you hired a new coach?

[Bruce Boudreau]

Fire Gillis. If they don't make substantial changes in the off-season like 1 or 2 big trades to move core players this team will be stuck in the same rut.

So lame. First thing is first they still somehow think Booth has something from that 20 goal form left which happened ages ago.

Maybe Booth gets back to that form but it sure as hell won't be here or any team in the west.

The best thing would be for Booth to stay healthy this season and Acquilini to agree to buy him out already.

[Gollumpus]

Tallon made the decision he had made a mistake early, and moved Booth's contract. You have to be decisive! In 2013 it was readily apparent he was not working out here. Take a 4th round pick to get him off your books!

Is it known that Gillis hadn't been trying to move Booth (when he was healthy enough to be moved)?

Let's assume that you are the GM of the Canucks, and you phone up another team and offer them Booth for a 4th. And they turn you down. Does this make you indecisive?

And I'm assuming you're now thinking, "Then I'd trade him for a 5th, or a 7th, or whatever gets him off the books!" Okay. What if the other GM still says "no"?

Geez, you are so indicisive.

Better yet, don't money ball key acquisitions. Booth was picked because we only had to give up two expiring contracts who nobody expected to be productive. We could have had Carter for Schneider before the Booth move!

You're making an assumption that Carter was being shopped to Vancouver, aren't you?. I don't recall that the Flyers let it be generally known that they were moving Carter. I believe you are also assuming that the Flyers would want Schneider (at least at that time). Perhaps Gillis isn't the only GM who targets a few teams which has the specific assets he wants.

As to actually trading for Carter, what would you put in the package? I'm assuming Schneider, the Canucks 2011 1st and 3rd? This seems like it's a lot less value than what the Flyers did get (Voracek, CLB 2011 1st and 3rd). Voracek had a lot more value than Schneider (at that time), and the picks were substantially higher in value than those that the Canucks could offer (eg. 8th overall vs 29th).

What asset(s) would have to be added to the Canucks offer to make it acceptable to the Flyers?

Ballard was acquired, then we added another LHD Hamhuis, 4 or 5 days later as a free agent. We already had Errhof and Edler, now Hamhuis. It does not take a genius to see that there was excess. Prioritize and move on right away! Then before the deadline in 2011 we knew that AV was playing Rome, Alberts and buck green rookie Tanev ahead of Ballard.

Here I thought you were going to make another "money ball" complaint about getting Ballard since the team didn't really give up that much to get him.

I've always thought of the Ballard acquisition as a pre-cursor to Ehrhoff leaving as a UFA. At that time I believe Ehrhoff was already not on the same page as the team with regard to his next contract and Gillis wanted another offensive d-man already on the team as a replacement should he not be able to re-sign Ehrhoff.

And what did he get in Ballard? He got a guy who was a mobile, physical d-man, who had scored 33g and 116 assists in 397 games (he had played 82 games in each of the previous three seasons). Ehrhoff had played in 341 games prior to coming to Vancouver, and had scored 25 goals and 107 assists.

I suppose these stats don't mean much to some as Ballard was playing on "bottom feeder" teams. Phoenix was in the Pacific division with Dallas, SJ, Anaheim, who were all top teams in the West. The Panthers finished just out of the playoffs in 2008 -09 (9th in the East, tied with Montreal). As I see Ehrhoff's points, he wouldn't have been anywhere near as productive as Ballard had he been with the Coyotes or the Panthers rather than the Sharks.

Good GM's flush their mistakes sooner and don't hang on for dear life dreaming mistakes come around..

I refer you to my earlier point on trading Booth.

regards,

G.

[Canuck Surfer]

You're out of your mind if you think Gillis could have dumped him/his salary and got a 4th for him and just didn't....

I think Gillis has a hard time giving up on guys, yes. Booth is not the only drama that carried for several years.

[UFCanuck]

I think Gillis has a hard time giving up on guys, yes. Booth is not the only drama that carried for several years.

Really if you think about it he let his long time client Markus Naslund go without carrying it out at all. He let Brendan Morrison and Ohlund walk and all have been good moves.

[Canuck Surfer]

Really if you think about it he let his long time client Markus Naslund go without carrying it out at all. He let Brendan Morrison and Ohlund walk and all have been good moves.

More, he let Torres and Erhoff go, also Raymond. There are diminishing degree's of success. But we're talking about dealing with contracts that soured.

Bottom line is good communication between coach / gm. AV sat Ballard in the 2011 play off's. At that stage he still had value. The coach has to be able to tell a gm he does not trust the player. But we kept him 2 more full seasons. My intuition is Gillis told the coach to make it work.

Just my belief, nobody really knows.

[Nuxfanabroad]

Our market expects the team to defy gravity forever. Over the last generation(PLUS!) only the Dread Wings can lay that claim.

We're developing a youth core, whilst maitaining(attempting to) the old one..it ain't all bad. In 2 or 3 yrs, could have a great, young & climbing squad. Fans are simply impatient.

Just go younger, bigger with more Cdn players(got tired of the fancy peripheral-play).

[Canuck Surfer]

Our market expects the team to defy gravity forever. Over the last generation(PLUS!) only the Dread Wings can lay that claim.

We're developing a youth core, whilst maitaining(attempting to) the old one..it ain't all bad. In 2 or 3 yrs, could have a great, young & climbing squad. Fans are simply impatient.

Just go younger, bigger with more Cdn players(got tired of the fancy peripheral-play).

Younger, yes!

Particularly under Torts our signature is becoming staying in games with the hard nosed play of guys like Higgins, Santorelli, Tanev. Simply put; outcompeting opponents.

But none of those guys are game breakers. Markus Krueger also plays that hard nosed style and he's Swedish. We don't need guys just cuz their Canadian. We need a hard nosed guy, regardless of nationality, who is also up one or two notches on the talent / game breaking scale.

[nuck nit]

Well, Burr was a huge bargain that gave Gillis $1.5-2m of extra cap space for a few years.

The Sedins gave Gillis $3-4m extra cap space each and every year between them.

Three or four players were needed to put the team over the top into SC contention.

Gillis took Ballard,Booth,Kassian and Garrison.

All four have been the wrong players at the wrong time.Garrison has been a good 3/4 defensive d man that was hailed as a PP specialist,which he is not.

So,we have a GM that is not capable of making sound personnel decisions,based on his most critical moves to replace the PP contributions and production of Ehrhoff,Samuelsson,Salo and Hodgson.

[BanTSN]

Basically we had our window.

[rightasrain]

Lota ???? retards here. Should I just say duh with spittle drewling out of my mouth.

[LuongovsTuuka]

Lota ???? retards here. Should I just say duh with spittle drewling out of my mouth.

I think you just did.

[Mispelled]

This deadline will mark a critical (no pun intended) year of Gillis's assessment of the team during a period of obvious misadventure, met with little roster change, but bold NTC rewards. The weight of his ass on his hands is clearly in question, minus minor depth, and essentially, cast-off signings. The NTC obstacle guarantees little change to the top 6, top 4 and top goalie. Considering that the bottom 6, bottom 3 and back-up goalie are not the core, the NTC issue, the problem, or the reason AV was fired, I look forward to poster responses if nothing changes by the deadline. I mean, what can he do, now? Wait? At some point, defending his patience and faith in the roster must change to one of, inability, to manage it. *Cue the, "I will wait until the off-season to..." posts, for those who seem to think in geological time when it come to assessing Gillis. I think, like many do, that MG has screwed himself, and the next guy as well, but I doubt he will be fired for another year. And that is the worst part!

Happy to be proven wrong!