Confirmed with Link: Canucks Fire Mike Gillis - Part II

[y2kcanucks]

Well Tampa just got embarassingly swept in the first round, shouldn't Yzerman's head roll?

Yes because being swept when your number 1 goalie who's a Vezina finalist was injured is the same thing as having a team with blatant holes for years and not addressing them.

 

[Barney Gumble]

And which players were most responsible for this teams success? The franchise defining moves...

I think Gillis was a competent GM. Never did I buy into the notion he was great. Hardly irreplaceable like some want to portray.

So, Burke was John Lennon and Nonis was Paul McCartney; while Gillis was....Pete Best.

 

[Raincouver]

From the owners POV - the Canucks are worth a crapload of more money now than before.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are the most valuable and profitable.

Doesn't mean they don't suck.

 

[Barney Gumble]

The Toronto Maple Leafs are the most valuable and profitable.

Doesn't mean they don't suck.

Well the Leafs can be like the Washington Generals for the next 100 years and they'll still sell out every night. If the Canucks have a few more seasons (in a row) like this past year; they might be located in another city....

 

[mrmyheadhurts]

We haven't heard from Gillis or Torts post-firing, I wonder if there is any particular reason? I mean obviously they want to keep collecting their money, but there has to be more to it than that no?

 

[tc 23]

We haven't heard from Gillis or Torts post-firing, I wonder if there is any particular reason? I mean obviously they want to keep collecting their money, but there has to be more to it than that no?

They probably want to lay low and stay out of the scene until they figure out their next gig. Gillis is also with his daughter for a field hockey tournament in England, I believe.

 

[Wetcoaster]

We haven't heard from Gillis or Torts post-firing, I wonder if there is any particular reason? I mean obviously they want to keep collecting their money, but there has to be more to it than that no?

Nope.

 

[Wisp]

If Gillis still wants to do business in hockey - and he might, whether as an agent or executive or whatever - he's going to keep quiet.

 

[Type Not Specified]

We haven't heard from Gillis or Torts post-firing, I wonder if there is any particular reason? I mean obviously they want to keep collecting their money, but there has to be more to it than that no?

Why would they want to? Especially Gillis, who seemed to despise any interaction with the media when he was here.

 

[Bleach Clean]

Well considering the cap was going up and we had cap space unlike the previous two seasons, I totally disagree.

He was fired to appease the fans and to bring in TLinden's pretty face for the corporate season ticket buyers.

Gillis staying was affecting the bottom line of business because of poorly reasoned excuses like the one you just posted.

I think there were circumstances beyond his control that lead to nothing being done to the roster, the cap dropped, nobody wanted Lu.....

Gillis was fired to appease the masses like yourself.

And because he oversaw the team to it's worst offensive season in Canuck history en route to a 25 place finish.

Throw in his poor drafting and underwhelming trade history and it's easy to see why so many people around the league thought his days were numbered in Vancouver.

Burke pulled off the Sedin deal - Nonis orchestrated the Luongo trade. Those were franchise defining moments. What big move will Gillis be remembered by? What player or players did he bring in that will be his legacy?

I think these two posts highlight well the disparity in one's ability to properly judge management. One pays attention to the context while assessing the end result, and the other pushes the end result _only_, while disregarding the context.

It's subversive messaging. Certain opinions were far more direct at the time of the firing, and then when some of the more logical posts about the topic came out, these dissident opinions adopted the guise of being moderate, became more mellow... when they weren't/aren't. And now we see these points against Gillis still being pushed under the pretense of a balanced assessment. Are they? Nope.



I _still_ think Gillis was one of the better GMs in the league. The support for this team cost him picks. His reluctance to clean house cost him time. And his refusal to deal what little quality he had, kept things static. All throughout, he tried to grow the pipeline. To break the cycle of dealing futures for current core support. IMO, he did the right thing.

In a less zealous American market, I think his long-term plan would have been allowed to progress. Here, with the fans being as fickle as they are, as impatient, it cost him his job. Time to see if it was the right call.

 

[RezChi]

I think these two posts highlight well the disparity in one's ability to properly judge management. One pays attention to the context while assessing the end result, and the other pushes the end result _only_, while disregarding the context.

It's subversive messaging. Certain opinions were far more direct at the time of the firing, and then when some of the more logical posts about the topic came out, these dissident opinions adopted the guise of being moderate, became more mellow... when they weren't/aren't. And now we see these points against Gillis still being pushed under the pretense of a balanced assessment. Are they? Nope.



I _still_ think Gillis was one of the better GMs in the league. The support for this team cost him picks. His reluctance to clean house cost him time. And his refusal to deal what little quality he had, kept things static. All throughout, he tried to grow the pipeline. To break the cycle of dealing futures for current core support. IMO, he did the right thing.

In a less zealous American market, I think his long-term plan would have been allowed to progress. Here, with the fans being as fickle as they are, as impatient, it cost him his job. Time to see if it was the right call.

We want Cup ASAP.

 

[Bean in Charge]

I think these two posts highlight well the disparity in one's ability to properly judge management. One pays attention to the context while assessing the end result, and the other pushes the end result _only_, while disregarding the context.

It's subversive messaging. Certain opinions were far more direct at the time of the firing, and then when some of the more logical posts about the topic came out, these dissident opinions adopted the guise of being moderate, became more mellow... when they weren't/aren't. And now we see these points against Gillis still being pushed under the pretense of a balanced assessment. Are they? Nope.



I _still_ think Gillis was one of the better GMs in the league. The support for this team cost him picks. His reluctance to clean house cost him time. And his refusal to deal what little quality he had, kept things static. All throughout, he tried to grow the pipeline. To break the cycle of dealing futures for current core support. IMO, he did the right thing.

In a less zealous American market, I think his long-term plan would have been allowed to progress. Here, with the fans being as fickle as they are, as impatient, it cost him his job. Time to see if it was the right call.

I'm not totally disagreeing, but what during Gillis' tenure made you so impressed? The cup run was hardly his baby - that was something that began all the way back in the Burke days.

I mean, the Luongo/Schneider episode has to be one of the worst handling of assets ever...and that's a GMs primary job! Asset management. Then you have the Roy trade (for KConn and a 2nd), the Ballard/Oreo trade (for Grabs/1st/Bernier) that were both bombs. The only trade I can see that we seemed to have won on was Erhoff to Van (for essentially SOB). The Hodgson/Kassian deal is still p for debate.

Gillis looks to have been an astute drafter (assuming last year's draft ends up yielding some talent), and he was at least publicly known for his advancements things like sleep doctors and sports psychologists...but I don't know. He was serviceable I guess? I want to like him. I used to like him a lot more than I do now. The way last year was handled, as well as the year before with Lui, was really unfortunate.

 

[vancityluongo]

I'm of the belief that Horvat and/or Shinkaruk should have been given at least a 9-game stint. Furthermore, someone like Schroeder needed to be given more of an opportunity with legitimate top 6 linemates if that's the role they wanted him to play in. Also, we didn't really acquire any more quality youth. Dalpe and Welsh don't cut it.

Shinkaruk probably should have made the team out of camp based on performance, but those 9 games wouldn't have made any difference. If anything, throwing a raw teenager into the big leagues by having Torts make him block every shot within a 20 foot radius probably wouldn't have been beneficial for his development.

I'm still perplexed about the obsession with Jordan Schroeder. How do you justify gifting top-6 minutes to a 23 year old who hasn't shown that he can make a significant impact in AHL top-6 minutes yet, let alone in the NHL? Schroeder is the epitome of the two traits that plague the team; soft, and unable to contribute offensively. It's not like he's a defensive stalwart to make up for it either. Just hasn't shown the compete levels or drive to go to any dirty areas in order to make plays, which is unfortunate because the talent is there. But I just don't see any way that he goes from a 65 point pace in the AHL to a 40-50 point pace in the NHL just because he's playing with Ryan Kesler.

Finally, what youth was Gillis supposed to acquire during the season? Getting Dalpe and Welsh for nothing is probably more than most other GM's did. We also got younger in net and added a solid young third line center with size in Matthias, but I see you forgot that for some reason...

 

[John Bender*]

Shinkaruk probably should have made the team out of camp based on performance, but those 9 games wouldn't have made any difference. If anything, throwing a raw teenager into the big leagues by having Torts make him block every shot within a 20 foot radius probably wouldn't have been beneficial for his development.

I'm still perplexed about the obsession with Jordan Schroeder. How do you justify gifting top-6 minutes to a 23 year old who hasn't shown that he can make a significant impact in AHL top-6 minutes yet, let alone in the NHL? Schroeder is the epitome of the two traits that plague the team; soft, and unable to contribute offensively. It's not like he's a defensive stalwart to make up for it either. Just hasn't shown the compete levels or drive to go to any dirty areas in order to make plays, which is unfortunate because the talent is there. But I just don't see any way that he goes from a 65 point pace in the AHL to a 40-50 point pace in the NHL just because he's playing with Ryan Kesler.

Finally, what youth was Gillis supposed to acquire during the season? Getting Dalpe and Welsh for nothing is probably more than most other GM's did. We also got younger in net and added a solid young third line center with size in Matthias, but I see you forgot that for some reason...

The only thing I can think of is that he perhaps met Schroeder and Luongo and they were nice to him or something. I can't otherwise figure out why he has such passion for each player.

Luongo, ok......at least he was once a star player. But Jordan freaking Shroeder? The guy has barely show he can be an NHLer.

 

[thenextone]

We haven't heard from Gillis or Torts post-firing, I wonder if there is any particular reason? I mean obviously they want to keep collecting their money, but there has to be more to it than that no?

We didn't hear from AV in each of his last 2 off-seasons. I was more upset with that.

 

[Wisp]

We want Cup ASAP.

This burden has never been more unreasonable.

Linden is doomed unless we drop the ASAP part.

 

[vancityluongo]

I just don't understand how people can simply say that Burke/Nonis put together the prime pieces for the cup run, so Gillis can't be given credit for it. Look at this lineup

Sedin-Sedin-Burrows
Raymond-Kesler-Pyatt
Pettinger-Morrison-Hansen
Isbister-Ritchie-Shannon

Because that's what Dave Nonis left Mike Gillis with. The top prospects in the pipeline were Cory Schneider, Luc Bourdon, Patrick White, Michael Grabner, Sergei Shirokov and Juraj Simek.

Obviously anyone would sign replacement players over time. But successful teams aren't simply left in cruise control. If that were the case, then Edmonton is going to be a dynasty in 3-4 years, even if Lowe and MacT are still running the show, as long as they keep the foundational pieces.

Gillis made the moves that took the team to the next level. There are tons of teams with good core pieces but lacking in complementary pieces that really separate the average from the elite.

 

[Wisp]

We saw what Nonis-only pieces were worth in 2008 and we're seeing it again now in 2014.

Key Gillis pieces that separated this team from disaster were Ehrhoff, Samuelson, Malhotra, Wellwood, Sundin, Hamhuis, and Demitra. A line up without three or four of those pieces in them isn't a playoff team but it is a Nonis team.

In the end, when Gilllis was no longer able to replace those players with equivalent players, he suffered his downfall.

 

[mrmyheadhurts]

In the end, when Gilllis was no longer able to replace those players with equivalent players, he suffered his downfall.

For me, Gillis' downfall pretty much starts and ends with his horrible mismanagement of the goaltending situation.

 

[RandV]

For me, Gillis' downfall pretty much starts and ends with his horrible mismanagement of the goaltending situation.

But you can't properly assess the 'goaltending situation' until we see how well Horvat on one end and Lack/Markstrom on the other turn out. Funny how people are so excited about our 6th round pick this draft but when talking about Schneider treat the 9th round pick we obtained from last years better draft like he's scrap. And Luongo was traded when he was for two reasons. First it was the right thing to do as he's done so much for the organization and he requested a trade to Florida for family reasons. And second, the organization had faith that Eddie Lack could carry the load. According to some people our goaltending is now worse than Edmonton's... lets wait and see what Lack can do for a full season first. Markstrom is also a wildcard here, a year ago most Florida fans didn't want anything to do with Luongo because of their faith in Markstrom. A kid having a poor first season doesn't mean he's finished.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Still think the Luongo trade was inevitable but the way that was handled was ******. Luo should have got the WC start. But hell, Luo could have taken a page from Ilya Bryzgalov's book on that one.

 

[Fat Tony]

This burden has never been more unreasonable.

Linden is doomed unless we drop the ASAP part.

These are the Canucks. He's doomed regardless.

 

[Lundface*]

Still think the Luongo trade was inevitable but the way that was handled was ******. Luo should have got the WC start. But hell, Luo could have taken a page from Ilya Bryzgalov's book on that one.

Not sure how a GM is to be blamed for a coaching decision.

Luongo went to the media after his back up outplayed him by a mile in the the season and playoffs. It took 3 GAMES for him to open his mouth and demand a trade. On top of that he only wanted to go to south Florida...wasn't even like he wanted to go to a contender. Please tell me how easy it is to trade a declining asset, signed long term, that wants to go to a cellar dweller.....Florida had no money, Toronto had no real interest, no other team wanted anything to do with him, and to top it off Burke's new cause in the CBA killed the contract even more.

How people can still can't realize how badly Luongo shot this organization and himself in the foot is beyond me. Yes the Toronto led media can spin it anyway they want to, but Luongo was no victim here.

 

[LolClarkson*]

From the owners POV - the Canucks are worth a crapload of more money now than before.

This point is always made but it doesn't make a lot of sense. Billionaire type asset prices (inner city real estate, sports teams ect) all over the world have been reflated to unseen levels thanks to the biggest monetary expansion by central banks in history. The money has to go somewhere.

Gillis took over, right in the depths of the financial crisis before the money printing spree. This has little to do with the GM of the team.

 

[LolClarkson*]

Well the Leafs can be like the Washington Generals for the next 100 years and they'll still sell out every night. If the Canucks have a few more seasons (in a row) like this past year; they might be located in another city....

The Canucks franchise stays put. For another 100 years anyway.