Case and point, drafting the best player available isn't always the best move. Sometimes it's the right move other times you need to trade down, trade up or move the pick all together for assets it really depends on the teams needs at the time. The Oilers keep drafting the best player available whether they need him or not, terrible strategy although doing it for all these years did land them McJebus last year so maybe it was all part of the master plan.

Pulls a benning!

Not sure it would have made any difference. Oilers would have wrecked seguin. He got shipped out of Boston for being a rock star punk on an established team with character guys. I think it'd be pretty disastrous to give him free reign on a team full of rock star punk kids.

To be fair, Ryan Murray isn't exactly turning out to be a cornerstone stud dman either. Sure he'd be a useful piece to the oilers and most every other nhl team, but ppl would be pissed if yak was drafted elsewhere and properly developed and actually turned out to meet his expectations. Stud dmen can and are often found in the later rounds, but they need to be properly developed whether 1st round picks or 5th rounds picks

Speak for yourself..Gillis had me pulling out my hair just like GMJB had me doing recently.

Gilman, ill admit, was a loss based on his cap expertise but theres no love lost on my part for Gillis.

Out of curiosity, what bothered you about Gillis?

Dat best GM we ever had doe

he was the concensus most NHL ready player of that draft before any one of that draft year played an NHL game. as for when he actually became a stud, thats a different story

Gillis biggest blunders were:
Not moving Luongo at the time the goalie controversy with Schneider was peaking. Got too greedy.
Horvat for Schneider (Schnedier was already a no1 goalie basically.) Horvat is a great player, but return should have been more

He still deserves credit for the incredible team of 2011 + 2012
He deserves credit for that as much as Brian Burke deserved credit for winning the Cup in Anaheim. They both inherited good teams, but they put all the complimentary pieces together (and Burke even got fucking Chris Pronger)

JB has blunders:
Vey
Sbsia extension at 3.6 (or whatever the
Shinkaruk for Granlund (another bottom6 center when we have fucking Brent Sutter to a long term contract)
NOT being able to trade Hamhuis NOR Vrbata
Selling Lack for peanuts (3 + 7 rdounder FFS) Cam Talbot got a 1st. Martin Jones got a 1st. IIRC Jones had less of a workload than Lack even, despite better numbers (on a stacker defenseive LA team though)
Corrado fiasco

I actually dont think they are that bad now. Owners, i am pissed at though. And JB still deserves a kick in the face for not being able to sell Hamhuis at the trade deadline. Look at what Russel got FFS.

They both had their fair share of blunders, but Gillis is winning right now with our glorious cup run in '11. Did he draft like shit? Yes. Except for Horvat and Hutton. And Tanev who he picked up as a FA. Our cupboards were pretty bare and still kind of are in terms of a suiteable pipeline

:fuckthatshit::seriously:

We actually picked up his son, Brandon.

Bonafide no1


more twins next week

I actually dont think they are that bad now. Hamhuis is here to mentor the next generation of Canucks D

Warning: Wall of text below

Both of those have been widely speculated, both by the local media and national media, to have been calls by ownership as Luongo was Aquillini's favourite player on the team. Also the 12-year contract extension for Luongo and the Tortorella signing (Gillis wanted John Stevens).

Also Schneider returned more than any other goalie in recent history.
Are you joking?

Do people forget how bad Nonis' teams were? They missed the playoffs 2 of 3 years, had absolutely horrendous depth, especially at forward.

The team Gillis inherited had:
- old, semi-serviceable Naslund and broken, old Morrison in the top 6
- Matt Pettinger, Byron Ritchie, Brad Isbister, Jeff Cowan, and a 38-year-old shell of his former-self Trevor Linden as regulars in the bottom 6.

Pettinger was the only bottom 6 player of those 5 to play another game in the NHL and he only spent 1 more season as an NHL regular. Only Burrows continued a meaningful NHL career of that bottom 6.

Gillis completely rebuilt the bottom 6 (Kyle Wellwood, Steve Bernier, Ryan Johnson, and Darcy Hordichuk). He specifically brought in players who were good at faceoffs (Wellwood, career FO% of 55.2%, and Johnson, career FO% of 52.1%), a key weakness of Nonis' team.

FO% by year:
'05-'06: 48.1%
'06-'07: 49.2%
'07-'08: 48.7%
'08-'09: 51.9%
'09-'10: 51.4%
'10-'11: 54.9%

Gillis brought in sleep doctors, nutrition specialists, and numerous other cutting-edge personnel (i.e. statisticians aka "advanced stats").

What Gillis did behind the scenes was absolutely revolutionary. Almost every team in the league now has these personnel and, ironically, we are now one of the few teams that is lacking in these areas.

On the ice, Gillis worked with AV to change the team's style of play from defense-first to a defensively-responsible, transition-based attack that stressed offensive zone time for the team's top offensive players that would become the backbone of those Presidents Trophy-winning teams.

Gillis emphasized roster depth, especially at defense. And this was despite being handcuffed by Nonis trading almost every 2006 draft pick at the trade deadline (only to miss the playoffs and Nonis failed to retain any of the players he acquired) and then following that up with the worst draft in franchise history in 2007. Remember that most prospects require 4-6 years of development to start contributing at the NHL level, which would've meant those non-existent players should've been coming in between 2010 and 2013.

To say Gillis did as much as Burke did in Anaheim is selling him WWWAAAYYY short ...

Gillis also fought for Aquillini to buy an AHL franchise because of the lack of development that the independently-owned franchise (Chicago Wolves) was providing.
Notable, Anton Rodin's development completely stalled in Chicago (along with many of our other prospects) and then took off once again when he went back to Sweden. Obviously, it remains to be seen whether or not his SHL success will translate into NHL success.

Was he too greedy though? Look what Lu is doing to this day. He was a major asset.

While I agree at least one move should have been made, Hamhuis held the hammer (pun intended) and Vrbata had likely created a lot of disinterest league wide due to his poor play and, well.. disinterest in playing to win. He definitely hasn't shown he's the type of player you want in the playoffs.

thus far in my career as a Canucks fan, my only regrets are calling for Gillis and AV to be fired (...and some games where I got way too drunk)

Schneider is the one that should have been traded leading up to the cup run, or at the deadline the following season at the latest. Pro scouts should have picked up on his potential, his youth, his professionalism waiting for his chance behind Lu's lifetime contract. Think of what the return leading up to the cup run could have done for us. Hanging onto Schneider was gillis' greed.

Gillis being forced to trade Schneider at the draft was Lu's doing. He should have stfu like a good soldier when the LA clinching game was given to Schneider instead of basically saying his time in van city was done.

At the end if the day MG did miracles for our club, but I believe ultimately his hands were tied by the ownership who then proceeded to toss him under the bus. I honestly was a bit disappointed when lindening rolled into town and discrediting and basically said MG's ideas were goofy and they were going to kick it old school. Gg

Av was/is a great coach. But his time here was done, the players weren't playing for him anymore and his message to them went stale. No regrets with firing AV. it ended up getting us a free 2nd round draft pick.

I just can't believe that this season will go down in the books as worse than the train wreck of a year that the coach didn't think he needed to attend practices or talk to his players, like how is that even possible...

At the time, we all thought it was Gillis being greedy, but now we all know it was really Aquilini being the puppet master in the background.

Again, hope the Aquilinis lose a bucket load of money in the next few years and sell the team.

Funny, looking at some of the users who liked the post Jmac wrote, are the ones harping on old and current management...

You forgot Manny Malhotra. A real faceoff specialist and the go-to defensive forward brought in by Gillis with 61.7% FO% in the 10-11 season. I was so sad that he got his eye injury that season. He would have helped a lot in the 11 Finals. I think the Bruins were the better FO team in the Finals with their FO specialist Bergeron. (Malhotra played 6 games in the playoffs that season but I forgot which games. Although he was not 100%)

Report: Ilya Kovalchuk joining KHL expansion team in China - Sportsnet.ca

:haha:

Kovalchuk went back to Russia because he missed his mother country only to end up playing in China...

Is there any way Ilya can come back to the NHL?

It's too bad that Dim Jim's chances of getting Kovalchuk on our team are zero. Greedy Russian probably wants too much money to play in the NHL. :lawl:

Kovy would definitely improve our goal scoring. :considered:

Except age and health has caught up to him and he hasn't been that productive in the K.
What makes you think he would be productive again playing with the Vancouver Comets?