The Greatest General Managers in Canucks History (#5)

[Mr. Canucklehead]

The Rankings so far:

#1 - Mike Gillis - 45.5% of Vote
Link to Thread:
The Greatest General Managers in Canucks History (#1)

#2 - Pat Quinn - 73.8% of Vote
Link to Thread:
The Greatest General Managers in Canucks History (#2)

#3 - Brian Burke - 89.0% of Vote
Link to Thread:
The Greatest General Managers in Canucks History (#3)

#4 - Jake Milford - 45.1% of Vote
Link to Thread: The Greatest General Managers in Canucks History (#4)


We've had lots of polls with respect to the best players in Canucks' history, so I thought it would be a fun exercise (famous last words) to see who HF Van thinks the best off-ice Canucks' Masterminds in history are - I figure we can run through this with GMs, and then do one for Coaches as well.

The list of Canucks' general managers that we've had is below, clipped from Wikipedia. Like Wikipedia, I'm including Mike Keenan as an option as he was the de facto/acting GM for an extended period of time.

Disagreement and debate are healthy and encouraged. Just keep it clean, civil and respectful.

The List:

1	Bud Poile	February 25, 1970 – April 1973	No playoff appearances	[3][4][5]
2	Hal Laycoe	April 1973 – January 31, 1974		[5][6]
3	Phil Maloney	January 31, 1974 – May 31, 1977	1 division title and 2 playoff appearances	[6][7]
4	Jake Milford	May 31, 1977 – June 1982	1 Stanley Cup Finals appearance (1982) 1 conference title and 4 playoff appearances	[7][8]
5	Harry Neale	June 1982 – May 23, 1985	2 playoff appearances	[8]
6	Jack Gordon	June 4, 1985 – June 1, 1987	1 playoff appearance	[9][10]
7	Pat Quinn	June 1, 1987 – November 4, 1997	1 Stanley Cup Finals appearance (1994) 1 conference title, 2 division titles, and 7 playoff appearances	[10][11]
–	Mike Keenan (acting)	November 14, 1997 – April 19, 1998		[citation needed]
8	Brian Burke	June 22, 1998 – May 3, 2004	1 division title and 4 playoff appearances	[12][13]
9	Dave Nonis	May 6, 2004 – April 14, 2008	1 division title and 1 playoff appearance	[14][15]
10	Mike Gillis	April 23, 2008 – April 8, 2014	1 Stanley Cup Finals appearance (2011) Won Presidents' Trophy 2 times (2010–11, 2011–12) Won General Manager of the Year Award (2010–11) 1 conference title, 5 division titles, and 5 playoff appearances	[16][17]
11	Jim Benning	May 21, 2014 – present	2 playoff appearances	[2]

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

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[Mr. Canucklehead]

For me it’s Dave Nonis edging out Phil Maloney.

The 2004 draft was one of the best the Canucks have had - Schneider, Edler, Hansen, even Mike Brown - some quality pieces were obtained in that draft. Nonis also hired Alain Vigneault, pulled the trigger on the Roberto Luongo trade, and made a couple of really astute free agent acquisitions in Willie Mitchell and Anson Carter (the latter, albeit, for only one season). He also signed a free agent forward named Alex Burrows to his first pro contract. I think the backbone he showed in refusing to make a bad trade to save his job (the heavily rumoured Brad Richards deal) also merits some consideration, too. I always felt he got a pretty short stick from the Aquilinis, who went on to give a lot more slack to Gillis and Benning.

Nonis wasn’t all good, to be sure. After the success of the Carter experiment, he kept trying to strike gold with low budget free agent signings like Jan Bulis, Byron Ritchie and Brad Isbister. His drafting also fell off a cliff after a great 2004 draft, culminating in arguably one of the worst drafts in franchise history with the 2007 draft.

Nonetheless - I think some of the moves he made really helped set the table for a he success the franchise would enjoy after his departure. And the one playoff run in 2007 with Roberto Luongo playing out of his mind was a lot of fun, too.

 

[Jyrki21]

I am on board with Nonis. Maybe he didn't do enough (I still think this is less obvious than many assume) but he didn't hurt the team the way several others have, and did bring in some huge pieces.

People making fun of his 2006 trade deadline may be forgetting how decimated by injury the Canucks' back-end was, when playoffs were not only realistic, but the team was still supposed to be something of a threat. Getting help was widely applauded at the time, and they had some extra picks to do so. Precisely the reason it's a good idea to accumulate resources.

That said, Maloney is before my time and in an era of such poor information dissemination compared to the Internet age that it's pretty impossible to compare.

 

[MS]

Voted Maloney, who actually provided a turnaround for the team and the only on-ice results in the first 20+ years of the franchise.

 

[MS]

People making fun of his 2006 trade deadline may be forgetting how decimated by injury the Canucks' back-end was, when playoffs were not only realistic, but the team was still supposed to be something of a threat. Getting help was widely applauded at the time, and they had some extra picks to do so. Precisely the reason it's a good idea to accumulate resources.

The Keith Carney trade was perfectly fine and unfairly criticized.

The Weinrich and Brown trades were horrible and actually downgraded on what we had. Bieksa was playing great and was shifted to forward to accommodate Weinrich.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i still think dropping five draft picks in the first five rounds of a draft in your own building for deadline rentals and then not even making the playoffs is one of the most embarrassing non-benning GMing performances ever

 

[Hit the post]

The Keith Carney trade was perfectly fine and unfairly criticized.

The Weinrich and Brown trades were horrible and actually downgraded on what we had. Bieksa was playing great and was shifted to forward to accommodate Weinrich.

Weinrich at that point in his career was too slow for the old clutch & grab NHL. Wasn’t he buddies with Nonis prior to the acquisition?

 

[MS]

Weinrich at that point in his career was too slow for the old clutch & grab NHL. Wasn’t he buddies with Nonis prior to the acquisition?

He was Nonis' college roommate at the University of Maine back in the mid-1980s.

 

[tantalum]

Nonis was a bad GM. But hey he landed Luongo and the d-man he drafted is still being played into the ground as the anchor of the current group. He also had a backbone and refused to hurt the franchise. He assembled a team that over achieved but was still in a decent place and just couldn’t keep them from a decline by making the moves he needed to make in the off season. But he didn’t actively hurt the team. Contrast that to Benning who saw a team overachieve but handcuffed himself and destroyed what little he had built in 7 years.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

#5
Phil Maloney.
Before my time of watching hockey ,but seriously,..This GM, in his 3.5 years as GM (coach too, I believe) had 1 division title, and 2 playoff appearances.
In the 1975 playoffs, the Canucks defeated the Canadiens (dynasty team) at the Forum.(even though they eventually lost the series)..
Maloney passed away February 2020.

1.Pat Quinn
2.Mike Gillis
3.Brian Burke
4.Jim Benning
5.Phil Maloney.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Ugh went with Nonis. Was a bad GM but we’re entering the territory of bad GM’s now.

1. Gillis
2. Quinn
3. Burke
4. Milford
5. Nonis
6. Maloney
7. Keenan

 

[MS]

Nonis was a bad GM. But hey he landed Luongo and the d-man he drafted is still being played into the ground as the anchor of the current group. He also had a backbone and refused to hurt the franchise. He assembled a team that over achieved but was still in a decent place and just couldn’t keep them from a decline by making the moves he needed to make in the off season. But he didn’t actively hurt the team. Contrast that to Benning who saw a team overachieve but handcuffed himself and destroyed what little he had built in 7 years.

Nonis is a weird case because his chops for 'good GM' are :

1) accepting a once-in-a-lifetime heist trade that Mike Keenan approached him with, that literally every poster on this board would have jumped at in the same situation.
2) not making bad moves to actively hurt the team in the long term.

Yay ... ?

But it does make him better than some of the actively terrible GMs who actively harmed the team like Benning/Neale/Gordon.

 

[Hit the post]

Nonis is a weird case because his chops for 'good GM' are :

1) accepting a once-in-a-lifetime heist trade that Mike Keenan approached him with, that literally every poster on this board would have jumped at in the same situation.
2) not making bad moves to actively hurt the team in the long term.

Yay ... ?

But it does make him better than some of the actively terrible GMs who actively harmed the team like Benning/Neale/Gordon.

Sometimes a guy is better assisted to be an assistant. I'd put Nonis & Benning in that category. Though, I'd give the clear edge to Nonis (personal opinion).

 

[MS]

Sometimes a guy is better assisted to be an assistant. I'd put Nonis & Benning in that category. Though, I'd give the clear edge to Nonis (personal opinion).

Nonis was a sold AGM. Benning is a buffoon.

 

[xtra]

Nonis was a sold AGM. Benning is a buffoon.

Honestly benning is like milbury with worse results.

 

[RandV]

You should probably drop the word "greatest" from the title at this point.

 

[Fire Benning]

#5
Phil Maloney.
Before my time of watching hockey ,but seriously,..This GM, in his 3.5 years as GM (coach too, I believe) had 1 division title, and 2 playoff appearances.
In the 1975 playoffs, the Canucks defeated the Canadiens (dynasty team) at the Forum.(even though they eventually lost the series)..
Maloney passed away February 2020.

1.Pat Quinn
2.Mike Gillis
3.Brian Burke
4.Jim Benning
5.Phil Maloney.

Jim Benning is closer to being the worst GM in the history of the NHL than he is to being the 4th best GM in team history, jesus christ.

 

[tantalum]

Nonis is a weird case because his chops for 'good GM' are :

1) accepting a once-in-a-lifetime heist trade that Mike Keenan approached him with, that literally every poster on this board would have jumped at in the same situation.
2) not making bad moves to actively hurt the team in the long term.

Yay ... ?

But it does make him better than some of the actively terrible GMs who actively harmed the team like Benning/Neale/Gordon.

I mean this is the Canucks. The talent pool for team GMs is incredibly shallow....

 

[MS]

I mean this is the Canucks. The talent pool for team GMs is incredibly shallow....

It really is shocking to see it in this perspective.

In a 51-year franchise history, we've had 3 good GMs who were in place for a total of 21 years.

Those other 31 years ... yikes.

 

[racerjoe]

It really is shocking to see it in this perspective.

In a 51-year franchise history, we've had 3 good GMs who were in place for a total of 21 years.

Those other 31 years ... yikes.

to be fair 7 years of them have been by one terrible GM...

it makes it 33% worse by just that one GM.

 

[tantalum]

It really is shocking to see it in this perspective.

In a 51-year franchise history, we've had 3 good GMs who were in place for a total of 21 years.

Those other 31 years ... yikes.

Yep. We are in “who is the #10th best prospect territory” once you get past those top 3 GMs. In other words...who cares as it’s not really an accomplishment.

 

[palefire]

This poll needs a "let's stop the poll here, everyone left was bad" option.

 

[iceburg]

This is getting really difficult at this stage. The analysis is shifting from how much good did they do to how much damage did they do.

The race to the bottom will be interesting between Benning, Keenan, and Gordon.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

bud poile is in the hall of fame

Poile, Bud -- Biography -- Honoured Builder -- Legends of Hockey

and his loins built maybe the two greatest defensive pipelines of my lifetime

 

[MS]

Harry Neale and Jack Gordon are the only two who can compete with Benning for the bottom.

I think Benning is probably stupider than Gordon, but unfortunately for Gordon the Neely trade went through while Benning's equivalent Lucic and Subban trades did not.