Under Gillis' Reign, Are These Canucks Any Closer To Glory?
by Sean Zandberg on Apr 23, 2009 4:01 PM PDT
in The Gillis Era
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That is a question that Joe Pelletier from Greatest Hockey Legends.com is asking. Joe is saying that Gillis inherited talent that was already in place before he got there and that is the biggest reason for the teams' current success. You have to read his post to see why he says that.
I've had to think about this question for a while to come up with the best answer. My verdict is that it's a combination of both. Yes, the Sedins maturation and the emergence of Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows are huge factors. Roberto Luongo was brought here via a trade by Nonis (for which I still love the man for, by the way.)
Those are all good pluses for Nonis. But Gillis came in with a fire in his eyes to change the overall team and organization into a winning one. He started with the office personnel (scouting, head of player personnel, and even adding assistant coach Ryan Walter plus much more.) He built what he believes is a committed, winning management team.
-A complete list of Mike Gillis' transactions can be found here, by the way.
-A list of Nonis acquisitions here.
The argument that Gillis' Canucks roster is closer to winning than Nonis' is what I'll now tackle. I believe it is. When Gillis let long time Canucks like Markus Naslund and Brendan Morrison go last summer, he and we knew that he was going to need to find offence not only to replace those guys, but to find more in general.
In comes Demitra, Wellwood, Bernier, Johnson, Hordichuk... Demitra was a huge question mark in my head because I never liked him. Over the year he has grown on me. He can still be that perimeter-useless player on occasion...but at $4 million per season, he put up Naslund numbers (and showed more emotion) at a cheaper price.
Wellwood and Bernier were reclammation projects in the sense that both came with baggage. It was a gamble that I think paid off, possibly more with Wellwood because of his sick hands and faceoff ability (and now his checking ability). Bernier costed us 2 higher picks on 2009 and 2010 and gets paid $2.5 million per season
He is commonly referred to as "Hands of Stone", yet has found a suitable home on the 3rd line while we wait for his hands to develop into something more consistent.
Gillis' crowning achievment was signing Mats Sundin. Yes, there were a bunch of naysayers at the time and there still are. I am not one of them. Sure, he started slow and still looks out of place sometimes, but that presence on Line 2 is worth it as it takes some heat off the Sedins. Let me ask you this: if we still had Morrison and Naslund and put Kesler with them on Line 2 instead of Demitra and Mats, would Kesler's offensive output have been less? My answer is yes. For one, Morrison and Naslund are not the same combined calibre as Demo and Mats.
In the 50 games before the RPM (Ryan, Pavol, Mats) Line was formed, Kesler scored 11 goals and 33 points in 50 games. In the final 32 games of the season on the RPM Line Kesler scored 15 goals and 32 points. Demitra scored 13 goals and 25 points in 37 games before the RPM Line was formed, but improved to 7 goals and 28 points in 32 games mostly with Kesler and Sundin. That's a difference between .675 points per game and .875.
Stats can be skewed, I know. I'm just giving you the basics here.
Is Shane O'Brien a better d-man than Krajicek was? Skill-wise not quite. Size-wise yes. Remember one of the big reasons we lost to the Ducks in Round 2 a couple of years ago? They kicked the crap out of us physically. Our defence is big and mean throughout now, and it's getting the job done.
What I really liked about Gillis' goal was that he wanted to acquire players with leadership character. That becomes very valuable at times like these. He has that especially in guys like Sundin, Johnson and Hordichuk. Do I even have to say anything about Ryan Johnson? No. His play does the talking. I'll take him over a Matt Pettinger any day.
Most importantly, the real evidence that Gillis' Canucks are "closer" will come next round. If the Canucks can get past round 2, they will have gone further than the Nonis-Burke Canucks. They will have gotten farther than any Canucks team has since 1994. The proof will be in that pudding right there.
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While I agree with the author that Nonis (and maybe even Burke?) deserve a bit more credit for this team than they’re getting, I think he’s a bit off base with a few of his assertions.
His comment about the Sundin signing being a mistake really bugs me. Given the chance to go back and do it again, would he NOT sign him? Sure, Francesco would save the $5 mil, but what do I care about that? Sundin was a no-risk signing and has made this team much more dangerous offensively even if he’s not putting up the numbers. With cap space to burn and not wanting to trade away our future, signing Sundin was and still is a no-brainer.
Also, his comment about all of Gillis’ additions being “replaceable puzzle pieces” is somewhat unfair I think. All of Gillis’ additions have been character guys who have helped to build a new culture around this team, which is probably the most significant change that Gillis has made.
Yeah, Nonis was the one big on the replacable puzzle pieces. I shudder when I think of Pettinger and Chouinard and Bulis and Isbister and Ritchie and fitzpatrick and Beech and McCarthy…. Oh god I’m have horrible flashbacks of watching such uslessness. It’s inconceivable you can compare those “pieces” with the likes of Johnson and Bernier and SOB and Welly and Hordi and OSSI OSSI OSSI!
by Beantown Canuck on Apr 23, 2009 7:39 PM PDT up reply actions
Signing Sundin midseason was a basically no-risk move which has paid off to some degree (although not as much as most people anticipated), but Gillis’ initial offer of 2 years, $10 million would have been disastrous if Sundin had accepted it. It would have killed our cap room for next year and precluded us possibly re-signing the twins (and maybe Burrows too), and quite frankly there’s no way Sundin could come close to replacing that production now. It didn’t actually end up hurting the team, but it still was a major misjudgment on his part.
Yes, it would have been a misjudgment if accepted. However, it turned out to be a very good opening play.
It also looks much worse after the economic problems hit in the fall. With a cap increase assumption still in place during the early summer it’s not nearly as bad as it looks now.
A misjudgment? Perhaps. I guess Gillis believed Sundin could put together another 75-80 point season in his final year (if he signed for 2 years). Maybe he would if he started at the beginning of a season and went through training camp. With Grabner and Hodgson on the horizon and IF he signed the Sedins, it wouldn’t be suck a bad thing to have Sundin here. Steep price tag, yes, but don’t forget Vancouver’s inability to get big name talent here over the years.
by Sean Zandberg on Apr 24, 2009 12:09 AM PDT up reply actions
I agree with the notion that Sundin might have been better if he came to training camp. No question. Even if you sit him 1/3 of the games to rest his ailing bones, he’d unquestioningly be in better overall shape.
Also, as we discussed in an earlier thread. His commitment to Sundin may go a long way in showing respect to players, and get Vancouver’s name out there as good place for people to play and live. That may in the long run justify the price tag alone.
With all that being said, I would still take Sundin back at a reduced price in a heartbeat. If we just remove from our heads the idea that he should be a point-a-game guy, except for a penchant for getting dumb penalties that he seems to have moved on from recently, he does a lot of good things for this club. When healthy, he’s still a 50+ point big man who will win faceoffs and make Kesler and Demo better. I would pay him $4 mill if we had the cap space (but we won’t due to signing the Sedins, which we WILL do, and anyway Mats wouldn’t take $4 mill I’m guessing).
by Beantown Canuck on Apr 24, 2009 12:17 AM PDT reply actions
No, he wouldn’t take $4 million.
Yeah, we need to lose the Sundin image for taking bad penalties. I can think of several other Canucks who are bigger culprits.
If he takes a (heavy) discount he should be welcomed back. I doubt he does.
There will be the option of bringing up someone from the farm to play, and shifting for example Wellwood to the second line. I don’t say that that is ideal, but certainly an option. Another short term free agent signing to hold over until Hodgson is ready is another option. That of course makes you wonder if the two year offer to Mats was made with the expectation that either Wellwood or Hodgson would be ready for that spot at the end of the Sundin contract. There is of course the possibility I’m painting stuff with a nice set of rose colored glasses with happy broom fringes…
I generally agree with this posting. A couple of things I would add which cut in favor of Gillis. First, evidently he did not share Nonis’ infatuation with Brunnstrom, which after one year, I think can be evaluated as a good thing. Second, and this is based on draft rumors and may have been something resisted by Nonis as well had he been there, Gillis apparently was steadfast in not trading the Hodgson pick for Cammalieri, again a good decision (especially in light of Gillis’ past representation of Cammalieri) or trading any of our defensemen for Jokinen.
I actually think Sundin is the only disappointment that Joe got right (ok, and Nycholat). Our defense is a shutdown crew first and foremost and Davison is just fine for that sort of role. I’m a huge Oullette fan and hope he makes an impact on the team next year (especially if the forward ranks thin) and Krog was another reclamation project, but a far better (and cheaper) one then the Chouinard variety.
The thing with the Sundin move is you have to look at it from a few different perspectives. I agree it does put Vancouver in a more favorable light for free agents then perhaps it did before he signed on. Or if getting Sundin was an indication to all the pending FA’s (and Luongo for that matter) that Gillis will do what it takes to make this team competitive at all costs, then I agree 100%.
But aside from the chemistry he showed briefly with Demo and Kesler, he’s been a failure on the ice if you’re judging him by his superior Toronto years. That was my problem with him all along; like Nieds showed in Anaheim last year, you can’t take half a year off and expect to be fine in this league anymore. It’s a tough pill to swallow that Gillis has to spend so much to get so little back on the score sheet. But, again, it depends on what you’re looking at.
As far as the playoffs go now, the best we can hope for is he stays healthy. If he can do that, draw a man or two in their zone on the rush, use his size effectively and win face offs, I don’t care if he doesn’t score the rest of the games they have.
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Do you hold Sundin’s salary against him? Because the way I see it, paying him that much didn’t prevent us from getting anybody else (unless Gillis had decided to rip apart the team) and it’s not my money that he’s being paid. And I certainly think that he’s been easily more valuable than the next best option we had. To me, given our cap situation at the start of the year, anything he’s brought to the team (and there are a few things under that category I think) is gravy.
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