Jim Bennings legacy without the OEL trade. Grade him out of 10.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

25 minutes ago, canuck73_3 said:

I mean he left him more than nothing however, what he left wasn't much and too many had full-too much trade control. When even Jannik Hansen has a NTC you're getting kinda ridiculous territory. Gilman gets far too much credit for his "genious" around here. 

He was moved without much trouble & without taking a cap dump in return/salary retention.  We should be so lucky with some of the other contracts his replacement handed out.  Even bad groin Garrison with a NTC got us a 2nd round pick (and again, no salary retention/cap dump contract in return).  Sure Gilman was no genius but in comparison to the people responsible for cap management after him, he seemed to be by comparison imho.

Edited June 23, 2023 by NewbieCanuckFan

[DSVII]

43 minutes ago, canuck73_3 said:

I mean he left him more than nothing however, what he left wasn't much and too many had full-too much trade control. When even Jannik Hansen has a NTC you're getting kinda ridiculous territory. Gilman gets far too much credit for his "genious" around here. 

No one's calling him a genius. But on the other side of the ledger you have posters claiming that the Sedin era core was an auto-pilot lock to make the finals and credit Gillis with absolutely nothing.

[canuck73_3]

53 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

He was moved without much trouble & without taking a cap dump in return/salary retention.  We should be so lucky with some of the other contracts his replacement handed out.  Even bad groin Garrison with a NTC got us a 2nd round pick (and again, no salary retention/cap dump contract in return).  Sure Gilman was no genius but in comparison to the people responsible for cap management after him, he seemed to be by comparison imho.

Hamhuis, Edler, Kesler etc.

[ilduce39]

Say what you will about old Thomas D, I think he nails the “Benning Legacy” question in the athletic mailbag today.

 

Spoiler

Benning may have been on his way to constructing a low-end perennial playoff team without a contender-level ceiling prior to the pandemic. That would’ve certainly changed the way his legacy was viewed in the Vancouver market. It’s my view that the way the club’s budget was cut — Vancouver suddenly became a bottom-10 spender during the 2021 campaign, losing out on every single one of the club’s key unrestricted free agent class that fall in the process — put a level of stress on the Benning regime that they weren’t dexterous enough to handle. That the club then changed direction again in extreme fashion the next offseason with a ‘make the playoffs or else’ dictate despite Benning’s own public commentary that the club was two years away from contending, was sort of the final straw.

 

My overall take on Benning is that he wasn’t a good general manager, but he needn’t have been the worst. If he’d been relieved of his duties following the 2019 or 2021 campaigns, for example, he’d probably have left the organization with the bones of a team that could’ve levelled up quickly and without significant pain. We’d likely remember him very differently in that case.

Culpability belongs to organizational failings above Benning too. It’s those factors that, in my opinion, pushed Benning’s tenure into a more cataclysmic realm.

[Alflives]

1 minute ago, ilduce39 said:

Say what you will about old Thomas D, I think he nails the “Benning Legacy” question in the athletic mailbag today.

 

  Hide contents

Benning may have been on his way to constructing a low-end perennial playoff team without a contender-level ceiling prior to the pandemic. That would’ve certainly changed the way his legacy was viewed in the Vancouver market. It’s my view that the way the club’s budget was cut — Vancouver suddenly became a bottom-10 spender during the 2021 campaign, losing out on every single one of the club’s key unrestricted free agent class that fall in the process — put a level of stress on the Benning regime that they weren’t dexterous enough to handle. That the club then changed direction again in extreme fashion the next offseason with a ‘make the playoffs or else’ dictate despite Benning’s own public commentary that the club was two years away from contending, was sort of the final straw.

 

My overall take on Benning is that he wasn’t a good general manager, but he needn’t have been the worst. If he’d been relieved of his duties following the 2019 or 2021 campaigns, for example, he’d probably have left the organization with the bones of a team that could’ve levelled up quickly and without significant pain. We’d likely remember him very differently in that case.

Culpability belongs to organizational failings above Benning too. It’s those factors that, in my opinion, pushed Benning’s tenure into a more cataclysmic realm.

The only person (at that time) above Benning was Aquilini, no? 

[ilduce39]

8 minutes ago, Alflives said:

The only person (at that time) above Benning was Aquilini, no? 

Yes, and even as someone who didn’t mind Benning I knew he should have fired him after the disastrous Canadian-division season.  
 

It was just time for a fresh take on the roster - just like how Allvin and JR seem to be doing a good job with the pro scouting while still keeping most of Benning’s core intact.

Edited June 25, 2023 by ilduce39

[MaxVerstappen33]

On 6/23/2023 at 7:16 AM, IBatch said:

You bet.   Yzerman is currently starting his fifth year.    Holland had several years to work on creating his post Lidstrom, Zetterberg, Datsyuk group too.    Personally always felt whomever we got next, was really in for it,  and sure that played into JB getting extra time.   We had no prospects, a huge age gap in talent, virtually a decade between Nonis first draft and MG last (four and six)... Edler, Schneider, Brown, Hansen and Horvat.     Yikes.    There was some logic to JB using two of his second rounders for Vey and Bear.  We added a couple second rounders, and used them.    Also had an extra first (McAan) used up on Guddy, because we needed to work on virtually every position.    For a succession plan.  

 

Do I think JB was a good GM?  No I do not.   Ranked him a 4-4.5 not including his two dumbest moves.    Feel he bought himself extra time twice.   Once when his "re-tool" seemed to be clicking and we finished 7th overall.   That's a contender still maybe?   First round exit later.   Well maybe next year right?   Wrong.    Then he bought himself more time after the bubble.     The only reason he doesn't get a 2, was he was based on the strength of his drafting.   Not that it was awesome or anything.   It was above average.     Better than Holland managed.   Maybe better then Yzerman will manage too, hard to say yet.    Based on where he was drafting as well.   We kept getting boned with the lottery,  we should have drafted 3rd OJ's draft year.   That was our worst overall finish, aside from EPs draft year which I think we were supposed to draft second.  

 

As for trading picks.  Aside from the Miller trade which worked out great for the team,  and the OEL debacle,  we had one extra first and one less second overall.    JB used the little bit of extras (Garrison, Bieksa, coach Torts award) to try and plug some holes.    We had holes all over.   A decade of wholes.   We weren't going to fill all those up with free agents that's for sure.    That didn't work out great for us either.    

 

JB biggest failure was tactical.   Should have listened to Linden.    Team needed to properly bottom out.   And stop this idea we had to spend to the cap to create a competitive environment.   Nobody planned for covid, but the reality is, JB had zero business spending to the cap then.    Instead of trading our first for Miller and signing Myers, we should have paid our dues properly.   The Sedins were honoured, but it didn't help the team at all did it.   EP and QHs would be happier if we had a better chance of winning.    Instead of Miller and Myers we'd probably have 3-4 extra guys on the team now on first and second deals.   Whoops! 

 

Edit:  On JB drafting.  MG too.  And  Nonis aside from his first year.    Why the freaking heck, after that many years, can't we find even a Hansen after the second round?   Blows my mind.    Yes get that scouts consider a 100 games a win past the second round.   A big win.   And sure we did that with Gaudette.   And maybe even Brisbois and a couple other guys won't even bother checking.    Hansen was the last big win past the 3rd round,  and Edler our last big win as a third rounder.    That simply sucks.    EP and QHs are elite quality picks, with injury luck, on pace for the HHOF.   Back to back.   Like Kane and Toews.    Aside from Burkes draft gymnastic's it's only happened to us once all-time.    IF Allvin can fix and be the finisher we need, all isn't lost yet.   Good thing I wasn't drafting those years.   Wouldn't have picked either guy. 

Hoglander is gonna be a Hansen type.  With more upside 

[Strictly Bizness]

He's a 1/10 for me.  The worst GM the Canucks have ever had.  Virtanen, Juolevi, Podkolzin, as top 10 picks in the draft with much better players on the board is absolutely ridiculous.  Free agents and/or trades of Eriksson, Mcann, Myers, Beagle, Roussel, OEL, letting go of Chatfield, trading Forsling.  Also, having  terrible player development.  Hiring the wrong coaches in Desjardins and Travis Green.

 

I don't give him credit for the Hughes pick as that was was obvious.  Petterson was an outstanding pick but I give Judd Bracket the credit on that.  Same with Thatcher Demko and Boeser.  Also, Boeser has also regressed for the past two years.

 

The PTSD of Jim Benning is real.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

11 hours ago, MaxVerstappen33 said:

Hoglander is gonna be a Hansen type.  With more upside 

Hogs was a 2nd round pick (fairly high 2nd as well - 9th in that round).  lBatch was referring to later round picks.  Forsling was a HUGE home run pick (5th round).  But alas, Benning dealt him for a guy that could barely skate at the AHL level.

[Ballisticsports.]

On 6/23/2023 at 4:10 PM, canuck73_3 said:

I mean he left him more than nothing however, what he left wasn't much and too many had full-too much trade control. When even Jannik Hansen has a NTC you're getting kinda ridiculous territory. Gilman gets far too much credit for his "genious" around here. 

I thought Gilman and the Canucks ability in re-signing their own or bringing players into the fold through free agency, was above and beyond that of their peers.  the Sedin twins at $6-million apiece in their prime years, Ryan Kesler at $5-million per in his prime years, Kevin Bieksa at $4.6-million, Alexandre Burrows at $2.5-million for four excellent years, Alexander Edler at $5-million per season.

For many, those contracts look worse in retrospect with the impact that no-trade clauses had on many of them. I’ve always found those arguments disingenuous, given the climate in which Gillis and company signed those contracts. It wasn’t about the future — it was about winning a Stanley Cup. That was the way they kept the annual average down, and it worked.

 

The number of no-trades on the team was right at about the middle of the league. It wasn’t at the top end or at the bottom end. It was centralized. The only no-move contracts that they handed out were to Daniel and Henrik, and that was obvious — they weren’t going to go anywhere without each other anyway.

With a no-trade contract to a player, It means a player will be kept if he is still useful to the team and holds up his end of the bargain, if you get to a point where you really wanted to move that player, the threat of sending them to the minors almost always results in the player being more open or completely open to being traded. It is the NMC that is worrisome

 

I recall Gillis talking how he would’ve recaptured the draft picks the Canucks had traded away to help win them the Cup.

“We had a plan for that,” said Gillis. “We had really strong players who were highly desirable. We had some trades on the table at the deadline before I got fired that would’ve changed the landscape of the team.”

“There were a couple and they didn’t happen. That was an organizational decision that didn’t happen.”

(If you didn’t catch that, that “organizational decision” means his trades were vetoed by the one party who has the power to veto his decisions).

 

They also were after Larkin (instead of JV) and along with Horvat (Henrik) would have been a good middle

 

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Ballisticsports.

[Alflives]

18 minutes ago, Ballisticsports. said:

I thought Gilman and the Canucks ability in re-signing their own or bringing players into the fold through free agency, was above and beyond that of their peers.  the Sedin twins at $6-million apiece in their prime years, Ryan Kesler at $5-million per in his prime years, Kevin Bieksa at $4.6-million, Alexandre Burrows at $2.5-million for four excellent years, Alexander Edler at $5-million per season.

For many, those contracts look worse in retrospect with the impact that no-trade clauses had on many of them. I’ve always found those arguments disingenuous, given the climate in which Gillis and company signed those contracts. It wasn’t about the future — it was about winning a Stanley Cup. That was the way they kept the annual average down, and it worked.

 

The number of no-trades on the team was right at about the middle of the league. It wasn’t at the top end or at the bottom end. It was centralized. The only no-move contracts that they handed out were to Daniel and Henrik, and that was obvious — they weren’t going to go anywhere without each other anyway.

With a no-trade contract to a player, It means a player will be kept if he is still useful to the team and holds up his end of the bargain, if you get to a point where you really wanted to move that player, the threat of sending them to the minors almost always results in the player being more open or completely open to being traded. It is the NMC that is worrisome

 

I recall Gillis talking how he would’ve recaptured the draft picks the Canucks had traded away to help win them the Cup.

“We had a plan for that,” said Gillis. “We had really strong players who were highly desirable. We had some trades on the table at the deadline before I got fired that would’ve changed the landscape of the team.”

“There were a couple and they didn’t happen. That was an organizational decision that didn’t happen.”

If you didn’t catch that, that “organizational decision” means his trades were vetoed by the one party who has the power to veto his decisions.

 

They also were after Larkin (instead of JV) and along with Horvat (Henrik) would have been a good middle

 

 

Clearly Gillis was a fabulous GM and President. He was super successful. But he opened his mouth and broke the unwritten rule of silence. He was critical of hockey decisions by ownership. He was 100% correct, of course. But it’s why he hasn’t gotten another job in hockey while the “old boys club” morons keep getting rehired. Those guys, like Benning, follow the owners’ wishes and never criticize publicly how foolish the owners’ ideas are. These types of GMs allow themselves to be manipulated into franchise crippling trades (like the OEL one) because they put getting hired again ahead of their current club’s furtive. 

[PhillipBlunt]

On 6/25/2023 at 10:21 AM, ilduce39 said:

Say what you will about old Thomas D, I think he nails the “Benning Legacy” question in the athletic mailbag today.

 

  Hide contents

Benning may have been on his way to constructing a low-end perennial playoff team without a contender-level ceiling prior to the pandemic. That would’ve certainly changed the way his legacy was viewed in the Vancouver market. It’s my view that the way the club’s budget was cut — Vancouver suddenly became a bottom-10 spender during the 2021 campaign, losing out on every single one of the club’s key unrestricted free agent class that fall in the process — put a level of stress on the Benning regime that they weren’t dexterous enough to handle. That the club then changed direction again in extreme fashion the next offseason with a ‘make the playoffs or else’ dictate despite Benning’s own public commentary that the club was two years away from contending, was sort of the final straw.

 

My overall take on Benning is that he wasn’t a good general manager, but he needn’t have been the worst. If he’d been relieved of his duties following the 2019 or 2021 campaigns, for example, he’d probably have left the organization with the bones of a team that could’ve levelled up quickly and without significant pain. We’d likely remember him very differently in that case.

Culpability belongs to organizational failings above Benning too. It’s those factors that, in my opinion, pushed Benning’s tenure into a more cataclysmic realm.

That is a pretty succinct summary. 

[NewbieCanuckFan]

37 minutes ago, Ballisticsports. said:

I thought Gilman and the Canucks ability in re-signing their own or bringing players into the fold through free agency, was above and beyond that of their peers.  the Sedin twins at $6-million apiece in their prime years, Ryan Kesler at $5-million per in his prime years, Kevin Bieksa at $4.6-million, Alexandre Burrows at $2.5-million for four excellent years, Alexander Edler at $5-million per season.

For many, those contracts look worse in retrospect with the impact that no-trade clauses had on many of them. I’ve always found those arguments disingenuous, given the climate in which Gillis and company signed those contracts. It wasn’t about the future — it was about winning a Stanley Cup. That was the way they kept the annual average down, and it worked.

 

The number of no-trades on the team was right at about the middle of the league. It wasn’t at the top end or at the bottom end. It was centralized. The only no-move contracts that they handed out were to Daniel and Henrik, and that was obvious — they weren’t going to go anywhere without each other anyway.

With a no-trade contract to a player, It means a player will be kept if he is still useful to the team and holds up his end of the bargain, if you get to a point where you really wanted to move that player, the threat of sending them to the minors almost always results in the player being more open or completely open to being traded. It is the NMC that is worrisome

 

I recall Gillis talking how he would’ve recaptured the draft picks the Canucks had traded away to help win them the Cup.

“We had a plan for that,” said Gillis. “We had really strong players who were highly desirable. We had some trades on the table at the deadline before I got fired that would’ve changed the landscape of the team.”

“There were a couple and they didn’t happen. That was an organizational decision that didn’t happen.”

If you didn’t catch that, that “organizational decision” means his trades were vetoed by the one party who has the power to veto his decisions.

 

They also were after Larkin (instead of JV) and along with Horvat (Henrik) would have been a good middle

 

 

Gillis failings was that he didn't go "all in enough".  Benning had the opposite problem.  He didn't leave this successor much to work with on the farm.

 

Neither of them had to deal with an environment where there was no cap and no green light to spend money.  That's what Pat Quinn had to deal with and why I think with respect to Canucks GM history, there Pat Quinn and then there's the rest.  I'll give Burke some honorable mention.  Would've ranked him a solid #2 had he'd been able to get a goalie since he had to deal with the same limitations as Quinn.  

[BlakeQuinnAndEggs]

3 out of 10 .

 

It would be lower but demko and Pettersson were good picks. 

 

A monkey would have taken Hughes (best player available)

 

He was terrible across the board. Terrible coaching hires, terrible front office hires, terrible asset management. Terrible contracts, terrible free agent signings and mediocre at best drafting. I used to think he was a draft wizard but in hindsight he missed on more than he hit. Plus the Canucks have a terrible draft history.

 

At the end of the day, its expected that you draft some top end talent when you lose consistently.

 

So Glad he's gone.

[alt kilgore]

2 hours ago, BlakeQuinnAndEggs said:

3 out of 10 .

 

It would be lower but demko and Pettersson were good picks. 

 

A monkey would have taken Hughes (best player available)

 

He was terrible across the board. Terrible coaching hires, terrible front office hires, terrible asset management. Terrible contracts, terrible free agent signings and mediocre at best drafting. I used to think he was a draft wizard but in hindsight he missed on more than he hit. Plus the Canucks have a terrible draft history.

 

At the end of the day, its expected that you draft some top end talent when you lose consistently.

 

So Glad he's gone.

 

Even those 'good picks' were not slam dunks for JB.  Demko was pushed by Brackett, as a member of the scouting staff, because of Bracketts connections and acquired knowledge following American Eastern hockey leagues and Eastern colleges like Boston even before he was hired as the director of A.S. (along with Boeser, Gaudette and Madden)

 

And its pretty well known that JB wanted Cody Glass.  But there was enough of a backlash and push from most all the scouting department from Brackett to Delorme to especially Gradin who ultimately convinced JB to go with the svelte Swede, Pettersson.  After the Joulevi disaster where JB swooped in to insist on the pick over the objections of almost every other scout on the Canucks and in the NHL for that matter, while Tkachuk was still standing there. Ian McIntyre wrote that JB was more open to listening to his scouting staff, rather his own hunches after that.

So he got rid of the Amateur Scouting director responsible for showing him up.  F the team, his feelings were more important. He and his buddy Weisbrod (who had made a number of stupid decisions with Calgary's prospect pool before joining the Canucks) would replace the department.  Judd was a brilliant exec for us. Learning and developing for eleven years with the Canucks until he was at the height of his craft when JB had had enough of the upstart embarrassing him.  Now, after a few short years, the Wild have the best rated prospect pool in the NHL according the The Athletic and others. 

https://www.thefourthperiod.com/mar-2023/call-of-the-wild-a-look-behind-the-nhls-best-prospect-pool

 

Dim Jim couldn't stand anyone smarter than him working in the organization. No matter how beneficial to the team's progress.  Gilman, Linden, Brackett...

He never should have been hired as a GM for any team.  Well, I suppose it would have been entertaining to watch him destroy Calgary's pool if he'd gone the other way and joined Weisbrod there.  We would have picked Tkachuk, and then he would have still picked Joulevi hands down.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by kilgore

[Baggins]

5 hours ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

Hogs was a 2nd round pick (fairly high 2nd as well - 9th in that round).  lBatch was referring to later round picks.  Forsling was a HUGE home run pick (5th round).  But alas, Benning dealt him for a guy that could barely skate at the AHL level.

Forsling took too long to get to where he needed to be for a full time NHL spot. That goes ignored around here. Chicago traded him to the Canes as he hadn't made the team as a regular and he was waiver elligible. The fools. Then was claimed off waivers by Florida from the Canes when they tried to send him to the AHL. I guess the Canes are also fools. I'd say it's highly likely the same result would have occured here. Forsling wasn't a homerun pick. That would be a 5th rounder that secured a top four spot before hitting waiver elligibilty. He was a homerun waiver pickup, a late bloomer. When a borderline prospect doesn't make the grade before becoming waiver elligible, it's unlikely to happen with his first team. Spin it any way you want but Clendening actually had pretty good AHL numbers along with size. Chicago moved him for the same reason they moved Forsling. They were waiver ellibigle, too good to clear, on the NHL fringe, and they had better options.

 

This fall Hogs, Rathbone, and Woo all face waivers. Roll the dice or look to move them? That's the problem GM's face. Prospects only get so long before you either move them or risk losing them for nothing. Unless of course you're willing to gift a player a spot he hasn't earned while having better options available. 

[NewbieCanuckFan]

34 minutes ago, Baggins said:

Forsling took too long to get to where he needed to be for a full time NHL spot. That goes ignored around here. Chicago traded him to the Canes as he hadn't made the team as a regular and he was waiver elligible. The fools. Then was claimed off waivers by Florida from the Canes when they tried to send him to the AHL. I guess the Canes are also fools. I'd say it's highly likely the same result would have occured here. Forsling wasn't a homerun pick. That would be a 5th rounder that secured a top four spot before hitting waiver elligibilty. He was a homerun waiver pickup, a late bloomer. When a borderline prospect doesn't make the grade before becoming waiver elligible, it's unlikely to happen with his first team. Spin it any way you want but Clendening actually had pretty good AHL numbers along with size. Chicago moved him for the same reason they moved Forsling. They were waiver ellibigle, too good to clear, on the NHL fringe, and they had better options.

 

This fall Hogs, Rathbone, and Woo all face waivers. Roll the dice or look to move them? That's the problem GM's face. Prospects only get so long before you either move them or risk losing them for nothing. Unless of course you're willing to gift a player a spot he hasn't earned while having better options available. 

You can get away with lack of skating ability (or even any defensive ability in the case of Jordan Subban, who actually was selected for a AHL allstar game like Clendening was as well) in the AHL. He was a losing scratch ticket moved for a unscratched ticket.  Horrible pro evaluation.

 

Failing to make the squad on a deep team (which the Canes did have back then - a deep blueline) is a far cry from sticking on a bad team (OJ for instance). 

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on this subject (if for no other reason, Forsling wasn't subject to waivers for several years when JB dealt him).  Given the empty prospect/farm system Benning inherited from Gillis, he couldn't afford to take short-cut solutions.  Or if he did, make sure that 'quick fix' is actually going to help the team.

Edited July 4, 2023 by NewbieCanuckFan

[Alflives]

21 minutes ago, Baggins said:

Forsling took too long to get to where he needed to be for a full time NHL spot. That goes ignored around here. Chicago traded him to the Canes as he hadn't made the team as a regular and he was waiver elligible. The fools. Then was claimed off waivers by Florida from the Canes when they tried to send him to the AHL. I guess the Canes are also fools. I'd say it's highly likely the same result would have occured here. Forsling wasn't a homerun pick. That would be a 5th rounder that secured a top four spot before hitting waiver elligibilty. He was a homerun waiver pickup, a late bloomer. When a borderline prospect doesn't make the grade before becoming waiver elligible, it's unlikely to happen with his first team. Spin it any way you want but Clendening actually had pretty good AHL numbers along with size. Chicago moved him for the same reason they moved Forsling. They were waiver ellibigle, too good to clear, on the NHL fringe, and they had better options.

 

This fall Hogs, Rathbone, and Woo all face waivers. Roll the dice or look to move them? That's the problem GM's face. Prospects only get so long before you either move them or risk losing them for nothing. Unless of course you're willing to gift a player a spot he hasn't earned while having better options available. 

Bones and Hogs would both likely clear. Woo being a heavy bodied, young, lots of runway of development left, right shot D would for sure get claimed. 

[Conscience]

0.5/10

hate that guy

[Ballisticsports.]

6 hours ago, Alflives said:

Clearly Gillis was a fabulous GM and President. He was super successful. But he opened his mouth and broke the unwritten rule of silence. He was critical of hockey decisions by ownership. He was 100% correct, of course. But it’s why he hasn’t gotten another job in hockey while the “old boys club” morons keep getting rehired. Those guys, like Benning, follow the owners’ wishes and never criticize publicly how foolish the owners’ ideas are. These types of GMs allow themselves to be manipulated into franchise crippling trades (like the OEL one) because they put getting hired again ahead of their current club’s furtive. 

Seems you were right on this Alf

I just read

 

“We all felt the team needed a different viewpoint but it became apparent to me early on that this (Tortorella as head coach) wasn’t going to work, and as I made those feelings clearer– I said later on that I didn’t like the direction of the team and where we were headed – I knew I was becoming part of the problem and not the solution by doing that.

“The solution is to find your way out of it and do your best, but I didn’t see a way we could emerge from this intact. I was watching a lot of the things we had done that gave us a competitive advantage go out the window, and I made my position clear. And in professional sports, 90 per cent of the time, as Laurence likes to say, you get rid of your problem. I was the problem and I deserved to go because I disagreed with certain things.”

Asked if Tortorella’s hiring was the beginning of the end for him, Gillis said: “When I couldn’t be influential in the things I thought I should be influential in, I guess so. (making trades, coach decision etc)

 

“It wasn’t a fit. It just wasn’t a fit. I disagreed with abusing the players. I disagreed with the fire and brimstone stuff, and clearly the attempt on Hockey Night in Canada to go and fight Bob Hartley, those are things that just didn’t fit with where I thought we should be, professionally.

“It makes good television I guess, but when your head coach gets suspended for 15 games, you’re done, it’s over.”

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by Ballisticsports.