Former Canucks: Players & Management V

[Bleach Clean]

our prospect pool would be filled with busts. I miss that sooooo much!@!!!

Gillis being a good GM is one of the biggest HF Canuck myths.

In your mind, which GMs in the NHL currently are average or good?

Some good points but I think the only way to rate GM's is on what they did not based on what we think the limitations they had from ownership. And to be fair I apply that same standard to Benning and don't excuse him because of any limitations he had placed on him by ownership.

On that basis;
Drafting is easily Benning as Gillis had very poor results. In fact our drafting statistically is near the bottom of the league in studies I have read prior to Benning. So this may be somewhat faint praise for Benning but I think this is clearly him. Getting Boeser and Demko where he got them in the draft is very impressive.

We don't know Benning's results yet... Everybody's draft looks great prior to Pro League samples.

I think you'll find that because Benning has bled picks at an alarming rate, that VAN will remain near the bottom in draft results, regardless of whether Boeser or Demko pan out.

Gillis was easily better at trading but since 2011 had a pretty poor record on trades. I think he botched the goalie trades and needs to take responsibility for this regardless of how the league impacted the Luongo contract. So Gillis here but again very faint praise considering Benning's record.

Signings and cap management was, IMO, where Gillis shone. He was one of the best in the NHL and was smart enough to delegate to Gillman as well. This allowed him to take advantage of other GM's like in the Ehrhoff deal.

IMO, Benning is one of the worst GM's. Gillis post 2011 was a below average GM. Taking his entire tenure into account I think Gillis was slightly above average.

By "poor trade record" post 2011, are you localizing this to the goalie trades? If so, that shouldn't be enough to indict Gillis. Consider that in each case, he got value. Markstrom is about to be re-signed, after Benning waived him, and Horvat is the best return based on value a goalie with Schneider's pedigree could have realistically warranted. And don't get me started on the league impacting Luongo's contract... We will never agree on that.

If I recall correctly, were you not in support of Benning? Someone that insisted on a "wait and see" approach? I could be wrong.

Not that I disagree with your overall assertion of Gillis, but what made Gillis a "below average" GM post 2011? I'm just curious because different posters have different answers to this.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

I find it very difficult to believe that from one year to the next a GM can go from great to below average the same way a player can if he blows out a knee.

What happened to Gillis is like Ovechkin scoring 50 goals one year and 20 goals the next because he hit the post 50 more times because the guy who owns the net has it on remote controlled wheels. Like Ovechkin he was always a great GM even though he didn't get the results after 2011 for reasons that aren't exactly a secret.

It's not hard to see why it happened. Gillis took over a team with great pieces that just needed a GM who was great at building around a great core of players, picking up some key pieces and managing the cap to take advantage of other teams. These are areas where he excelled.

A couple of years after 2011 the team needed a GM who had different skills. Drafting and rebuilding the team. Those areas weren't his strengths.

I also think he had a solid plan up until 2011 to build a highly skilled team that he abandoned to try to become bigger and tougher to compete with the Bruins. It was a mistake given the makeup of our core players and probably in the end cost him his job.

 

[CherryToke]

In your mind, which GMs in the NHL currently are average or good?

What a dumb question. Gillis sucking at drafting has nothing to do with other GM's. This core got stale because Gillis couldn't find talent in the draft. Plain and simple.

 

[Verviticus]

you didnt answer the question though

 

[topheavyhookjaw]

RE: this discussion on MG and other GMs.

I think it was Pitseleh who's made the point a few times, apologies if it's not, but the case for MG is the same as for most non-terrible GMs. There's so few legitimately good ones that if you have a middle of the road GM, it's very hard to justify firing them unless you have a sure thing to be better one available.

I don't think MG was every a bottom of the barrel GM. I think JB is. That's the risk you run canning someone who's not excellent. You can always downgrade and there's very few sure upgrades.

 

[KeninsFan]

It's not hard to see why it happened. Gillis took over a team with great pieces that just needed a GM who was great at building around a great core of players, picking up some key pieces and managing the cap to take advantage of other teams. These are areas where he excelled.

A couple of years after 2011 the team needed a GM who had different skills. Drafting and rebuilding the team. Those areas weren't his strengths.

I also think he had a solid plan up until 2011 to build a highly skilled team that he abandoned to try to become bigger and tougher to compete with the Bruins. It was a mistake given the makeup of our core players and probably in the end cost him his job.

Is it not pretty widely acknowledged that Gillis did try to rebuild thru the draft but was vetoed by ownership? There are excerpts from a book detailing a blocked Kesler trade IIRC.

A couple years post Gillis and the all the key 'rebuilding' pieces are still from his moves. Horvat is the best F piece moving forward. Normally Benning would have greater time to catch up but a large part of Benning's moves have been trying to fill the "age gap". Vey/Granlund are nothing to write home about - Baertschi is a good piece but in terms of acquisition cost he still hasn't brought as much as Higgins did (for the same price of a 2nd)

Hutton is the best D piece moving forward. To be fair Juolevi is still too young to tell. Sbisa has been a huge bust, Gudbranson is an Adam McQuaid type piece moving forward.

Markstrom is still the best chance of being a #1. Demko is a great prospect but just that.

It's almost year 3 of Benning and thus far he's had the better opportunity to draft (twice in top 6 choices as well as the ability to sell vets at the deadline for more picks). The prospect pool is very average, if Gillis was in charge I have no doubt it would be similar.

Probably would've seen Ehlers, ANA 10th instead of Sbisa (Nick Ritchie), more college FAs (Gillis' MO).

 

[rune74]

Is it not pretty widely acknowledged that Gillis did try to rebuild thru the draft but was vetoed by ownership? There are excerpts from a book detailing a blocked Kesler trade IIRC.

A couple years post Gillis and the all the key 'rebuilding' pieces are still from his moves. Horvat is the best F piece moving forward. Normally Benning would have greater time to catch up but a large part of Benning's moves have been trying to fill the "age gap". Vey/Granlund are nothing to write home about - Baertschi is a good piece but in terms of acquisition cost he still hasn't brought as much as Higgins did (for the same price of a 2nd)

Hutton is the best D piece moving forward. To be fair Juolevi is still too young to tell. Sbisa has been a huge bust, Gudbranson is an Adam McQuaid type piece moving forward.

Markstrom is still the best chance of being a #1. Demko is a great prospect but just that.

It's almost year 3 of Benning and thus far he's had the better opportunity to draft (twice in top 6 choices as well as the ability to sell vets at the deadline for more picks). The prospect pool is very average, if Gillis was in charge I have no doubt it would be similar.

Probably would've seen Ehlers, ANA 10th instead of Sbisa (Nick Ritchie), more college FAs (Gillis' MO).

Don't forget Gillis had the ownership interference that this team clearly doesn't, right?

 

[CherryToke]

Is it not pretty widely acknowledged that Gillis did try to rebuild thru the draft but was vetoed by ownership?

Ownership did not force Gillis to make horrible draft selections. That is 100% on Gillis.

 

[DanCloutiersFiveHole]

What irks me when people say we would have no prospects if Gillis was still here, is that people seem to be forgetting where the injection of youth in our lineup actually came from. The only Benning drafted players on the Canucks or in the AHL last year were Virtanen, McCann and Tryamkin. Gillis picks in the NHL: Horvat, Hutton, Gaunce. Gillis picks in the AHL: Jensen, Shinkaruk, Subban, Cassels, Grenier
This year, Rodin is coming over
It's too early to judge Benning's drafts definitively, but I don't see how we'd be so much worse off, particularly since the 2013 draft seemed to be a turning point for Canucks scouting. If Cassels has a strong year, then we will have 4 prospects from that draft as potential NHLers 3 years post-draft

 

[racerjoe]

Don't forget Gillis had the ownership interference that this team clearly doesn't, right?

That is not what people don't like about Benning. His execution to this plan has been terrible, having said that, there is also a very good chance the JB took the job knowing the MO of what ownership wanted and agreed with it. MG clearly did not agree with it when it was forced on him from what we can tell.

 

[Bleach Clean]

What a dumb question. Gillis sucking at drafting has nothing to do with other GM's. This core got stale because Gillis couldn't find talent in the draft. Plain and simple.

What? I'm asking you what an average or good GM is to you? So that we can judge Gillis by comparison.

VAN hasn't drafted well for decades. Yet, they've had two good core groups from the early 2000s to now. Drafting alone isn't the answer. Look at Benning, people say he drafts well, do you think he's viewed as a good GM overall? Nope.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Is it not pretty widely acknowledged that Gillis did try to rebuild thru the draft but was vetoed by ownership? There are excerpts from a book detailing a blocked Kesler trade IIRC.

A couple years post Gillis and the all the key 'rebuilding' pieces are still from his moves. Horvat is the best F piece moving forward. Normally Benning would have greater time to catch up but a large part of Benning's moves have been trying to fill the "age gap". Vey/Granlund are nothing to write home about - Baertschi is a good piece but in terms of acquisition cost he still hasn't brought as much as Higgins did (for the same price of a 2nd)

Hutton is the best D piece moving forward. To be fair Juolevi is still too young to tell. Sbisa has been a huge bust, Gudbranson is an Adam McQuaid type piece moving forward.

Markstrom is still the best chance of being a #1. Demko is a great prospect but just that.

It's almost year 3 of Benning and thus far he's had the better opportunity to draft (twice in top 6 choices as well as the ability to sell vets at the deadline for more picks). The prospect pool is very average, if Gillis was in charge I have no doubt it would be similar.

Probably would've seen Ehlers, ANA 10th instead of Sbisa (Nick Ritchie), more college FAs (Gillis' MO).

Of course they are because Benning has only been here for three drafts and two full years.
Virtanen, Demko, Boeser, Juolevi are a better group of prospects than we've had for some time. And this is generally reflected in the various rankings that I've seen of our prospect pools which have us ranked about 15th the last couple of years. And Demko and Boeser were late first/early second picks.
That's average but that's a big improvement for a team that was generally ranked as the worst drafting team in the NHL.

 

[Alan Jackson]

I think Gillis did generally a good job leading up to 2011.

He inherited an emerging core, and was able to supplement them with some nice signings and trades. Under his watch, the Canucks had their best stretch of regular season play in franchise history.

I think he did a poor job of getting this team "over the top". His attempt to add scoring depth, which this team needed so desperately, can only be described as "abject failure." Ultimately, Gillis failed in his stated goal: to win the Stanley Cup. With some of the pieces he had here, another GM might have done better. We'll never know. He certainly left a pretty bare cupboard for his successor.

I can't judge what sort of influence or hindrance ownership might have had, so I can't absolve Gillis because Francesco might be difficult to work with.

Ultimately, if Gillis' mandate was to win, he failed. I think there was justification for his firing. I think Benning under immense pressure this season, and if the team doesn't show significant progress, his time will be up as well.

If ownership is as meddlesome as is being suggested, it might not matter who the GM is, we could be due for years of misery.

 

[RandV]

Talking about the draft and Gillis vs Benning, how about taking out 2014 and comparing the last two drafts? 2012 was when Gillis did his scouting revamping, and 2014 is kind of shared between the two.

So what's left is this:

2016
Juolevi
Lockwood
Candella
Stukel
Abols
McKenzie

2015
Boeser
Brisebois
Zhukenov
Neill
Gaudette
Jasek
Olson

Better than this:

2013
Horvat
Shinkaruk
Cassels
Subban
Cederholm
Williamson
Liberati

2012
Gaunce
Mallet
Hutton
Myron
Beattie

Too early to tell with a bunch of Benning's later round picks, but personally I don't see much of a difference.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

I think Gillis did generally a good job leading up to 2011.

He inherited an emerging core, and was able to supplement them with some nice signings and trades. Under his watch, the Canucks had their best stretch of regular season play in franchise history.

I think he did a poor job of getting this team "over the top". His attempt to add scoring depth, which this team needed so desperately, can only be described as "abject failure." Ultimately, Gillis failed in his stated goal: to win the Stanley Cup. With some of the pieces he had here, another GM might have done better. We'll never know. He certainly left a pretty bare cupboard for his successor.

I can't judge what sort of influence or hindrance ownership might have had, so I can't absolve Gillis because Francesco might be difficult to work with.

Ultimately, if Gillis' mandate was to win, he failed. I think there was justification for his firing. I think Benning under immense pressure this season, and if the team doesn't show significant progress, his time will be up as well.

If ownership is as meddlesome as is being suggested, it might not matter who the GM is, we could be due for years of misery.

I agree with all of your post. The only exception I would make is holding him responsible for failing in 2011. I think he built a team that should have won. Getting to Game 7 of the SCF, while in the end is a failure, is a good achievement. The team ran into key injuries and lost Manny Malhotra as well to a fluke injury. Not many teams could withstand the loss of Malhotra, Hamhuis, Raymond, Rome, and having a number of players hobbled like Kesler, Edler and Ehrhoff. I can't blame that on Gillis. That team had tremendous depth. But injuries derailed it.

 

[ahmon]

Talking about the draft and Gillis vs Benning, how about taking out 2014 and comparing the last two drafts? 2012 was when Gillis did his scouting revamping, and 2014 is kind of shared between the two.

So what's left is this:

2016
Juolevi
Lockwood
Candella
Stukel
Abols
McKenzie

2015
Boeser
Brisebois
Zhukenov
Neill
Gaudette
Jasek
Olson

Better than this:

2013
Horvat
Shinkaruk
Cassels
Subban
Cederholm
Williamson
Liberati

2012
Gaunce
Mallet
Hutton
Myron
Beattie

Too early to tell with a bunch of Benning's later round picks, but personally I don't see much of a difference.

why did he do the revamping in 2012? he was hired in 2008?

Benning was hired in 2014, so should we wait for him to revamp the pro scouting in 2018?

 

[Cupless44]

Talking about the draft and Gillis vs Benning, how about taking out 2014 and comparing the last two drafts? 2012 was when Gillis did his scouting revamping, and 2014 is kind of shared between the two.

So what's left is this:

2016
Juolevi
Lockwood
Candella
Stukel
Abols
McKenzie

2015
Boeser
Brisebois
Zhukenov
Neill
Gaudette
Jasek
Olson

Better than this:

2013
Horvat
Shinkaruk
Cassels
Subban
Cederholm
Williamson
Liberati

2012
Gaunce
Mallet
Hutton
Myron
Beattie

Too early to tell with a bunch of Benning's later round picks, but personally I don't see much of a difference.

Just a question.

Why are you just comparing Gillis last two years after "scouting revamping" ?

Is Gillis just given a mulligan for the first 4 years of awful drafting? Why did it take 4 years to figure out your scouting and drafting blows?

Specific GMs names aside, between 2004 and 2014, no team in the NHL drafted less players into the NHL. Yup, dead last in draft performance was the Canucks. That is simply not good enough, excuses or no excuses.

We will see where Benning's drafting is after 5 years, if he lasts that long and doesn't trade his way out of a job.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Talking about the draft and Gillis vs Benning, how about taking out 2014 and comparing the last two drafts? 2012 was when Gillis did his scouting revamping, and 2014 is kind of shared between the two.

So what's left is this:

2016
Juolevi
Lockwood
Candella
Stukel
Abols
McKenzie

2015
Boeser
Brisebois
Zhukenov
Neill
Gaudette
Jasek
Olson

Better than this:

2013
Horvat
Shinkaruk
Cassels
Subban
Cederholm
Williamson
Liberati

2012
Gaunce
Mallet
Hutton
Myron
Beattie

Too early to tell with a bunch of Benning's later round picks, but personally I don't see much of a difference.

Why would you exclude 2014. Those were Benning's picks. Not Gillis'.
Benning had a list from Boston as well and I am sure had a lot of input in picking Virtanen, McCann and Demko.
And why not put up Gillis' whole drafting history for all of the years.
I think it's more meaningful to take Benning's three drafts and compare that to Gillis total drafts.
It's pretty clearly in favour of Benning even ignoring the fact that he had two top 6 picks while Gillis only had a ninth.
We were the worst drafting team in the entire NHL until 2014. I'm fairly confident we've improved although we will need to wait to see how some of the promising guys work out.

 

[vancityluongo]

Question to the Gillis is a poor drafter crowd: anyone have posts from those draft years where the players you would have picked instead turned out significantly better than the ones Gillis picked? Even one instance like Karlsson over Hodgson or Saad over Jensen (at the time). Real easy to criticize with hindsight, but despite not turning out, Gillis was 100% in the Hodgson vs Beach argument which was people actually considered at the time.

Because there are multiple people who wanted Nylander over Virtanen and seem to be right. Or Konecny over Boeser, which despite Boeser's absolutely massive season is close. Or of course Tkachuk over Juolevi which remains to be seen.

Jim Benning was an assistant GM during every one of Gillis' drafts, and also didn't extract the Gostisbehere or Gaudreau type players. In fact, Boston's drafting is just as bad if not worse than the Canucks over that period.

 

[Jimson Hogarth*]

Question to the Gillis is a poor drafter crowd: anyone have posts from those draft years where the players you would have picked instead turned out significantly better than the ones Gillis picked? Even one instance like Karlsson over Hodgson or Saad over Jensen (at the time). Real easy to criticize with hindsight, but despite not turning out, Gillis was 100% in the Hodgson vs Beach argument which was people actually considered at the time.

Because there are multiple people who wanted Nylander over Virtanen and seem to be right. Or Konecny over Boeser, which despite Boeser's absolutely massive season is close. Or of course Tkachuk over Juolevi which remains to be seen.

Jim Benning was an assistant GM during every one of Gillis' drafts, and also didn't extract the Gostisbehere or Gaudreau type players. In fact, Boston's drafting is just as bad if not worse than the Canucks over that period.

Absolutely absurd argument. I don't have access to a multi million dollar scouting team nor do I have the ability to fly and watch these kids myself. Why would who I have picked matter in this situation?

 

[banme*]

Question to the Gillis is a poor drafter crowd: anyone have posts from those draft years where the players you would have picked instead turned out significantly better than the ones Gillis picked? Even one instance like Karlsson over Hodgson or Saad over Jensen (at the time). Real easy to criticize with hindsight, but despite not turning out, Gillis was 100% in the Hodgson vs Beach argument which was people actually considered at the time.

Because there are multiple people who wanted Nylander over Virtanen and seem to be right. Or Konecny over Boeser, which despite Boeser's absolutely massive season is close. Or of course Tkachuk over Juolevi which remains to be seen.

Jim Benning was an assistant GM during every one of Gillis' drafts, and also didn't extract the Gostisbehere or Gaudreau type players. In fact, Boston's drafting is just as bad if not worse than the Canucks over that period.

You can't actually believe drafting is that easy can you?

 

[The Stig]

What? I'm asking you what an average or good GM is to you? So that we can judge Gillis by comparison.

VAN hasn't drafted well for decades. Yet, they've had two good core groups from the early 2000s to now. Drafting alone isn't the answer. Look at Benning, people say he drafts well, do you think he's viewed as a good GM overall? Nope.

Well that first core was built on Keenan trades. The second was in Burke draft picks and a biiig Nonis trade.

 

[tantalum]

why did he do the revamping in 2012? he was hired in 2008?

Benning was hired in 2014, so should we wait for him to revamp the pro scouting in 2018?

Amateur scouting wasn't the priority for the resources he had when he was hired. It simply isn't possible to revamp a large organization in short order and have it all functional. You pick your battles and where to put focus. But he will be the first to admit he waited too long to address the issue and I don't think you will find that would disagree.

Benning revamped the front office last summer inc,using the scouting so know we wouldn't be waiting that long to judge his changes.

 

[CpatainCanuck]

The rumour is that Gillis wanted to rebuild after 2012 and wasn't allowed to by ownership. And then Ownership hired Benning because Benning promised to retool on the fly instead of tear down. So really Gillis and Benning are pawns of an insidious hidden power:

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Question to the Gillis is a poor drafter crowd: anyone have posts from those draft years where the players you would have picked instead turned out significantly better than the ones Gillis picked? Even one instance like Karlsson over Hodgson or Saad over Jensen (at the time). Real easy to criticize with hindsight, but despite not turning out, Gillis was 100% in the Hodgson vs Beach argument which was people actually considered at the time.

Because there are multiple people who wanted Nylander over Virtanen and seem to be right. Or Konecny over Boeser, which despite Boeser's absolutely massive season is close. Or of course Tkachuk over Juolevi which remains to be seen.

Jim Benning was an assistant GM during every one of Gillis' drafts, and also didn't extract the Gostisbehere or Gaudreau type players. In fact, Boston's drafting is just as bad if not worse than the Canucks over that period.

You're asking HF posters if they could have done better than Gillis?
Lots of GMs got good players during the Gillis years. The guy has a scouting staff and is paid a lot of money. It's simply not good enough to say that he took the top guy on Bobby Mac's list and then give him a free pass.