Management Thread | Is a Reckoning coming?

[Phenomenon13]

Can we please get some new management and ideas? I dont mean get inexperienced people buy this recycling of Gillis makes the Canucks look even more of an old boys club.

The front office is so empty we have a lot to work with and rebuilding starts with them.

 

[MS]

I would add to that to me it seemed like a lot of Benning adoration came specifically as a counterpoint to hating on Gillis. It was quite impressive the amount of investment against Gillis that came in from around the league, a lot of Canuck fans bought into it, then hooray Gillis gets fired and along comes Jim Benning who's the exact opposite of him. So that's good because Gillis sucked right?

And of course the reason Gillis gets brought up in these things half the time is as some sort of justification for Benning's lack of results.

There was an extreme anti-intellectual thing in place with Gillis, where he was perceived as being an 'arrogant big-city lawyer' by a large percentage of the fanbase. A guy who thinks he's so smart. Doing gay shit like sleep doctors, lol. Not the hockey I know and love! No wonder Boston beat us! Fights!

This was fueled further by the media who never liked him because he never really liked them, and also because their access to the team was very restricted relative to other regimes.

And then you have the drafting thing, which is a part of this weird culture in this sport which has sprung up in the last two decades were people are somehow more obsessed with prospects and prospect pools than actually winning games.

So you had these people who were frothing for him to fail with the media stoking the fire, and when it happened they were out with pitchforks.

And then you have Hometown Hero Trevor Linden coming in with this plain-spoken guy and wow, it's the opposite of Gillis. And these people got incredibly emotionally invested in that. And ignored all kinds of evidence of incompetence on the basis of high draft picks! 3 straight Calder nominations! and basically could not extract themselves from the position they dug themselves into without admitting they were catastrophically wrong, which people do not like to do.

My take, anyway. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[kcunac]

Benning drafting a core and then Gillis taking it to the next level seems to make a lot of sense.

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

This should be stickied to the top of every management thread.

It’s beyond frustrating how many people think that finishing in 29th place and taking a good young player with a free pick from the league = great GMing!!! but turning a mediocre team going nowhere into a powerhouse is ‘oh, he just inherited players’.

Does anyone actually think the Sedins turn into 110-point players if Nonis remains GM?

I'll always be impressed the cap work done in 2010-2011 to fit the following blueline: Hamhuis, Edler, Bikesa, Ehrhoff, Salo, Alberts, Rome, and Ballard while also adding Lapierre and Higgins at the deadline.

10 years later. The Canucks lost Tanev, Toffoli, Stetcher and Markstrom while only adding a washed up goaltender and Schmdit. They were completely capped out despite having EP and Hughes on ELC's. f***ing ridiculous.

 

[MS]

“lol” every player on that core talks about the transformative effect of the sundin signing

what nobody talks about, but was probably also a factor, was the sad but necessary move away from the previous swedish captain that same year

Gillis was also Naslund's agent and a personal friend and made the tough call there.

Naslund was a total liability for his last 3 years and getting rid of him was addition by subtraction.

 

[Melvin]

lol. which gillis pieces and moves do you think suddenly made all those players so much better in one off season? name them.

alain vigneault was a better coach than marc crawford and was not wed to the wce core. a new core with depth hit its stride.

and gillis didn't even bring av to the canucks.

the end.

Frankly you've proven that your opinions are not worth reading.

But, I never said it happened in "one offseason." It clearly didn't? They won Art Ross trophies a few seasons later, when players are usually past their primes.

 

[J Corso]

Gillis took that core and turned them into the best team in the NHL, something that literally no other GM has been able to do in team history. To brush that off as not a "big deal" is so mind-bogglingly ignorant considering everything we've seen since.

 

[krutovsdonut]

“lol” every player on that core talks about the transformative effect of the sundin signing

what nobody talks about, but was probably also a factor, was the sad but necessary move away from the previous swedish captain that same year

to this day i do not buy the sundin thing. i just think the wce core aging out and new guys stepping in took a season to work through.

we can debate forever what success nonis might have had with the core he built, had but the idea the new gm of all people is the one who knit that team together into contenders is i think one of the more buzarre legends that sustain the cast of characters that dominate the management thread. the coach and every one of the key players except hamhuis was already there. gillis is by all accounts an antisocial introverted asshole who could not manage to get along with his gm peers to a fault, not a charismatic leader of men. how did he do it? was it the threat to trade burrows if he didn't accept a lowball contract?

 

[krutovsdonut]

Frankly you've proven that your opinions are not worth reading.

But, I never said it happened in "one offseason." It clearly didn't? They won Art Ross trophies a few seasons later, when players are usually past their primes.

impressive how fast you guys resort to insults.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

to this day i do not buy the sundin thing. i just think the wce core aging out and new guys stepping in took a season to work through.

we can debate forever what success nonis might have had with the core he built, had but the idea the new gm of all people is the one who knit that team together into contenders is i think one of the more buzarre legends that sustain the cast of characters that dominate the management thread. the coach and every one of the key players except hamhuis was already there. gillis is by all accounts an antisocial introverted asshole who could not manage to get along with his gm peers to a fault, not a charismatic leader of men. how did he do it? was it the threat to trade burrows if he didn't accept a lowball contract?

..and even Hamhuis fell into his lap...?

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

Gillis/Gilman were the best front office duo this franchise has ever seen. They were innovative, shrewd and spent wisely to do it. We would be so lucky if either of them decided to come back here.
Unfortunately they exposed many loopholes in the former cap rules and they were penalized for it with Luongo.


Instead we'll probably just promote Weisbrod and Cull because that's the easiest thing for them to do.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Agreed. I think the problem is that some people perceive any criticism of Gillis as praise of Benning. It’s possible to think that Benning is our worst GM ever without thinking that Gillis should get another shot after the poor job he did at the end of his tenure. As you say, he was deservedly fired and hasn’t been hired since.
Let’s clean house and go in a completely different direction.

it is also possible to believe neither is that big a deal so long as they do not set the direction of the team and have autonomy on major moves.

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

The blood is in the water boys.

For the first time in 7 years, everyone is on the same page to fire this clown.

I've had to this profile pic since 2014. I hope to God that I will get it to change it soon in celebration

I even changed my username out of protest and will continue to use it until the day we send Benning to Belize

 

[RandV]

Agreed. I think the problem is that some people perceive any criticism of Gillis as praise of Benning. It’s possible to think that Benning is our worst GM ever without thinking that Gillis should get another shot after the poor job he did at the end of his tenure. As you say, he was deservedly fired and hasn’t been hired since.
Let’s clean house and go in a completely different direction.

For me it's more a perception that this thinking is what lead us into the current mess we're in. Where Gillis should have been placed was on the hot seat, not the chopping block.
After leading the franchise through it's most successful stretch ever what he deserved was a season or two to show he could correct the course of the team. There was a real lack of appreciation for having a guy at the cutting edge of progress in the league, and a lack of awareness that tossing him to the curb the chances of finding an equivalent replacement was minuscule while the chances of landing a dud were uncomfortably high.

Basically, Gillis took the floundering Burke/Nonis core and built it into the best team in the league that came 1 game shy of winning the Stanley Cup. When that core started declining and it came time to move on from it, rather than giving the guy a chance to build a new core like he wanted and see what we could do with it ownership tossed him to the curb, to the cheers of too much of the fanbase, and we rolled the dice with a brand new rookie President and 1st time GM to do the job.

I mean can you honestly say at that pivot point in 2014 between Mike Gillis vs not just Jim Benning but every other available candidate we wouldn't be in a vastly superior position today if we just gave Mike Gillis a little bit of that endless patience Jim Benning has gotten?

 

[arttk]

..and even Hamhuis fell into his lap...?

And he made the cap work. If the team was not competitive at that point, no way Hamhuis would’ve signed. Having a preference to go somewhere doesn’t mean it is automatic.

 

[Melvin]

There was an extreme anti-intellectual thing in place with Gillis, where he was perceived as being an 'arrogant big-city lawyer' by a large percentage of the fanbase. A guy who thinks he's so smart. Doing gay shit like sleep doctors, lol. Not the hockey I know and love! No wonder Boston beat us! Fights!

This was fueled further by the media who never liked him because he never really liked them, and also because their access to the team was very restricted relative to other regimes.

And then you have the drafting thing, which is a part of this weird culture in this sport which has sprung up in the last two decades were people are somehow more obsessed with prospects and prospect pools than actually winning games.

So you had these people who were frothing for him to fail with the media stoking the fire, and when it happened they were out with pitchforks.

And then you have Hometown Hero Trevor Linden coming in with this plain-spoken guy and wow, it's the opposite of Gillis. And these people got incredibly emotionally invested in that. And ignored all kinds of evidence of incompetence on the basis of high draft picks! 3 straight Calder nominations! and basically could not extract themselves from the position they dug themselves into without admitting they were catastrophically wrong, which people do not like to do.

My take, anyway. Maybe I'm wrong.

Getting beaten by Boston in particular and having the narrative be that they were big mean old school bullies who dominated us because we're a bunch of p***yes, literally set this franchise back a decade. For a couple years after all anyone would talk about was the "Boston Model." Marchand rabbit punching D. Sedin, meat and potatoes, etc. etc. etc. It's incredible how much different the perception would be if we won just one more game. If the Bruins didn't have Colin Campbell in their pocket...

But yes, that pretty much put on the shelf all the nerdy bullshit like performance science and analytics, and made the market hungry for a fictitious team of big mean bad guys who play old school hockey and have grit coming out of their buttholes. Which, hilariously enough, Benning has somehow completely failed to do, as the team under him has been consistently soft, slow, weak and pathetic.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

And he made the cap work. If the team was not competitive at that point, no way Hamhuis would’ve signed. Having a preference to go somewhere doesn’t mean it is automatic.

He wanted to play in his home province..end of story.

 

[MS]

It's amazing how people would never argue that Brian Burke took over a mess and gave the team direction and a plan and that his leadership was instrumental in creating the highs of the WCE era ... despite the fact that most of the core of that team was inherited, too.

But those same people are positively offended at the notion that Gillis did the same thing with the floundering Nonis core.

 

[krutovsdonut]

..and even Hamhuis fell into his lap...?

well how far down the rabbit hole of gillis is not that great do you want to go?

he has a great record with ufas and a poor record with trades. he had a great core and coach that attracted the cream of the ufas. but his proscouting carried over to benning and wanted exactly the same players benning ended up acquiring that people are still complaining about.

and he sucked at drafting.

all he was good at was ruthless contract negotiation, and even there he had the advantage of a great core that wanted to win together and some if whom were willing to do haircuts.

 

[Phenomenon13]

to this day i do not buy the sundin thing. i just think the wce core aging out and new guys stepping in took a season to work through.

we can debate forever what success nonis might have had with the core he built, had but the idea the new gm of all people is the one who knit that team together into contenders is i think one of the more buzarre legends that sustain the cast of characters that dominate the management thread. the coach and every one of the key players except hamhuis was already there. gillis is by all accounts an antisocial introverted asshole who could not manage to get along with his gm peers to a fault, not a charismatic leader of men. how did he do it? was it the threat to trade burrows if he didn't accept a lowball contract?

How do you know Gillis wasn't charismatic?

Benning is noted to be loved by his gm peers and I feel he gets bent over in trades all the time (probably why they love him). His great relations with his gm peers have continually failed to move any of the garbage contracts he has signed.

We need to value competence in management more than we need to value relationships with other gms. Gms change all the time. Not to mention there are only 32 teams in the league you can trade with (usually a lot less if you count circumstances of trades ex. Cap). Not doing business with someone because you don't like them in a market wither very few partners is incompetence.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

For me it's more a perception that this thinking is what lead us into the current mess we're in. Where Gillis should have been placed was on the hot seat, not the chopping block.
After leading the franchise through it's most successful stretch ever what he deserved was a season or two to show he could correct the course of the team. There was a real lack of appreciation for having a guy at the cutting edge of progress in the league, and a lack of awareness that tossing him to the curb the chances of finding an equivalent replacement was minuscule while the chances of landing a dud were uncomfortably high.

Basically, Gillis took the floundering Burke/Nonis core and built it into the best team in the league that came 1 game shy of winning the Stanley Cup. When that core started declining and it came time to move on from it, rather than giving the guy a chance to build a new core like he wanted and see what we could do with it ownership tossed him to the curb, to the cheers of too much of the fanbase, and we rolled the dice with a brand new rookie President and 1st time GM to do the job.

I mean can you honestly say at that pivot point in 2014 between Mike Gillis vs not just Jim Benning but every other available candidate we wouldn't be in a vastly superior position today if we just gave Mike Gillis a little bit of that endless patience Jim Benning has gotten?

Fair enough. I disagree on Gillis’ firing. It was entirely justified based on what he did post Cup run and based on his league worst drafting record during his tenure. I mean it was clear that the team was in decline and he just kept trying to plug holes without rebuilding. I don’t think you can blame all that on ownership anymore than meddling ownership can be used to excuse Benning’s incompetence.
But I do agree that anyone, including Gillis, would have been better than Benning.
That said, I just don’t understand the preoccupation with Gillis. There are lots of better options imo.

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

It's amazing how people would never argue that Brian Burke took over a mess and gave the team direction and a plan and that his leadership was instrumental in creating the highs of the WCE era ... despite the fact that most of the core of that team was inherited, too.

But those same people are positively offended at the notion that Gillis did the same thing with the floundering Nonis core.

Nonis is remembered for the Luongo deal that fell into his lap because Mike Keenan is a moron and was in love with Bertuzzi.

 

[arttk]

He wanted to play in his home province..end of story.

And Gillis made him take less money to make it happen. You make sound like it’s easy to get one of the most sought after ufa to take less money. This is the type of head in the sand thinking that perpetuate the idea Benning is good for the past 7 years.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

well how far down the rabbit hole of gillis is not that great do you want to go?

he has a great record with ufas and a poor record with trades. he had a great core and coach that attracted the cream of the ufas. but his proscouting carried over to benning and wanted exactly the same players benning ended up acquiring that people are still complaining about.

and he sucked at drafting.

all he was good at was ruthless contract negotiation, and even there he had the advantage of a great core that wanted to win together and some if whom were willing to do haircuts.

Totally agree.

 

[MS]

Getting beaten by Boston in particular and having the narrative be that they were big mean old school bullies who dominated us because we're a bunch of p***yes, literally set this franchise back a decade. For a couple years after all anyone would talk about was the "Boston Model." Marchand rabbit punching D. Sedin, meat and potatoes, etc. etc. etc. It's incredible how much different the perception would be if we won just one more game. If the Bruins didn't have Colin Campbell in their pocket...

But yes, that pretty much put on the shelf all the nerdy bullshit like performance science and analytics, and made the market hungry for a fictitious team of big mean bad guys who play old school hockey and have grit coming out of their buttholes. Which, hilariously enough, Benning has somehow completely failed to do, as the team under him has been consistently soft, slow, weak and pathetic.

Absolutely. That one series loss to Boston is probably the worst thing that ever happened to this franchise for so many reasons and pretty much directly turned us from the TB of that era into a Buffalo/Edmonton-level franchise run by dinosaur morons. It justified every bit of anti-intellectualism and base-level dinosaur thinking that had been harbored by everyone from the owner to the media to the fans and brought it out into the open. And then we burned our own house down because we thought there were witches in it.