Mike Gillis Looks Better With Every Passing Day

[bigbadcanucks]

I liked Mike Gillis as a GM.

He did a lot of good things for the organization, and obviously he made some decisions that hurt the organization. There are many things that occur behind the scenes that we as fans don't know, of which the major one for me is just how much ownership curtailed the strategic road map that Gillis had for the organization. There's a rumor that Gillis wanted to blow it all up after 2011 and start re-building (I believe re-tooling is what he called it after 2012), which in hindsight would have been the right thing to do, but apparently this was rejected by the Aquilinis (this is a rumor, and I can't substantiate it, other than to say that seeing how things ended between Gillis and Franco, there's reason to believe that there is truth to it).

IMO, Gillis fell out of favor because of he became a miserable SOB with the media and that hurt the team's marketability. He treated the media with disdain and was condescending and insulting to them (essentially calling Bob Marjonovic a hog at the trough). IMO, he was the fall guy for the goaltending mess (pre and post Schneider) and the Tortorella debacle.

But for the most part, Gillis did more good for the organization than bad. Gillis put the team in cap purgatory, but when Benning was able to get some reprieve from it, he threw the team right back into it. If Gillis had a guy like Benning as his 2IC, instead of Eric Crawford or Ron Delorme or Thomas Gradin or Lorne Henning any of the other failures of hockey ops guys, I think the Canucks would be in a solid position to contend right now.

I like Benning, but after 16 months, he strikes me as a guy who's lacking a little something to be the top dog in the hockey ops kennel. He can thank Gillis for Gaunce, Cassels, Horvat, Kenins, Tanev, Subban, Hutton, Markstrom, Shinkaruk, etc. At the very least, Gillis did not leave the cupboard bear when he left the organization.

[bluesman60]

Every GM, every player runs the course and is faced with either getting traded, fired or cut loose. Mike Gillis did a lot of good things and also made a few moves that didn't pan out. I wish MG well and hope he lands on his feet.

Enter Jim Benning.....he has only had one draft and has also made some solid moves and some that didn't pan out or looks to the couch GM to be bad moves. JB has a good track record at the draft so let's afford him at least a 5 year window to see what we have before we start comparing GMs'. I prefer to look at it as MG took us part of the way through a rebuild of our prospect pool and JB is continuing down that path instead of wasting picks on bandaid solutions. Drafting well and developing your prospects into NHLers is the right way to go.

[Frazzy Desjardins]

i wonder if canucks won game 7 if this conversation will ever come up. MG inherited Dave Nonis' core and built on it so that the canucks come with 1 game of winning the first ever stanley cup.

when team goes south, GM usually changes strategy and switch to stocking prospect, and this usually will get the GM canned and the next GM walks in with a prospect pool to deal with.

Happened to gillis when he walked in, happened to Bowman when he walked into Chicago, and damn well happened to Chiarelli.

It's just the lifecycle of a GM in prosport for a particular team. However, I would put Gillis as one of the best GMs in canucks franchise history.

/thread

That should be the last post in this thread, +1

[Amish Rake Fighter]

I would put Gillis as one of the best GMs in canucks franchise history.

anybody who doesn't is scared of toasters

[Nino]

anybody who doesn't is scared of toasters

Your young fans....

[bluesman60]

Well just so you know,I will give you this tidbit once and once only in defence of gillis ,schneider let the canucks know that he wasnt playing another game with the nucks after a certain teamate was banging his wife ,makes you realize why a certain other player wanted out of town. At the time I thought the trade felt confusing.anyway keep it in the short grass people.

And now there both gone. On the surface it was confusing the way everything went down but trading both of them was necessary for the team to move forward.

[C.Schneider]

There was nothing to gut when Gillis took over. Nonis didn't leave much to work with.

To be fair to Nonis, it wasn't his fault. Burke left him nothing.

But then again, Nonis is just an idiot.

[C.Schneider]

Mike Gillis was incapable of making a big trade when it was needed

He tried. Management was against rebuild at that time.

Hardly MG's fault he can't pull a trigger when his boss tells him no.

[D-Money]

Those are just some of the top players the Canucks drafted, not every player who the Canucks drafted & went on to have a steady NHL career. Half a player a year going on to become fairly high end talent? Yeah, that's pretty good drafting.

Since their first draft in 1970, the Canucks have drafted 51 players that have gone on to play at least 500 games in the NHL. For comparison sakes, in the same time period the Boston Bruins (another team that had underachieved, at least until recently) drafted 49. But most teams will probably have similar amounts of players actually make the NHL. Because each team has so many spots to fill, and so many opportunities to develop. What really matters is the quality of the players that turn out.

One thing that jumps out at me most when comparing the Bruins and Canucks drafting history is defensemen. The Canucks have never had a bonafide, #1, Norris-worthy defenseman, let alone drafting one. The Bruins drafted 2 in the same period - Ray Bourque and Mark Howe. Canucks drafted a couple solid #2 guys, like Ohlund and Edler, but Bruins drafted guys like this as well, such as Glen Wesley and Brad McCrimmon.

Another interesting deficiency with Vancouver is goaltenders. Canucks have never drafted a goaltender who ended up playing at least 500 games. Glen Hanlon came close at 477, but after that there is Murray Bannerman with 289 GP, Cory Schneider with 212...and no others to even play 200 games. Contrast that with Boston, who in the same period drafted Dan Bouchard (655 GP), Bill Ranford (647), Andrew Raycroft (280), and John Grahame (224).

[D-Money]

Speaking of drafting top-pairing quality defenseman, here's what some other teams have been able to find in the draft in the same time period as the Canucks have been picking:

Montreal: Larry Robinson, Chris Chelios, Rod Langway, Andrei Markov, P.K. Subban, Mathieu Schneider, Jyrki Lumme, Ryan McDonagh, Gordie Roberts

Los Angeles: Larry Murphy, Drew Doughty, Rob Blake, Kimmo Timonen, Darryl Sydor, Garry Galley, Lubomir Visnovsky

NY Rangers: Brian Leetch, Sergei Zubov, James Patrick, Ron Greschner, Marek Zidlicky

Buffalo: Phil Housley, Brian Campbell, Mike Ramsey, Tyler Myers, Uwe Krupp, Andrej Sekera

Chicago: Duncan Keith, Doug Wilson, Brent Seabrook, Dustin Byfuglien

NY Islanders: Dennis Potvin, Zdeno Chara, Vladimir Malakhov, Wade Redden, Bryan McCabe (only since 1972)

Washington: Scott Stevens, Sergei Gonchar, Kevin Hatcher, Mike Green, John Carlson, Robert Picard (only since 1974)

Calgary: Al MacInnis, Gary Suter, Dion Phaneuf, T.J. Brodie (only since 1980)

New Jersey: Scott Neidermayer, Ken Daneyko, Viacheslav Fetisov, Paul Martin, Sheldon Souray (only since 1982)

Nashville: Shea Weber, Ryan Suter, Dan Hamhuis, Seth Jones (only since 1998)

[Z Hockey]

Gillis was always overlooked and I never agreed with the anger on his moves, him and even Tortorella both wanted what Benning, Linden, and Desjardins are wanting right now. Gillis Trade for Horvat actually is looking worse for New Jersey than I expected it would IMO. Gillis found Kenins, who Benning wanted to bring up first last season out of everyone, he Traded Samuelsson and Sturm for Booth who was actually a nice pickup for what he brought when he didn't score, Reinprecht, and he got back our 3rd in that Trade and found Cassels with it. He signed Tanev, Y. Weber, drafted J. Subban, Corrado, he found Lack and got Markstrom, he brought Matthias in with Marky in the Luongo Trade too, and we got an 18 goal season out of Matthias. He is the one behind Shinkaruk, Gaunce, Grenier, Hutton, Friesen, Labate, Biega, Cederholm.

[guntrix]

Harold Snepsts, Stan Smyl, Patrick Sundstrom, Igor Larionov, Cam Neely, Trevor Linden, Pavel Bure, Mike Peca, Petr Nedved, Mattias Ohlund, Adrian Aucoin, RJ Umberger, Kevin Bieksa, Ryan Kesler, Corey Schneider, Alex Edler & some guys named Sedin....just to name a few.

Never had a number one pick, not too many top 10 picks either. Notoriously horrible drafters my ass.

It's extremely comical how far back you had to go to prove that point. It kind of proves mine actually.

Are you gonna go on and tell me how the Canucks got to a final a few decades ago?

[Maniwaki Canuck]

Every GM, every player runs the course and is faced with either getting traded, fired or cut loose. Mike Gillis did a lot of good things and also made a few moves that didn't pan out. I wish MG well and hope he lands on his feet.

Enter Jim Benning.....he has only had one draft and has also made some solid moves and some that didn't pan out or looks to the couch GM to be bad moves. JB has a good track record at the draft so let's afford him at least a 5 year window to see what we have before we start comparing GMs'. I prefer to look at it as MG took us part of the way through a rebuild of our prospect pool and JB is continuing down that path instead of wasting picks on bandaid solutions. Drafting well and developing your prospects into NHLers is the right way to go.

Umm, wouldn't that be two?

[Canada Hockey Place]

If I were the owner and paying millions for new players, I'd force Benning, Linden and everyone else take that course Gillis is teaching. The difference between the two is like money ball vs money pit.

[bluesman60]

Umm, wouldn't that be two?

Yes I stand corrected.

[soshified]

Gillis entered a team that saw their players had career numbers.

Benning entered a team that saw their players declining.

[VegasCanuck]

well our future core is looking like horvat, mccann, virtanen, baertschi, gaunce, boeser, markstrom, hutton, subban, pedan,

half of those players are benning acquisitions and he did it in only a year so I would have to disagree.

This!

[VegasCanuck]

Gillis really did very little when he took over this team. The success was set by Burke and Nonis with their acquisitions of the Sedins and Luongo. When Gillis came out and said that we really weren't close to winning the cup and it needed bold moves to get us there, the only really notable move he made was a 10 million per season, over payment offer to Sundin and then sat on his hands and waited all summer instead of trying to make other serious improvements.

Yes, he did acquire Ehrhoff for a song, but everyone gets lucky once in awhile.

What I saw, was someone who really just rode the acquisitions of the previous regime, made some minor changes and took credit for the fact that the Sedins and Kesler became dominant players.

[5nothincanucksohno]

Thought this was a thread-worthy post.

With McCann looking like a very good prospect and Markstrom looking real damn good today, I'm starting to think that GMMG maybe didn't get out GM'd.

And this isn't all of it.

Of course, we hated Gillis for trading Schneider (one of the up and coming goalies in the league) for a #9 pick but he went on and picked BoHo.

We questioned Gillis's drafting at times but he's drafted steals with Hutton, Subban and Cassels to go along with his solid early round draft picks in Shink and Gaunce.

The rebuild is looking more likely all because of MG's moves, not JB's. In fact, JB's trades leave a lot to be desired. And while I don't want to judge his drafting yet, I'm also having my doubts.

I love that JB drafted McCann and you are using it as ammunition for why Gillis is better. The irony is pretty sweet. JB will be fine and his drafts show that.

I don't think JB's trades have been bad, he hasn't necessarily won the trades but I wouldn't say he has lost any by a great marging. It's not like he was trading high end talent. Only Kesler was high end and JB was forced to trade him. I prefer JB's proactive mentality to Gillis's wait it out and do nothing approach.

[baumerman77]

i wonder if canucks won game 7 if this conversation will ever come up. MG inherited Dave Nonis' core and built on it so that the canucks come with 1 game of winning the first ever stanley cup.

when team goes south, GM usually changes strategy and switch to stocking prospect, and this usually will get the GM canned and the next GM walks in with a prospect pool to deal with.

Happened to gillis when he walked in, happened to Bowman when he walked into Chicago, and damn well happened to Chiarelli.

It's just the lifecycle of a GM in prosport for a particular team. However, I would put Gillis as one of the best GMs in canucks franchise history.

Good post.

I don't know if any other GM has been as lucky as Bowman. He got handed 3 Cups despite some of his decisions. Tallon deserves far more credit.

I know a lot of people were happy with Benning last year when we made the playoffs, but I would argue last year was a transition team and was more a product of Gillis than Benning. However, this year I believe the team is now more a product Benning than Gillis. I believe transitions can take anywhere from 1+ years depending on how many major decisions (trades, signings, extensions, coaching, etc) the GM makes. For the Benning's Canucks, I believe it was a one year lag (I'm not saying it is all his, just the majority now).