Gillis? He ran the Canucks from April 2008 - April 2014. In the 5 drafts he oversaw, he managed to draft Hodgson, Connaughton, Schroeder, Ben Hutton - and finally Bo Horvat with the #9 pick he received for completely (frank)ing their goalie situation and forcing himself into trading both Schneider and Luongo - plunging them into the Miller/Lack years of netminding which was solidly below average, before Markstrom emerged after a few years. Notably the first draft after he was fired, the new GM, Benning, drafted Virtanen (thank you), Demko, McCann and Forsling (of course Benning would trade McCann for Gudbranson, so not so great).
I mean he inherited Vigneault, kept him, and them when he decided to make a coaching change, he hired Tortorella - to coach the Sedins! His very trade involved giving up a 2nd and a 3rd for Steve (frank)ing Bernier.
His trades were nothing spectacular either - his best move was probably acquiring Ehrhoff from San Jose for next to nothing, getting 2 solid years out of him and then moving him before the UFA period started for a 4th - and NOT signing him to the idiotic 10 year deal that Buffalo did.
He did get the pick that landed Horvat for Schneider, although he created the situation. He also managed to land Markstrom and Mattias for Luongo, but frankly that's a pretty weak haul for one of the league's best goalies.
He wasn't that bad contractually - doing a good job of keeping the team together and not really overpaying too much for the core. He famously pursued Sundin after he debated retirement, but that didn't work out. I would say that his big UFA signings were probably Sundin, Hamhuis (worked out), Garrison (overpayment that did not work out) - which isn't much over 5 UFA periods. Internally he did sign Luongo to the "my contract sucks" contract and really overpaid Burrows.
I think there's a legitimate reason he hasn't worked. His team made it to the Cup Finals with an excellent, previously assembled core, but I don't think did anything to make it better.
- Monkeypunk
Gillis had inherited a team that missed the playoffs 2 of the past 3 years. The year the Canucks qualified in the middle they rode a vezina calibre season from Luongo to achieve their success, including a 70 save effort in the first round against Dallas.
Gillis let Naslund walk, whom he been player agent for prior to accepting his position as Canucks GM. It was the right move. He later let Willie Mitchell go which turned out to be a bad move but at the time seemed like the right move due to his concussion history.
He signed Malholtra , which was the reason they won the PT the first year. Brutal Eye injury derailed a cup winning season where they instead lost in game 7 of the SCF. Prior to that he signed, Samuelson from Detroit and Sundin. Sundin did score 8 pts in 8 playoff games but he also had a groin injury.
He also traded for guys like Higgins, Lapierre, Torres without giving up much. They were all on that SCF roster playing significant roles.
I think TO has much better scouting than Gillis had when he joined Vancouver, you wouldn't even assign those responsibilities to him and you'd do well.
