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Mike Gillis interviewed for Panthers GM job

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EP40.

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I like a lot of things about Gillis - he took seemingly minor things with the seriousness they deserved, like hiring sleep doctors, etc. And I think he's generally a smart GM. His drafting record has got to be a red flag for any team tough. I was a huge fan of a lot of his picks, and defended him a lot at the time, but in hindsight, I think Bo was his only pick to become a regular NHLer from his entire tenure.

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Giliis was ahead of his time with innovation, sleep Dr etc. But I never thought he drafted well at all. He made one good pick - Bo Horvat. But he also drafted Cody Hodgson and left Erik Karlsson on the table. He took Jordan Schroeder when Ryan O'Reilly was available. He drafted Patrick McNally and left Brendan Gallagher for MTL. Okay, he was a terrible drafter. lol Could you imagine the Canucks having those guys in their prime?

 

He made some good pretty good trades though. I wish him the best of luck in FLA. 

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He was a good GM and his best situation, as a GM, is to take a team like the Canucks in 2007 -- who were close to being a great team but needed to add some pieces to really excel. Florida feels like the modern version of that type of team. They've got a great coach, really strong young pieces (Huberdeau, Barkov, Ekblad). Some good vets like Dabanov, Bobrovsky, and Hoffman. They just need structure. 

 

And Gillis did get better at drafting the longer he was around. Horvat is his best pick but he did also pick Ben Hutton, Cody Hodgson (who would've had a longer career had it not been for a career ending illness), and Kevin Connoutan who have all played over 300 NHL games. Sure, he hasn't been the wizard like JB at the draft table but he was also only picking 20 and higher for most of the drafts he was here... he just really whiffed hard in the later rounds which ultimately became his downfall. 

 

I feel like he's learned a lot from his experiences and deserves another chance. I honestly think he should've been the Kraken GM -- he's better than Ron Francis and has been blackballed in the league. 

 

I honestly believe the Panthers job will go to either Kevin Weekes, Mike Gillis, or Laurence Gillman at the end of the day.

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26 minutes ago, NUCKER67 said:

Giliis was ahead of his time with innovation, sleep Dr etc. But I never thought he drafted well at all. He made one good pick - Bo Horvat. But he also drafted Cody Hodgson and left Erik Karlsson on the table. He took Jordan Schroeder when Ryan O'Reilly was available. He drafted Patrick McNally and left Brendan Gallagher for MTL. Okay, he was a terrible drafter. lol Could you imagine the Canucks having those guys in their prime?

 

He made some good pretty good trades though. I wish him the best of luck in FLA. 

Gillis didn't have many successes, but a lot of teams missed on Karlsson and O'Reilly. Chicago drafted Kyle Beach and Carolina drafted Philippe Paradis after us but before those players in their respective drafts. Neither played an NHL game. Hell, Columbus drafted Nikita Filatov and Dallas drafted Scott Glennie before us in those respective drafts.

 

Talking about a late 4th round pick is pointless. Gallagher was drafted in the 5th anyway, two picks after we grabbed Polasek.

 

He could be a good fit somewhere with a good scouting team. This all assumes he can have good relationships with other GMs, which I think may have been a bigger problem.

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Mike Gillis, from the outside looking in?

 

Seemed to have some gaps in personal leadership. Took some things for granted, because he did other things exceptionally well.  A fantastic strategic mind, very structured systems of support and development.  At his best, he targeted and won player contracts, trades that exactly hit the mark.

 

What was missing, or went wrong?  He took some bigger risks, and spent fairly wantonly. Which left him short of trust from Aqualinni, who still had to pay Luongo, AV, Torts. Although Torts is rumored to be a stroke of FAQ's? Possibly when his faith in Gillis was low. And we were short on picks, overspent on cap. But he still presented as the man who won the GM of the year.

 

It maybe rubbed some people the wrong way?

 

Regardless, exceptionally capable. A more humbled Gillis, one who let a hockey guy run the draft? Would probably be a great hire. 

 

A lawyer & teacher. He might be a better team president than GM...

 

  

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I think Gillis' draft record gets an unfair rap. It is by no means good. It might even be poor. But it isn't awful. 

 

Most were ecstatic when Schroeder fell to Vancouver. You can say that the Canucks should have drafted O'Reilly, but O'Reilly wasn't taken until the second round. The only player from the first round that turned out more valuable than O'Reilly is Victor Hedman (and maybe Tavares). In other words, all 30 teams slept on O'Reilly back then.

 

Hodgson was also only a bad pick in hindsight. His post-draft year was strong, especially at the WJHC. He gave the Canucks a great memory with his Game 8 bar down goal. 

 

Also, if the Canucks had their own farm team, maybe their prospects would have experienced a better developmental trajectory. Schroeder et al. were in the Chicago Wolves' system, which was independent of Vancouver. There was no interest in developing prospects. They wanted to win and were laden with vets. Some guys may have failed to develop because of this.

 

I think where Gillis went wrong is his belief that he was the smartest guy in the room. That's a tough personality trait to fix when you're 50. James Duthie tells a story about how Gillis and Aqualini were at the same restaurant as him and Bob Mckenzie. Aqua sent over an incredibly expensive bottle of tequila and the four ended up chatting for the night. Gillis went on and on about how they were going to beat the brakes off Boston and that Vancouver was establishing a revolutionary way of running a franchise. Maybe Gillis was just a bit drunk and over-excited, but the way Duthie told the story made Gillis sound a bit arrogant.

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59 minutes ago, Down by the River said:

 

 

I think where Gillis went wrong is his belief that he was the smartest guy in the room. That's a tough personality trait to fix when you're 50. James Duthie tells a story about how Gillis and Aqualini were at the same restaurant as him and Bob Mckenzie. Aqua sent over an incredibly expensive bottle of tequila and the four ended up chatting for the night. Gillis went on and on about how they were going to beat the brakes off Boston and that Vancouver was establishing a revolutionary way of running a franchise. Maybe Gillis was just a bit drunk and over-excited, but the way Duthie told the story made Gillis sound a bit arrogant.

 

Curious; Where did u hear this story?

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3 hours ago, EP40. said:


 

...I really really hope MG gets the job. Loved the interviews he’s done on 1040 over the past couple years where he’s opened up about how he’s expanded his hockey knowledge even more by scouting other leagues around the world.

 

I fully believe MG is a gold mine just waiting for the right opportunity and he’s never been in a rush to get back. The ideologies he has of how he’d restructure management and all is not of current times, just as the Canucks weren’t back in 2011 because he’d implemented things which teams have just begun using a few years ago. He was that much ahead of the curve - a complete genius.
 

I would be scared to see what he could do with a team like Florida which already has so many corner stone pieces in place. Would be awesome to see him back in the league and he was always pleasant to be around the few times I had a chance to talk to him :) 

Good.

 

Maybe the “fans” from HF Canucks can eff off to Florida message boards if Gillis gets hired over there.

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1 hour ago, Down by the River said:

I think where Gillis went wrong is his belief that he was the smartest guy in the room. That's a tough personality trait to fix when you're 50. James Duthie tells a story about how Gillis and Aqualini were at the same restaurant as him and Bob Mckenzie. Aqua sent over an incredibly expensive bottle of tequila and the four ended up chatting for the night. Gillis went on and on about how they were going to beat the brakes off Boston and that Vancouver was establishing a revolutionary way of running a franchise. Maybe Gillis was just a bit drunk and over-excited, but the way Duthie told the story made Gillis sound a bit arrogant.


Wrong.


 

What actually happened was they ran into each other after game 2. Canucks were up 2-0 in the SCF against the Bruins and statistically speaking whenever that occurs in the Cup Finals, the team up far more often than not wins it all.

 

So because of that, MG+Aquilini were at the restaurant boozing it up and they were letting loose when Duthie (or Dreger, can’t remember which one) ran into them and they were sorta celebrating as if they had won to their defense, odds are they should have statistically speaking. Think about it, having the greatest regular season team ever assembled, follow it up with playoff success and at this position up 2-0...I don’t think anyone can blame them for being excited and celebrating at that point. And as we all now know it turns out, we ran into the greatest goaltending performance in finals history against Tim Thomas as he completely dried up the Canucks offense. 

 

/ mountain made out of a molehill this story. And this is the true iteration of it anyways lol

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