(Rumour) Gillis and Gilman in talks with NY Islanders

[Patrick Kane]

17 minutes ago, SILLY GOOSE said:

 

Pat Quinn was a much better evaluator of talent, same with Benning.  He inherited the Sedins in their prime along with Kesler.  I never once complained about Gillis, but IMO JB is a much better team builder.

JB hasn't built anything worth mentioning yet.

[chon derry]

4 minutes ago, apollo said:

Wait... did Dregs just call MG the single worse GM in history? 

 

He should suck on the back to back president trophies. 

he just deleted the tweet that i posted above and tweeted this........

Darren Dreger ‏@DarrenDreger  12m12 minutes ago

Darren Dreger Retweeted 

I said there is rumoured interest,but as of yet, no contact has been made with Canucks requesting permission to talk https://twitter.com/jasonpht/status/806233604883812352 …

Darren Dreger added,

[PhillipBlunt]

1 minute ago, chon derry said:

he just deleted the tweet that i posted above and tweeted this........

Darren Dreger ‏@DarrenDreger  12m12 minutes ago

Darren Dreger Retweeted 

I said there is rumoured interest,but as of yet, no contact has been made with Canucks requesting permission to talk https://twitter.com/jasonpht/status/806233604883812352 …

Darren Dreger added,

Dreger is such a spineless Brylcreem head.

[Smashian Kassian]

28 minutes ago, SILLY GOOSE said:

 

Pat Quinn was a much better evaluator of talent, same with Benning.  He inherited the Sedins in their prime along with Kesler.  I never once complained about Gillis, but IMO JB is a much better team builder.

 

I'm probably one of the bigger Gillis supporters on the board, and I 100% agree with this.

 

I think Gillis took some risks here maybe that made sense at the time but didn't work out. But I don't think his track record for doing that is as bad as most people think. I think he did a much better job given circumstances than most give him credit for, and really the proof of that is in the pudding.

 

Benning on the other hand just kinda goes with his experience and sometimes he hits, sometimes he misses. I wasn't a fan of his early stuff but he's starting to turn it around. At this point I think his judgement has been not terrible nor great, although my confidence in he and Linden as a whole has grown tremendously from the first year and a half.

 

 

[Smashian Kassian]

I think Gillis would do great, he came to Vancouver, identified the situation, and built it into the best team(s) we have ever seen, that is undeniable.

 

He could do the same with the Isles, although perhaps there are some respects where it might be a bit more difficult to do that then it was here.

 

But the thing I will give him is that, when he came in, we were at a point where the prime WCE years were ending and the disappointment was only just beginning, (remember the 2008 'losing begins now' headline). much like what has happened/what we are seeing now with the embrace that the Gillis glory is over and we need to start something new.

 

The thing with Gillis that gets lost is, its been reported that he wanted to turn it around earlier, if he did it, perhaps we could have turned this team around much faster like he was able to before, I know the argument to that is he handcuffed himself, but to his credit he did show that he was willing to make tough/controversial decisions for what he thought was the better of the team, and u never know. Had he tried to get younger the other guys may have naturally accepted moving on like they have now. Then we would have been able to maximize those assets and we would maybe could have gotten more/higher picks in the post 2013 drafts had this fate just had been accepted sooner. Or atleast better assets to work with in turning it around.

 

I think that line of thinking, is why he could answer the critics that he was more than a product of his inheritance if given another chance.

 

And I would love to see him get the chance to try, so that he can expand on his legacy, and then we can get our answer. 

[Angry Goose]

20 minutes ago, Patrick Kane said:

JB hasn't built anything worth mentioning yet.

 

He was a big part of BOS's recent success wasn't he?

[Angry Goose]

13 minutes ago, Smashian Kassian said:

 

I'm probably one of the bigger Gillis supporters on the board, and I 100% agree with this.

 

I think Gillis took some risks here maybe that made sense at the time but didn't work out. But I don't think his track record for doing that is as bad as most people think. I think he did a much better job given circumstances than most give him credit for, and really the proof of that is in the pudding.

 

Benning on the other hand just kinda goes with his experience and sometimes he hits, sometimes he misses. I wasn't a fan of his early stuff but he's starting to turn it around. At this point I think his judgement has been not terrible nor great, although my confidence in he and Linden as a whole has grown tremendously from the first year and a half.

 

 

 

Gillis seemed like a much more shrewd GM-  wanted to hit homeruns with his moves or squeeze out as much as he could in a trade (Ballard and Booth probably wern't the greatest acquisitions, Erhoff was a great move though).  JB on the other hand strikes me as a real deal maker that makes fair value deals, and other GM's are probably much more willing to negotiate with a guy who won't try to nickle and dime with them.  Like you say sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but either way he is a much more decisive GM than Gillis was.  

 

I know Canuck fans hate BOS, but looking back I have to say that was a hell of a well-balanced team.  I honestly see VAN headed (hopefully) in that same direction.

[Fanuck]

So when Benning says he'd be interested in an upcoming UFA that's tampering.

 

But when other clubs actively talk to individual(s) under contract with the Canucks that's nothing.

 

Double standard much NHL? 

 

 

[Smashian Kassian]

Just now, Fanuck said:

So when Benning says he'd be interested in an upcoming UFA that's tampering.

 

But when other clubs actively talk to individual(s) under contract with the Canucks that's nothing.

 

Double standard much NHL? 

 

 

 

Its illogical, they all just don't care out East. Lol

[Whale Tail]

1 hour ago, PhillipBlunt said:

Your Twitter magic is very intriguing to me, Ossi. Although it causes my page to scroll up uncontrollably.

 

My work computer does this to with tweets etc. if you find out what it is please let me know! Drives me crazy. 

[chon derry]

when does TSN have a moment of clarity an epiphany about all the stupidity coming out of toronto lately, is it the water? i mean it is pollluted , all the crap their talking about stemming from all the crap they've been drinking?

[D-Money]

1 hour ago, TheRussianRocket. said:

Say what you want but MG was the greatest GM in franchise history. The things he was able to accomplish were amazing and it led to the best stretch of Canucks hockey ever.

 

...I've been wondering for a couple years now why no one else has given him a shot seeing he has an incredible track record - the way he was able to turn Vancouver around. Would love to see both Gillis and Gilman back in the league - both are management wizards.

 

Yup. The team he put together was one of the most dominant teams in NHL history.

 

Probably would have had more success and for longer if it weren't for some simply ridiculous bad luck:

 

- Top prospect dies, hit by a truck

- First draft pick screws up his back in training

- Second draft pick has his development derailed after being hit by a car (Sauve)

- Half of the secondary players suddenly become chronically injury prone (Samuelsson, Booth, Ballard), or have a career-limiting freak injury (Malhotra, Raymond)

 

[JM_]

1 hour ago, TheRussianRocket. said:

Say what you want but MG was the greatest GM in franchise history. The things he was able to accomplish were amazing and it led to the best stretch of Canucks hockey ever.

 

...I've been wondering for a couple years now why no one else has given him a shot seeing he has an incredible track record - the way he was able to turn Vancouver around. Would love to see both Gillis and Gilman back in the league - both are management wizards.

 

GMMG inherited a great deal of work from Burkie and Nonis. But sure, MG was at the helm when Burke's worked bloomed. So by that logic, during those years Fin was the greatest mascot in franchise history. Same for the hot dogs and over priced beer. That was the greatest too  

 

MG was a disaster and we can see how hard its been for Linden and Benning to cobble a team together due to all of MGs f-up's. 

[Warhippy]

1 hour ago, coastal.view said:

haha

Pat Quinn says hi Left the organization with nothing then turned it over to Kennan and Messier

and over his shoulder Brian Burke is also waving Burke is waving having left the organization with Naslund and the twins and 2003, after that really nothing else but empty cupboards 

Gillis was certainly decent and did a good job with what he inherited - he managed a team rich in talent which he supplemented with the kind of role players that make good teams great

but you are ignoring his biggest flaw and that is the poor shape the organization was in when he left having sold the farm to take a good team to the promised land as a great team

he is not the best gm here and likely is not in the top 3 top 3...only GM in Canucks history to be a top 10 team in the league for 5 consecutive years and the best team in the league 2 years in a row with a stanley cup finals berth and a game 7 loss....

 

edit: and the fact that few or no teams expressed much interest up till now should also give you a clue about what other hockey people think/thought of him except we don't know if he just didn't want to do anything in the league as we heard he was taking positions at a BC university and had expressed 0 interest to come back to hockey until his contract had run out.  Soooo.....

 

There ya go.  Putting  things in to perspective and all ya know.  Greatness comes at a price.

[Canuck Surfer]

32 minutes ago, Smashian Kassian said:

 

I'm probably one of the bigger Gillis supporters on the board, and I 100% agree with this.

 

I think Gillis took some risks here maybe that made sense at the time but didn't work out. But I don't think his track record for doing that is as bad as most people think. I think he did a much better job given circumstances than most give him credit for, and really the proof of that is in the pudding.

 

Benning on the other hand just kinda goes with his experience and sometimes he hits, sometimes he misses. I wasn't a fan of his early stuff but he's starting to turn it around. At this point I think his judgement has been not terrible nor great, although my confidence in he and Linden as a whole has grown tremendously from the first year and a half.

 

 

 

I personally think that Gillis was both innovative and a risk taker.  Some of his moves were obvious, yet still genius because he managed to pull them off.  Example; we needed D, went out and got Ehrhoff.  Obvious because we needed it. Genius because he manipulated ours and the Sharks cap to get him for virtually free.

 

Early on, he also masterfully filled holes in our line up. Still needed D after Ehrhoff? Get Hamhuis! Cough, get Ballard... Will get back to that next paragraph.  Need size and speed? Get Torres. Need another scoring C??  Hell no, we have a master defensive tactician as coach > so even though we have a Selke nom at 2C, we're going to sign Malhotra as a premium UFA.  Guess what! Malhotra / Torres / Hansen was one of the fastest, best defensive lines in the NHL.  Although people in Van recognize it, this was another pure genius innovative move not recognized universally. But between Torres & Manny, we added all we needed up front to make a serious run.  Gillis, early on, was very attentive to filling the right holes!

 

The problem was he started repeating these "innovative" moves. And as it became known we would take on cap, teams in turn took advantage of us.  The builder in him knew we needed D.  The talent evaluator in him got silly.  Ballard was not our answer. And GM's now started taking advantage of his willingness to take on cap. To get rid of their shat.  He also got cocky? Would not give Torres a 2 year deal (for $1.6 mill?)? Then blew the biscuit committing us to David Booth.

 

I personally believe Gillis, as much as he pulled virtually ALL the right strings in 2010 / 2011? I think he lost his marbles, got cocky.  Felt he could out wait guys like Schneider, Lou. Felt he would be able to find another Ehrhoff to solve our problems. Problem is? When we let Ehrhoff walk, the right move IMO. We did not get another PMD in his remaining 3 years.  The guy who addressed such needs so adroitly early in his tenure, was leaving such holes to rot us at the end.  Already mentioned, he let Torres go over a 2knd year of contract at $1.6 mill. But then paid David Booth three times that to replace him, which he did not, to solve the problem. I guess he at least tried to fill that hole?

 

Then there is Lou / Cory?

 

As smart as he was when he started; Gillis equally deserved to be sacked when he did. Probably a year earlier?

 

I'd be asking what he learned from these F up's in his Islander interview.  But I do believe he will re surface again ultimately...

[TheRussianRocket.]

15 minutes ago, S'all Good Man said:

But sure, MG was at the helm when Burke's worked bloomed.

Yes, Gillis didn't do a thing. He just sat back and things magically unfolded on their own

 

http://www.nucksmisconduct.com/2014/2/10/5397096/updated-the-history-of-mike-gillis-tenure-with-the-canucks

 

right?

 

 

 

Lol, the heck out of here with this ridiculous misconception. He took the Canucks to the next level. They were a middle of the pack team with no identity. It's not a coincidence the moves he made led to the team becoming the class of the league.

 

And so what the Canucks were handcuffed after he left? That was inevitable as the Canucks were in a win now mode and he did everything in his power to help the team win now. A complete tear down / rebuild / retool was going to happen in the near future regardless of if he was in charge or JB or anyone else. The window was closing but he did everything possible to extend it. End of the day it didn't pay off - that's the cycle of hockey and we're experiencing the begging stages of it now...if you can't wrap your head around that or respect that, than that's on you. Tens of thousands of fans including me applaud MG for this. It's still a bit soon but in a few more years from now, Canucks fans will be able to look back and see how spoiled they were with the teams MG assembled.

[JM_]

7 minutes ago, TheRussianRocket. said:

Yes, Gillis didn't do a thing. He just sat back and things magically unfolded on their own

 

http://www.nucksmisconduct.com/2014/2/10/5397096/updated-the-history-of-mike-gillis-tenure-with-the-canucks

 

right?

 

 

 

Lol, the heck out of here with this ridiculous misconception. He took the Canucks to the next level. They were a middle of the pack team with no identity. It's not a coincidence the moves he made led to the team becoming the class of the league.

 

And so what the Canucks were handcuffed after he left? That was inevitable as the Canucks were in a win now mode and he did everything in his power to help the team win now. A complete tear down / rebuild / retool was going to happen in the near future regardless of if he was in charge or JB or anyone else. The window was closing but he did everything possible to extend it. End of the day it didn't pay off - that's the cycle of hockey and we're experiencing the begging stages of it now...if you can't wrap your head around that or respect that, than that's on you. Tens of thousands of fans including me applaud MG for this. It's still a bit soon but in a few more years from now, Canucks fans will be able to look back and see how spoiled they were with the teams MG assembled.

 

So what? The so what is this - are the Blackhawks handcuffed? You don't have to tire fire the organization's prospects the way MG did to achieve success.

 

When you run down that history it breaks down like this:

1. resigning a lot of guys that wanted to be here that Burke and Nonis worked hard to get and draft. 

2. Near total drafting disaster. 

3. Litany of low quality signings - yah that Lee Sweatt deal was remarkable GM-ing.

4. Anchor contracts like Ballard & Booth. 

5. A few good signings like Hamhuis but I still think had he treated Willie Mitchell properly we would have been better off and could have really used Willie's leadership vs BOS.

 

Burke and Nonis brought the core in. They were invested in being here. Sure Gillis kept them but look at that Luongo contract - that alone is in the top 5 worst NHL contracts ever and may really come back to hurt us. If Lu retires early it could cost us 8.5 million in 2021 in cap space. Sure the league was involved, but Gillis is responsible for circumventing the cap in such a way that the league had to act - imagine if they allowed that? Every team would act as if they'd have guys playing until 45. It was idiotic. 

 

[UFCanuck]

The '10, '11 and '12 teams were very good. The Hawks and Kings were special. 

 

We should have been able to win a cup in those Gillis years. 

 

[JM_]

36 minutes ago, Canuck Surfer said:

Gillis, early on, was very attentive to filling the right holes!

 

Its always easier to see the "holes" left by the guy before. Yes Manny in particular was a great signing, but don't you think Nonis could have found the same or similar guys? 

[Smashian Kassian]

21 minutes ago, Canuck Surfer said:

 

I personally think that Gillis was both innovative and a risk taker.  Some of his moves were obvious, yet still genius because he managed to pull them off.  Example; we needed D, went out and got Ehrhoff.  Obvious because we needed it. Genius because he manipulated ours and the Sharks cap to get him for virtually free.

 

Early on, he also masterfully filled holes in our line up. Still needed D after Ehrhoff? Get Hamhuis! Cough, get Ballard... Will get back to that next paragraph.  Need size and speed? Get Torres. Need another scoring C??  Hell no, we have a master defensive tactician as coach > so even though we have a Selke nom at 2C, we're going to sign Malhotra as a premium UFA.  Guess what! Malhotra / Torres / Hansen was one of the fastest, best defensive lines in the NHL.  Although people in Van recognize it, this was another pure genius innovative move not recognized universally. But between Torres & Manny, we added all we needed up front to make a serious run.  Gillis, early on, was very attentive to filling the right holes!

 

The problem was he started repeating these "innovative" moves. And as it became known we would take on cap, teams in turn took advantage of us.  The builder in him knew we needed D.  The talent evaluator in him got silly.  Ballard was not our answer. And GM's now started taking advantage of his willingness to take on cap. To get rid of their shat.  He also got cocky? Would not give Torres a 2 year deal (for $1.6 mill?)? Then blew the biscuit committing us to David Booth.

 

I personally believe Gillis, as much as he pulled virtually ALL the right strings in 2010 / 2011? I think he lost his marbles, got cocky.  Felt he could out wait guys like Schneider, Lou. Felt he would be able to find another Ehrhoff to solve our problems. Problem is? When we let Ehrhoff walk, the right move IMO. We did not get another PMD in his remaining 3 years.  The guy who addressed such needs so adroitly early in his tenure, was leaving such holes to rot us at the end.  Already mentioned, he let Torres go over a 2knd year of contract at $1.6 mill. But then paid David Booth three times that to replace him, which he did not, to solve the problem. I guess he at least tried to fill that hole?

 

Then there is Lou / Cory?

 

As smart as he was when he started; Gillis equally deserved to be sacked when he did. Probably a year earlier?

 

I'd be asking what he learned from these F up's in his Islander interview.  But I do believe he will re surface again ultimately...

 

 

I agree with you, thats a good take. Perhaps he let his success get the best of him. He was making moves that to fill holes we needed, but perhaps his judgment on those players were off now. I think David Booth would have been better than he ultimately ended up, he was playing pretty good up until that knee by Porter. Would he necessarily ever have always been worth what he paid? I agree perhaps not. But that's old news now.

 

Luo / Corey, handled terribly, but in reality I don't think it ended up too bad, Horvat/Markstrom & getting out of Luo's contract? Not such a bad thing. Could he have gotten more secondary pieces perhaps sure, but who knows if those would have worked out, no management group is perfect, you win some u lose some, I dont think he got out of it too bad in the end though like terrible GM's he's been compared to. (Milbury) 

 

I think, if in 2013 he went to ownership and said that he wanted to try and rebuild it right then and there. And wanted to abandon trying to win with parts of that core (which is what many wanted) then he should have been allowed to do so based on the success he had just achieved, ownership went another way, wanted to try and still win and he was ultimately the fall guy for a failed attempt to reclaim past glory. Like what was the difference in Luongo being moved when he did, and when interest was high? The difference was ownership finally caved and retained money. And I would presume the reason money wasn't retained earlier when Gillis wanted to get younger, was to keep the cap structure in place that allowed us to win at the time as u said, but that wasn't working we all knew it, including Gillis at the time. 

 

And in that case I partly blame them for what has happened with us really being behind the eight ball now comparatively to other teams around us. Full scale Pittsburgh/Chicago rebuilds don't have to happen if assets are managed properly before that, just look at the Islanders and the Panthers. U have just as many examples of teams getting high picks and it not working out. The idea of just tanking and relying on high picks isn't a fool proof formula, not every high pick works out.

 

And with what I have just said in mind, perhaps in 2013 Gillis wanted to abandon the core sooner when they were more ripe for a better return. Now your criticism is fair here because who knows? maybe he would have blown a few more moves here and there, and led us to this position either way, that is possible. And its ultimately an instant gratification business so its somewhat understandable that ownership went this way. But I still don't agree with it.

 

Maybe we will see which narrative proves correct if he gets another chance, we will have to see.