Mike Gillis, Master of the Blindside

Maybe a package deal with a reliable back-up coming back our way?

 

Our chances with both goalies > Chances with 1 goalie + futures

Our chances with both goalies < Chances with 1 goalie + UFA star

But we should know by now this isn't Gillis' MO. He wants to maximize our chances of winning a cup not in 1 year but over the next 10 years. By making sure the Canucks are always a contender (not necessarily the best team) over the entire period gives us the best shot.

 

I agree with this post except he is already the best GM in history based on almost any releant metric

 

Wow. He inherited the core or at least a lot of the key pieces and I'd say he's clearly closer to most overrated GM in history than "the best".

 

To take it a bit further, Gillis has backgrounds in multiple fields which all probably contribute to his success. He's been an NHL player, a college coach, and a law student as well as player agent. His experience in those positions allows him to relate to pretty much everyone's situation within the organization.

 

Is it even possible to be clearly overrated?

 

He also turned that core into an elite team, resigned them all at great cap hits, and made us into an appealing destination for free agents. Hamhuis in particular was a hugely important signing.

He inherited a lot of good pieces, but he's also done a really good job moving forward from there.

 

Breaking news

Gillis trades for Sandra Bullock.

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/8...dside-trade-roberto-luongo-for-sandra-bullock

 

Could be both. What other of our ex gm's are rated or respected now. He is the best gm in Canuck history that is for sure. He could do a Glen Sather and mess that up but feel free to name other candidates.

 

Yeah I didn't necessarily mean deep in terms of skill, but we just have alot of players that are filling that 4th line role.

 

The link sends you to an article about Felix Hernandez's elbow.
What just happened there?

 

Sedin Sedin Burrows
Raymond Kesler Hansen

Edler Bieksa


Luongo
Schneider


Is what is left from the prior era. He swapped mitchell and Salo for Hamhuis and Garrison... that's lateral if Garrison improves. He added Higgins, Booth, and depth guys. Ballard was a disaster for two years before turning it around and he found Tanev and brought in Kassian through his Hodgson pick.

After almost 5 years the entire core except Hamhuis is the same as it was the day he arrived. But he's been able to re-sign every one of those players to great contracts, which I doubt Nonis could do since he always overpays.

IMO Gillis and Gillman are very good simply because they have shown the best cap management in the league over the last few years. but until Gillis builds his own core we don't know how great he is as a GM. Walking into a situation where you have a top 3 goalie in the world and one of the best goalie prospects can make anyone look good.

 

I.e. Edler is Gillis too, it is a new contract (a good one) and thus not heritage.

 

No, he's heritage.

 

So if Gillis would not have signed him then he is to blame but when he signs him he has no part in it, notes taken.

 

Don't be dummy. If Edler doesn't count as an inherited piece because of a shiny new contract, than none of the players Nugenthopkin listed counts. They're ALL on Gillis contracts.

I give Gillis mad kudos for his cap management and contract negotiation. He still inherited Edler.

 

Nonis drafted him, and he played during Nonis' time as GM.
Gillis did sign him to that 1st extension, but I still think he is from the previous regime.

 

Bieksa was the last player to be on a Nonis deal, anyways.

 

Gillis deserves credit for the fact that every single good player on the 2007-08 roster (who isn't retired or 35+ years old) is still here. Much easier to build a team if you keep the good players that you already have, and not every GM manages to do that -- much less on the sort of value contracts that nearly every one of them has signed.

I think the great unanswered question about the Canucks is where the scoring is going to come from when the Sedins decline (or retire). I won't be at all surprised if GMMG is still here when that happens, so if you don't want to pass judgment just yet, you can wait until you see how he handles that.

(Surely the Luongo trade is supposed to be part of the solution. Kassian, Jensen, and Gaunce are part of it, but I bet until we have about 3 more blue-chip prospects he won't be comfortable that we might eventually get two first-liners out of our prospect group. We'll see. I don't doubt that GMMG is thinking 5 years ahead, though. Any tweaks he makes this year could at best improve the Canucks' chances of winning the Cup from 15% to 16%, or something like that. The real key to winning Cups is to keep your team's odds at 10%+ for years on end, where it's 3% on average.)

 

You still can't disregard the signing as a thing which weights positive on Gillis scale and yes there are other contracts as well.

One could theoretically see a situation where a GM inherits a well managed team and resigns them all with good cap hits every third year, doing it trice. That GM amounts to nothing?

The heritage of Nonis should not be nullified, it gave some cards but it is all on Gillis and how he managed his hand now.

 

We might actually have to rely on scouting, drafting, and prospects for the first time in years...

 

He had to re sign all these pieces . In fact, hes done a nice job. He almost lost the twins and I would have personally hung him from a tree, but he got it done.

He handled Ryan Kesler very well. He signed Alex Burrows to the cheapest deal for value contract in our history (outside entry levels)

He handled Edler extremely well. He scored Hamhuis for nothing. He scored Garrison for nothing.

He fumbled Erhoff and he blew off Willie Mitchell. The Ballard trade was awful. But again the Booth trade is good. He is a quality guy we gave up dry crap for.

His biggest blunder all along in my opinion was this ridiculous Luongo contract. I have to hand it to Luongo's agent.

He bent over Dave Nonis. When Luongo was traded here he had one year left before becoming a UFA. Nonis had to pay him 6.75mil bucks for 4 years with an NTC to get him to stay . Not bad for a guy with no NHL awards and had never played a single playoff game.

Then Luongo's agent bends Gillis over with the gimmie 7 mil or I walk routine so Gillis has to cough up the 7 mil so he makes a cap cicumvention deal to squeeze it into 5.3mil cap hit.

That has now come back to crush his value badly. But its better than Luongo walking I suppose.

He handled the Hodgson situation beautifully and scored a great young player for the prima donna. He gave him most excellent sheltered minutes to showcase the best of who he was, to then hammer his azz out of town .

I wanted Anquilli to give him a raise right there and then.

 

I don't think it was referring to Hodgson actually - more the things like sleep science, nutrition, fatigue etc.

MacT seems like a smart, well-informed guy when it comes to hockey. Perhaps he and the Nucks didn't see eye-to-eye on coaching down in Chicago but I don't think there's any bitterness on his part, even if he is back with the Oilers now.

I have to agree. Obviously there is the risk of overdoing things, but I'd also prefer a guy who's not afraid to try new things. When you settle in your ways and think you're good enough, that's when the danger of slipping becomes real.

 

By the time Burkie and Nonis left, the only bottom six forwards were Raymond, Burrows, Kesler, Hansen, Rypien
Thank goodness most of them have developed enough offensive instincts that they can be slotted into top 6 positions

But lets imagine if the majority of them didn't exceed or even reach their draft projections. Where would we be now?
So either the previous management were geniuses or they left the Canucks with no top six.

Which begs the question, how is it former management couldn't even draft a full fourth line.
Gillis had to resort to the likes of Hordichuk, Ryan Johnson, Tanner Glass, Malhotra.

When you're going to free agency for 4th line players, you are wasting valuable cap space and roster space. you tend to have to overpay just a little bit. And you could've gave that roster spot to a young prospect that you have been molding for that role, and more than likely he is getting paid near league minimum.

Therefore, if previous management can't even stock the cupboards with bottom six players, how could we expect them to have top six forward prospects and top 3 defensive prospects.

Next is the defense. If I was Nonis, my defensive prospect depth chart on the wall would have included: Edler, Bieksa, Bourdon, and maybe Bryan Allen.
Now, looking from the outside, thats really poor management. Look at the prospect pool, there was absolutely nothing anywhere close that could have played full time in the NHL. Nathan McIver was probably the closest.

Another Gillis miracle, is how he managed to add Ehrhoff, Hamhuis, Garrison, Ballard to that group.

The most telling sign is that Mike Gillis is still adding more weapons to his utility belt, while having his current team rank about the same or above in the standings than the Burkie, Nonis era.

If only guys like Denis Grot, Marc-André Bernier, Brett Skinner had panned out, it would've been a different story.
Burke came into a situation in 1998 where the prospect pool wasn't exactly at full capacity, yet Brian when he left had little to show for in that respect.
It has taken nearly 15 years to steer the ship in the right direction