Glad you guys feel the same way. I've always thought, and still do think, that the Canucks play best in an up-tempo, puck possession, skill style. I really hope we go back to those ways.
Kind of ironic how Gillis/Gilman regime was criticized for drafting, yet they drafted Bo, our best player.
Gillis/Gilman were excessively bashed on their drafting by people who had a bone to pick with them. Yes the earlier years were bad, which still had the old Burke/Nonis scouting regime in place, but at the time Gillis was fired there hadn't been enough time to evaluate his more recent drafts so they just kind of got lumped in with the earlier ones. Also, you'd never see any of the extra prospect UFA signings added, so detractors would just say some garbage like 'no NHL players in 6 years!!!'.
Fast forward a few years and we have a few Gillis draft NHL regulars on the team: Horvat, Gaunce, and Hutton, plus one UFA signing in Tanev. There's a few other depth NHL'ers around the league: Schroeder, Connauton, Corrado, Lack, plus a few more players that could still join the group: Jensen, Shinkaruk, McEneny, etc. It's not great but for a Cup contending team that started with no farm depth it's not too bad.
As for the Giman thing though, can't really tell either way but I always had the impression the Canucks organization were just being dicks and dragging their feet in giving permission rather than playing some long game of looking to bring him back. I mean I think after two weeks they did give Vegas permission, didn't they? Except by that time Vegas had moved on.
That's not necessarily on Aquilini though, a request to speak to someone under contract shouldn't go straight to the owner.
