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Comedy of errors injures Canucks Brand

Libor Polasek

By Libor Polasek
in Canucks Talk

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Libor Polasek Junior Prospect

Libor Polasek

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Comedy of errors has turned a once contending organization into a contender for most dropped season tickets in the quirkiest market in Canada! The self-inflicted damage undertaken to the Canucks brand by the ownership has surpassed a study in futile improvement! Look at the moves listed below;

Aquallinis

The core of the team built by Burke and Nonis set this team up for success and stockpiled enough drafted players to succeed well into the current era. Ownership decides to fire Burke (Wins Cup with Anaheim) Fires (Nonis, after one year of missing of playoffs).

The ownership decides to clean house and invest millions of dollars into a vision sold by a player agent (Mike Gillis) with absolutely zero experience as a GM, or the knowledge of world of NHL GM's, old school network of good old boys, a complete outsider in this world! The ownership invest into a vision sold by a former player agent. Gillis has only limited trading partners available to him for major deals...you can see how those trades turned out, I will give you one example.

Ballard for 1st rounder, 1st rounder (Grabner who was great on a speed line with kessler, Raymond was just starting to come out before breaking his ankle playing soccer), 2nd rounder, 3rd rounder, and don’t forget taking on a contract for 4.5 Million for 4 years (Imagine the free agent player we would have been able to sign for 4 years @ 4.5 million) Ballard signs for 1-2 million a year with Minnesota!

The ownership through the direction of the GM, turn an outstanding dynamic duo of riches (goaltending) into a comedic high flying acrobatic circus show of mistakes, and this continued with the sole goalie standing, sitting on the pine at the Heritage classic.... you beg Luongo to come back and honor is contract, you guarantee he is the Number 1 goalie and has nothing to fear, midway through the year, the Coach thinks a rookie back-up with 12 games of NHL experience gives him a better chance of winning NHL games. The GM/ownership decides to back the new coach with that decision....and your former priced possession is gone to Florida. This fiasco leads to original bill of goods sold to the ownership by snake oil salesmen, selling the ownership into believing the Sedins were not good enough at the initial presser, there needed to be sweeping change in the organization...there was a new vision. However, the vision of a former player agent with absolutely no experience as a GM sold to the ownership had a crack in the foundation and a big crack that became bigger.

As the Aquallini brothers lost confidence in the GM and began squabbling over direction of the storied brand....lead to a fatal error in judgment, and that fatal error was made by the Aqualinis in the introduction of John Torterella as the new team coach! This coach inadvertently exposed the GM and his many faults (Current roster, trades, and drafting record) along the way in a comedy of errors, in some respect the Coach overstepped his boundary to go behind the back of the trusted GM.

This organization and storied brand will learn a huge leson in the coming years, the fans of Vancouver are loyal yet very apathetic and what happened this year will be reverberated for some years to come, the ownership desperately wants a winner have put money ....mind you the money is all yours fans...look at the ticket prices in the cap era!

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OntarioCanucker Junior Prospect

OntarioCanucker

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LMAO, Burke set this team up, the only move Nonis did for this team was the trade for Luongo, But those 2 traded picks like candy.

Flame Gillis all you want, and some of his moves are questionable, but The man has an uncanny ability to get some decent undrafted players here for nothing (Tanev, Fox, archibald, Lain) just to name a few, and we finally have some future stars coming down the pipe. probably the highest touted prospects since the Sedins or Kesler.

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kilgore Canucks Franchise Player

kilgore

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SPELING NATSIES

Besides the obvious mistakes it was a well written OP. I agree with most of what you say. But one thing you discounted as far as "injuring" the Canuck brand is literally injuries. Now you could argue that even if we had a good year as far as injuries (especially to our top players) and we had made it into the playoffs it would only be masking the deeper problems. But injuries had a HUGE part our demise this year.

That's why I would disagree about Tortorella having such a drastic effect in less than a year. I gotta feel sorry for the guy. It seems like he has attempted to always stay positive, even after bad ref calls, suspensions, and injuries every third or fourth game. I would love to see how he did after another year without such injury woes. With a healthy Santorelli, Henrik, Daniel, Burrows and with Kassian's blossoming into a top 6 forward, as well as the influx of young players like Jensen, Horvat and Shinkaruk. I think we can safely say that Schroeder is a write off.

But you are correct about Gillis. I think he may have been in over his head. The Aqualini's knew he was inexperienced and probably liked that about the deal so they would not feel out of place "helping out". Gillis was all full of bravado when he arrived. And I think most of us liked that about him. The Sundin signing that christened his new "bold moves" era was not a great idea in the end, especially if Sudin had decided to float through the second year and created another 10 million hit for what?....so he could be a "good influence" on the twins for another year?. I was appalled at the time of the Luongo re-signing. That length of contract for any player other than Crosby or Toews maybe is ludicrous. Especially goaltenders like DiPietro. Maybe Luongo would have wanted out if he was not either given that term or an 8 mill a year cap hit on a 4 year deal (or something). Well jeepers, it turns out that he could have let Lu go and signed a middle of the road vet to stand in until Schneider was ready....and saved a lot more cap space to build the rest of the team.

His past as a player agent together with his somewhat arrogant nature probably did not endear him to his peers on other clubs. How many times in the last few years have we heard "the deal just wasn't out there" and meanwhile other GMs are making great deals that benefit both clubs.

I think Mike has lost his way. But that said, I want to see one more year with him at least, just so as to not topple the apple cart just when the team looks like it may have a few good pieces coming into fruition next season

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