The chants of “Fire Gillis!” rained down from the stands of GM Palace as time wound down on the clock in Vancouver’s 3-0 loss to Anaheim last night, a loss that ended their playoff hopes. It would prove to be quite a bit of foreshadowing, as less than 24 hours later, Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini announced that Mike Gillis had been relieved of his duties as General Manager and President of the Canucks. No replacement has been named at this time.
Gillis was brought on in 2008 after the team fired Dave Nonis and was looking for a new direction. The Canucks had missed the playoffs in the 2007-2008 season, one year after winning the division, and felt the need to name a new General Manager. In Gillis’ first year of tenure, the Canucks were back in the playoffs and even managed to get to the second round. In fact, including a pro-rated 2012-2013 season where they won the division – yes it’s easy to forget they won their division last year – the team has managed at least 100 points in the standings in every season of Gillis’ reign, up until this year that is.
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Gillis’ years as the GM of Vancouver will always be known for the Roberto Luongo contract.
With one year left on Luongo’s contract in 2009, Gillis re-signed him to the now-infamous 12-year deal carrying a cap hit of $5.3M. That in and of itself was bad enough. But then there was this young goaltender named Cory Schneider that they had drafted in 2004 that was proving himself to be an elite goalie. The Canucks signed Schneider for three years going into the lockout-shortened season for only $4M a season. They had a younger, cheaper goalie available that they wouldn’t trade, and an older, much more expensive goalie that no one would give anywhere close to value for.
Gillis eventually traded Schenider for a first round pick (ninth overall) at the 2013 NHL Draft but that’s not where the story ends. Gillis would then trade Luongo to Florida for goalie Jakob Markstrom and forward Shawn Matthias. The former Canucks GM traded possibly two of the ten best goalies in the world for a first round pick (Bo Horvat), Jakob Markstrom, and Shawn Matthias.
That wasn’t even the death knell. That might have come with the re-signing of the Sedin twins Daniel and Henrik. Four years ago, they were elite producers. Now, this duo has just 47 goals in their last 232 combined games over their last two seasons, carrying a cap hit over the next four years of $7M each.
The writing was on the wall for Gillis. The goalie situation, the Sedins, and a high cap number with declining assets and no playoffs meant that he was likely gone. The next guy in line is going to inherit a mess – the Canucks have $61.18M in commitments for next year and $50M the year after that – so it’s going to be a while before this franchise rebounds.
Gillis couldn’t let go of Luongo for lower than market price (despite getting rid of the contract) and eventually got about half of the value. He couldn’t let go of the Sedin twins even though they appeared to be declining already. The Canucks, in turn, let go of him.
