9 - 1 Where do we go from here & Gillis musings

[Dogbyte]

C+ / B-

[Sandro17]

Anyone ever play NHL14 GM mode, setting the trade diffuculty to "hard" (Makes it more realistic so you cant give away Ballard+Raymond + a first for Crosby) then try just simming 95% of your games? if you have you'll sort of understand that some years are just throw away years and there's almost nothing you can do about them.

A lot of the time it's better to stand pat and re-tool more than anything. This year is the first year of the re-tool and some of you guys expect to suddenly become an elite team before the fist re-tool year has even been completed?

The main problem of our team right now is that were a few integral pieces of the puzzle away from being an elite team again and that will take time. We need an elite D man and one more second line hard nosed goal scorer. You can make the argument that we still need to look for a third line center but with Horvat and possibly Gaunce coming up from within the system we only have to wait a year to fill that need.

[Tr4ilerP4rk]

C- and this is what I would like to see:

Kane Kesler Santorelli

Sedin Sedin Burrows

Higgins Ott Kassian

Sestito Richardson Hansen

Begosian Tanev

Hamhuis Bieksa

Stanton Garrison

Luongo

Lack

Pieces moved: Edler, Booth, Dalpe, Weise, Jensen, 1st

Additions: Ott, Kane & Begosian

Flame away

[combover]

clearly the most important place to spend some money is on the officials, gillis needs to follow LA and ANA example and flat out buy some refs. or maybe some private investigators to investigate officials friends and family's financials, winning in Vegas on sporting events maybe even say hockey.

all that being said i think this seasons a wash, gillis and gilman didn't foresee the cap reduction and with the booth contract and others with NTC's that have grossly under performed not much he can do till the offseason. i like gillis i hate NTC'.

[elvis15]

That is basically why it was a bad trade. Samuelsson and Sturm would have come off the books after that season or could have been moved for a less risky contract or picks but instead the Canucks got stuck with a 4+ million dollar contract for 3 more years after. Imagine the added possibilities with that much extra cap space and that is why it was a bad trade.

Imagine if Booth hadn't gotten knee'd by Porter and continued his actually pretty good pace from just after the trade. Who was going to take Sturm off our hands or give us much of anything for Samuelsson (injured himself at the time and underperforming)? He got something for them instead of nothing or next to nothing. Hindsight that Booth went on an injury spree and and lost his scoring touch isn't something you can blame on Gillis at the time.

I didn't really like the fit of Booth at the time, but considering what we gave up that was a good trade.

[Angry Goose]

If you look at all the trades in their context- Gillis has done everything he can to acquire players to fill needs. Canucks desperately needed a C before the playoffs last year and he went out and got Roy. Canucks needed more size and grit so he got Kassian. Needed more top 6 forwards so he took a chance on Booth for nothing. Higgins, Lappy the list goes on.

I like how the idiots on CDC put out their trade proposals as if they have any weight in real life. People assume other GM's a) want to trade their players and will accept the lopsided proposals CDC offers and c) that MG is willing to trade given players. Wake up people before you start slamming a professional who actually knows how to do his job.

give CDC a D for delusional thinking.

[touchable]

LOl it still amazes me how none of the people on CDC are GMs in the NHL....

first off, we didnt LOSE lappy. We let him go...

second, you fail to mention how close we were to getting doan AND clowe. They picked their other teams... WTF WAS GILLIS THINKING....

1) We were about as "close" to getting Shane Doan as we were to outscoring Anaheim last night.

2) Ryan Clowe is pretty much Chris Higgins with more size and grit, but less offensive talent. You should be very glad New Jersey is paying him $4.85m/year for the next 5 years and not us.

third, i still want him to get that 3rd line centre and a top 6 SURE. And you know what i bet he is working his ass off to get them.

It's great that he's working hard. Where are the results? We've needed a top 6 winger to play with Kesler for the last 5 years, and we're still waiting.

I am not the biggest Gillis supporter at all, he has made bad decisions, but you people fail to realize how you DONT WIN every god forsaken trade in the NHL. Aww we lost Roy for a bum dman who is only playing in Dallas cause their dcore is a joke.

Im sure the aquillinis have trust in him for a reason, and you cant spit facts like THE OTHER GMS DONT RESPECT HIM, when you dont have any ???? evidence.

STFU RELAX!!! Everything will be alright kids, everything is going to be okay...

PS. if i hear the ballard trade was bad one more ???? time.... AT THE TIME OF THE TRADE IT WAS SO GOOD. Its so easy to look back and say WHAT A STUPID TRADE, but IT WASNT!!! We needed to strengthen our D. I was SO happy when that trade happened. IF you werent you clearly didnt follow hockey, or didnt follow the canucks at the time... Jesus christ.

Yes, it was a great trade for about a month, until the season started. Ballard did almost nothing for us in his time here, basically playing 6th defenseman minutes while eating up valuable top 4 cap space, and Grabner went on to light it up in NYI.

[viking mama]

clearly the most important place to spend some money is on the officials, gillis needs to follow LA and ANA example and flat out buy some refs. or maybe some private investigators to investigate officials friends and family's financials, winning in Vegas on sporting events maybe even say hockey.

all that being said i think this seasons a wash, gillis and gilman didn't foresee the cap reduction and with the booth contract and others with NTC's that have grossly under performed not much he can do till the offseason. i like gillis i hate NTC'.

Those organizations (ANA, SJ) have both paid Brian Burke.....as a "consultant". Money well spent - eh? Somehow - I don't think MG would be go there. The Aquilini's could waffle & attempt to hire Burke...if he left his President of Hockey Operations job with CAL. But somehow - I don't think Burkie would go there...either. He enjoys plotting & executing his anti-Canucks vendetta far too much....to quit now!

[erkayloomeh]

Gillis gets a C. From me. Like our team, as gm's go, he's in the middle of the pack. He's better than about 14 other gm's

[Daretodream]

Gillis gets a F because his vision for this team was/is wrong! We had a team built around speed and skill. Thanks to some injuries to our key players and a wake-up hit by Rome; the Bruins got extra motivated and took over the last 4/5 games in the 2011 finals. Gillis and Co. decided that we lost because we weren't strong or big enough, and decided to move in that direction instead of adding even more skill and speed that our core is obviously built for and made us very successful to that point. Teams feared us not because we intimidated them physically but because they played a chase game against us, forcing them to take penalties and waste more energy trying to get the puck from us

Subsequently we no longer have an identity, our core is much older, and now we're the team that seems to be always chasing the puck!

[Peaches]

Gillis gets a C from me.

His trades have (mostly) ranged from average to bad, but his signings and re-signings have been solid for the most part.

[elvis15]

1) We were about as "close" to getting Shane Doan as we were to outscoring Anaheim last night.

2) Ryan Clowe is pretty much Chris Higgins with more size and grit, but less offensive talent. You should be very glad New Jersey is paying him $4.85m/year for the next 5 years and not us.

...

1. We were close to getting Doan, regardless of what you think about it.
   
2. I guess it's a good thing Gillis wasn't prepared to overpay for Clowe then as well, although we were one of his final two choices. We weren't going to be paying him that, so good job Gillis, right?
   

If successful trades were easy, everyone would do them. It's particularly hard to get top end talent but he tried to do so in getting Booth, and succeeded in doing so in getting Ehrhoff. Despite free agency being overpriced usually he's also picked up very good talent there, some of it value priced or previously unheard of finds (Tanev, Lack, Santorelli, Richardson) and some of it established and highly sought after (Hamhuis, Garrison).

Trades are all based on both sides agreeing for some reason, but just because you can't see why they would (or wouldn't) happen doesn't mean Gillis is a bad GM.

[Tre Mac]

A big fat F for Gillis. Glad someone brought up Doan and Clowe saying its not his fault they signed elsewhere. We'd be in even worse shape if we were able to sign them because that would of meant we overpaid. And the verdict has been in on the CoHo/Kass trade for quite some time now, we lost.

People like to brag about these efficient signings in Richardson and Santo, and yes they have been great, the only reason we signed them was because Gillis handcuffed himself with too many NTC's he had little cap space that he had to target these players. You think if we had 20mil in space that these 2 would of got a call, hell no.

[Henrik Kesler]

The biggest takeaways from watching this year's team are:

1: We need a dynmamic offensive-defensemen who can rush the puck up the ice, make a clean breakout pass, start the PP zone entries, and more or less be a fourth forward from the center line into the offensive zone.

This does two things. First, it allows the Canucks to finally be threatening in transition again. Back in the not so distant 'good ole days,' this team feasted on transition play to score goals and draw penalties. A lot of this transition play was driven by defensemen who could push the pace and open up space for the forwards to make a play on the rush. The current iteration of the Canucks is not threatening in transition which leads to a struggle to score goals, and an inability to draw more than 2-3 penalties per game, leading to fewer opportunities to score goals.

The second thing that a dynamic puck rusher does is get the PP re-energized by creating cleaner break ins, allowing the PP to get set up and go to work. A re-energized PP will do a lot to quell the 'we can't score goals' chorus, IMO.

2: The Canucks need Burrows back. Burrows is an elite 5 on 5 goal scorer, and despite being snake bitten this year, he makes the team a hell of a lot more dangerous at even strength. Burrows returning should help the Sedins production. Unfortunately, he won't do much to help the powerplay as he really hasn't shown to be very good at scoring in 5 on 4 situations which is odd given his 5 on 5 proficiency.

3: A new power play coach. The Canucks have the personnel to have quite the power play, they just keep doing dumber and dumber crap on the PP, with the most egregious error being a dearth of player movement when the puck moves, something that should be a fairly simple fix.

[jejejester]

Where do we go?

We keep cheering for the team, enjoying wins, hating losses.

Where the team goes?

1)I would say this team doesn't make a move this year.

2) take our 15-18 overall draft pick and select BPA and keep doing that through all the rounds, hope to find a gem or to

3) makes a couple free agency signings, one significant one

4) keep developing our future core of Tanev, Kassian, Horvat, Shinkaruk, Corrado, Subban, Jensen

5) Continue drafting players and build for the future

6) trade off pieces of our old core as they come into the last year of their deals (should be easier to trade an NTC on the last year at deadline)

7) keep some vets like Sedins, Kesler, Hamhuis to support the new core

And just like that rebuild on the fly.

Bring new pieces in, sell off old ones.

Imagine how good this team could be in the future if Sedins and Kesler are your depth players on the 3rd line adding secondary scoring?

[canacks1970]

The problem is the Stanley Cup "window" we have had for a few years. This pretty much made MG to trade prospects and picks away in order to make a run. It might take a mediocre year like this season for MG to finally realize that you have to develop your prospects instead of giving them away. I rather have a couple of tough years while we let the young guys make their way to the team.

Our core guys are still the same guys from the Burke/Nonis era. Mike Gillis has yet to draft and develop his own players and make them the core.

MG Isn't the only Gm to trade their share of draft picks and prospects. Nonis did the same thing in his last year in Vancouver and it cost him his job. Also Dave didn't do anything special besides the Luongo trade. He was riding on Burkie coatails.

Drafting isn't a rocket science. Especially if your drafting in the 20 plus range. Its a crap shoot from there. Mind you Almo Imo most of the Gm's that take over from the previous management will keep some part of the core. Look at their Roster there really isn't much left from the Burkie era.Maybe at most 5 -6 players.

[TOMapleLaughs]

White for Ehrhoff and Lukowich - good except that we then lost Ehrhoff later

3rd round draft pick for Higgins - Higgins is good,,,,but not top 6

3rd round draft pick for Lapierre - good grit and faceoffs, then we lost him

2nd and 3rd round draft pick for Bernier - ok, then we traded him anyways and lost picks

3rd round draft pick for Alberts - depth defenseman only - too slow and inconsistent

Samuelsson and Sturm for Booth - do I need to go there

Connauton and a 2nd round draft pick for Roy - another pick and prospect lost on a rental

Grabner, Bernier and a 1st round draft pick for Ballard - pice de resistance.... what a waste

Hodgson and Sulzer for Kassian and Gragnani - still to be determined (see David Booth trade)

Ehrhoff wanted too much salary. He'll be a future buyout.

Interestingly, the 3rd we gave up for Higgins turned out to be Cole Cassels, who's in our system.

Interestingly, the 3rd we gave up for Lappiere is the goaltender who just beat us. Andersen. But we needed Lappy for the run.

The picks we gave up for Bernier turned out to be nothings.

The pick we gave up for Alberts turned out to be nothing.

Samuelsson and Sturn turned out to be nothing.

Did not like giving up on K-Con, but time will tell if he'll be a difference-maker.

The Ballard trade is overblown. Ballard didn't improve here, but i'm not sure if Grabner would perform better for us than in NY or if he's worth his current salary there, Howden is a meh-level prospect and Bernier's a 4th liner.

I like Kassian. Coho was a good young player, but he wasn't going to be a Canuck.

What we've seen is the rise and fall of a core group. These trades being reversed would not have altered much.

PS. Where's the love for Shirokov!?!

[Teen Icarus]

Basically, Gillis is good at signing free agents, particularly good depth players. He's slightly below average at trades - at the start of his tenure, he made good trades, but their quality has declined greatly since then. He's been average at re-signing players - some were below value, some were above. Additionally, he's made several trades that seemed good at the time but bad luck stopped them from panning out (ballard, booth).

Hopefully, he does a major re-tool a la San Jose (keeping starts but selling off aging second/third-liners) - Torts can get a lot out of a mediocre team if they work hard, and in a couple of years we should be able to contend again, with our young guns leading the way.

[Alex Burrows 14]

White for Ehrhoff and Lukowich - good except that we then lost Ehrhoff later

3^rd round draft pick for Higgins - Higgins is good,,,,but not top 6

3^rd round draft pick for Lapierre - good grit and faceoffs, then we lost him

2nd and 3rd round draft pick for Bernier - ok, then we traded him anyways and lost picks

3^rd round draft pick for Alberts - depth defenseman only - too slow and inconsistent

Samuelsson and Sturm for Booth - do I need to go there

Connauton and a 2^nd round draft pick for Roy - another pick and prospect lost on a rental

Grabner, Bernier and a 1^st round draft pick for Ballard - pice de resistance.... what a waste

Hodgson and Sulzer for Kassian and Gragnani - still to be determined (see David Booth trade)

Great

Great

Good

Bad

Bad

Great

Good

Bad

Good

[Baka]

Imagine if Booth hadn't gotten knee'd by Porter and continued his actually pretty good pace from just after the trade. Who was going to take Sturm off our hands or give us much of anything for Samuelsson (injured himself at the time and underperforming)? He got something for them instead of nothing or next to nothing. Hindsight that Booth went on an injury spree and and lost his scoring touch isn't something you can blame on Gillis at the time.

I didn't really like the fit of Booth at the time, but considering what we gave up that was a good trade.

At the time it was a crap for crap trade. Booth signed his current contract after he had a 31 goal season. Some say it was a fluke season and others say he was never the same player after Mike Richards destroyed him. Ether way he never played that way again and only got worse and worse for the Panthers. When Florida choice to move Booth he was not scoring, he was not playing defense, his ice time was significantly down and they were stuck with that contract for 4 more seasons.

In other words Booth was a contract dump and he came cheap because it was common knowledge that he was a risk to not play up to his contract. Gillis seems to like deals like that he did the same thing with Ehrhoff though of course he was a lower risk and paid off.

But the signs were there and how he is playing now. In his two 20 goal seasons he only shot 8% and 9% but got the goals because he took a large amount of shots. He is shooting around his career average now at 8.5% the only difference is he isn't getting 18+ minutes and 250 shots a season. I feel numbers like that should stick out.