General manager Mike Gillis has been fired, the team announced. The Canucks, thanks to a post-New Year's free fall, were officially eliminated from playoff contention on Monday night as "Fire Gillis" chants filled Rogers Arena. They may have worked.
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"On behalf of my entire family, I would like to sincerely thank Mike Gillis for his hard work and the many contributions he made on and off the ice during his tenure,” Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini said in a released statement. "The Vancouver Canucks had success under Mike's leadership, and we nearly reached our ultimate goal; but I believe we have reached a point where a change in leadership and new voice is needed.” "I also want to thank our fans for their support for the Vancouver Canucks through a difficult and frustrating season. We haven’t met their expectations or ours. We are committed to bringing the Stanley Cup to Vancouver for our fans and we will continue to do everything possible to reach that goal."
Vancouver had made the playoffs in each of the last seasons and won two Presidents' Trophies along with their 2011 Western Conference title, but this season they're 35-33-11 and figure to finish out of the postseason by a healthy margin. Tough for Gillis, but given the circumstances, it's understandable.
Good as the Canucks were, they've collapsed because of an aging core, Gillis' poor draft record and the massively mishandled (if not altogether ruinous) Roberto Luongo/Cory Schneider saga. Also contributing: Gillis' hiring of John Tortorella, whose style has not appeared to mesh with the team he coaches. Tortorella's future is up in the air — as is the Canucks' front office structure moving forward.
One possibilty, per Bob McKenzie of TSN, is that the team hires former captain Trevor Linden as president, in a move similar to the Colorado Avalanche's decision to hire Joe Sakic over the summer. Linden doesn't have any front-office experience, though, and it'd be easy to pigeonhole that decision as one more about appeasing fans than anything else.
In any case, it's a swift, surprising, ultimately understandable fall from grace for the 2011 Sporting News NHL executive of the year. Gillis' unorthodox methods for player evaluation and deployment, which he developed with coach Alain Vigneault, were close to revolutionary, and he deserved the credit he received for them. Eventually, though, the recent missteps outweighed his body of work, and on Tuesday he paid the price.
