Mike Gillis will be general manager of the Vancouver Canucks for the foreseeable future.
For the Canucks, that’s a great thing, because he’s probably the best GM that the team has ever had.
For a guy who only started in 2008, that might seem like effusive praise, but the results in this case belie the acclaim.
In 2008, the Canucks were in the dumps. One season after a first-round playoff exit, they missed the playoffs despite having a developing forward corps and, at the time, one of the NHL’s best goaltenders in Roberto Luongo.
Swiftly gone after the season was general manager Dave Nonis, the assistant to longtime former GM Brian Burke. Together they had overseen a period of erratic success for the Canucks, never advancing beyond the second round.
In came Gillis, then a player agent for former Canucks Pavel Bure and Markus Naslund. He was appointed quickly in a move that was a surprise to all longtime watchers of the team.
Gillis set right to work making his mark on the club. He did away with Nonis’s strategy of developing a defence-first system and opted for more two-way play. He made a splash at the start of free agency, throwing Mats Sundin a two-year, $20 million offer as the Big Swede was pursued aggressively by other teams including the New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens.
While it seemed an expensive move, Sundin agreed to a pro-rated $8.6 million partway through the season, and he assisted immensely in helping develop members of the Canucks’ forward system. He played on the second line with Pavol Demitra and Ryan Kesler, and assisted heavily in elevating the latter’s play. The result of Sundin working with Kesler has been that the pesky forward has gone from solid third-line centre to one of the league’s best two-way forwards, winning the 2011 Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward.
Also of note in Gillis’s tenure have been his moves at the trade deadline. He has never subscribed to the idea of “rental players,” when you fork out players and prospects for an elite star nearing the end of his contract, who can help carry your team through the playoffs.
Instead, at the 2011 deadline, Gillis acquired Chris Higgins and Maxim Lapierre, players who have since been signed to contracts and become key second- and third-line players for the organization.
Then in 2012, Gillis made a bolder move at the deadline. He traded blue-chip prospect Cody Hodgson and defenceman Alexander Sulzer for Buffalo’s Zack Kassian, a prospect and power forward, along with offensive defenceman Marc-Andre Gragnani. It was a shocking move, to be sure, but a forward-looking one that put some bona fide sandpaper on the roster, as well as some youth that could serve the Canucks well in the years to come.
(How Gillis handled the Hodgson situation is still a matter of some debate, but when Hodgson was the price of acquiring Steve Ott from the Dallas Stars, it’s hard to argue with the return he got.)
Outside his acquisitions, Gillis has gone to great lengths to take care of his players and ensure they’re in top health. He monitors players to ensure they’re getting enough sleep and prescribes them with strict nutritional programs through team trainers.
Gillis’s record hasn’t been perfect. His acquisition of defenceman Keith Ballard has not paid off after two seasons and the GM’s trade activity has put the team out three straight first-round picks. As Ed Willes notes, the only player drafted, developed and contributing to the big club is college signing Chris Tanev.
Likewise, the Canucks have still not brought home a Stanley Cup. Certainly they made it as far as a team can go without winning one, but you could argue they really weren’t that close there, either.
But the team’s record under Gillis speaks volumes nonetheless. The Canucks have been a consistently successful team, winning two President’s Trophies for the two best seasons the club has ever seen. Two President’s Trophies are certainly better than missing the playoffs just a year after making them.
The coming years will perhaps be the true determinant of Gillis’s abilities as the Canucks GM. They will begin with whatever he decides to do with Luongo. What he gets in return will be a true testament to his ability at making trades.
Likewise his decision over coach Alain Vigneault’s future. Gillis and Vigneault have worked together to build a successful franchise, presiding over it through two of its best years ever.
Vigneault has one more year on his contract. He’s likely to serve it out. If the teams makes no progress next year, he’s likely out as part of a rebuilding process.
So if he isn’t the best general manager already, perhaps the years to come will be the ultimate determinant of Mike Gillis’s success with the Vancouver Canucks. The two best years in the club’s history makes him the best general manager right now, but how he sustains this club in future will provide the ultimate verdict on how good he is.
(Photos by Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun; Lyle Stafford, Reuters; Bruce Bennett, Getty Images; Jeff Gross, Getty Images; Ric Ernst, PNG; Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
