one thing i thought about was how total gillis' entire vision of the organization was. he was too slow to fix the scouting and the player development staffs, because they were already in place and he wanted to see what he had. but that's also because he put so much work into building all the other stuff. not saying it wasn't a mistake not to address scouting and development staff sooner, but there is context for it and there was a logic to where his attention and priorities were aimed. like, he didn't run out of time chasing oliver ekman-larsson.
i think about tryamkin. that would never ever have happened under gillis. on his way out, tryamkin fired shots about the city and how he and his gf never felt at home or comfortable. gillis would have had an infrastructure to welcome them to the city.
when tryamkin complained about routinely walking by drug users in their neighbourhood, you have to ask: who told him it was a good idea to live that close to the DTES? from the context clues in the interview he gave, it's obvious that he wanted to live near the arena and chose to rent something in the towers near international village. but that also means there was no one on team staff to check in on this prized teenage rookie who doesn't speak english well and ask, hey where are you planning to live? and then go, no no, you want to live a little farther west, a little farther south. let's set you up with something nice in yaletown.
that person also would have set tryamkin and gf up with people in the russian community, given them a network, and also make sure his gf had a friend who was a gf or wife of an older player. in the absence of that, in what can be a fairly depressing city where it always rains, you have a miserable, alienated, and probably shell shocked young player that peaced out at the first opportunity.
those are just a little things, but the result is we lost a potentially good player. when aqua/benning/weisbrod slashed staff these are the considerations that fall by the wayside. just like there was no one to push a big red button when gaudette tested positive to make sure practice ended at that exact moment and make sure nobody was in contact with anybody for the next seven or whatever days.
