I am the unlikeliest of people to defend Mike Gillis (MG). Read any of my posts on the Vancouver Canucks fan website and that will be as plain to realize as the nose on Serge Savard's face. However I think his attempt to get free agent Matts Sundin has been his best move so far as a GM.
My reasoning is that Sundin, if 100% healthy, is probably one of the best players to suit up in the NHL, and is also arguably the most sought after UFA in this year's lean, and older crop of talent of the new CBA economic setting.
Although he is 38, he has historically been a player that gives a 100% to conditioning, so his 38-year-old body doesn't show the mileage that a lot of NHL'ers as much as 10 years younger have on them.
After achieving a Gold medal for his country at the Olympics, and enjoying a memorable career as one of the best all-time Toronto Maple Leafs, his legacy is still somewhat unfinished without a serious but meaningful run for the Stanley Cup.
It's true some would say that Detroit's attempt to get him before the trade deadline could have been his best chance to finally drink from Lord Stanley's mug.
However unlike Ray Borque and others who joined teams that were already odds on favourites to win the cup, I think Matt Sundin wants his legacy to be about his ability to contribute significantly to a team's success of winning the most coveted award in professional hockey.
This would also signify to his critics that the Maple Leafs woeful playoff record , was a result manufactured from incompetence of the team's management than Matt's failure to help carry them there.
Detroit's ability to win without him was proven in their decisive victory over the highly talented Penguins. Had Matt taken the Detroit offer, he would have been viewed by most as merely a passenger on that vessel, not a significant crew member.
So with Sundin being hungry for a cup ring, whatever team he decides to play for, will require patience as he will take the time to choose carefully since it is likely that this will be his final career move, other then retiring.
If he chooses the Canucks, he will give everything that he has to help them win big. Even a GM named Doby Gillis is smart enough to know that.
For the Canucks new GM Mike Gillis this move also bodes well at the very least as a brilliant PR move. The hockey crazy city of Vancouver has been talking, debating and waiting anxiously for Sundin to make his decision. It has almost the same anticipation as the announcement of the 2010 Olympic bid results.
Let's face it intended or otherwise, if Sundin's decision goes past the deadline for season ticket holders to get their 10% refundable deposit, Gillis has by virtue of making the $20 million offer public, put the Canuck season ticket holders as partners in a high stakes Texan Hold em poker game.
There are a reported 4000 people on the Vancouver Canucks season ticket waiting list. Those who have tickets now have a deadline of staying with the Canucks for one more season, or taking the risk of losing their seats not just for this season but permanently.
It's true that the 4000 potential would be season tickets fans might be a mirage, but if you were a current season ticket holder would you be willing to gamble of not seeing first hand the future success of this team?
This Sundin move may or may not have been enough to keep the current ticket holders from walking, but the lure of Sundin at least has them thinking.
The Canucks have been sold out for home games since 2002. I'm sure Mike Gillis does not want his first season as a GM to be one that provided the means of ending that streak.
He also has the added pressure with regard to speculation that the 2008-09-season roster line-up, in spite of all the rose coloured Canuck fan optimists, is potentially weaker then last year. Although I like some of the players MG has acquired, there are big question marks around some of the moves that he has made, especially if you look at the reason they fired Dave Nonis.
Think of this off-season as a Texas hold-em game, and MG is sitting at the table with a pair of pocket 10's before the flop. As a rookie GM determined to make bold moves as he predicted he would at his inaugural press conference, he goes "all in" on his first hand, by going after Matts Sundin.
In making the offer to Sundin he convinces everyone that he has a better hand (team) then he really does. This keeps the season ticket holders on the fence that might have been leery of the upcoming season. A season I might add of which had Gillis opt to not resign long time Canucks Naslund and Morrison, replacing them thus far with younger but less proven talent.
No one with an address anywhere on this planet can question that with Sundin we will have a better team.
That being said without him this season, with the schedule the way it is, the Canucks could be out of the playoff race by Christmas.
In one of his off season moves getting Pavol Demitra is like getting another pair in the flop. It really only helps if you get the third ten to go with it, since everyone else in the conference has upgraded their talent, especially the other non playoff teams like Chicago and Los Angeles.
Demitra has also some questions as to who will be his set-up man if Sundin doesn’t choose Vancouver.
Hello! Can you say dejavu with Marcus Naslund's last two seasons as a Canuck?
The turn card is Sundin delaying his decision until potentially after the season ticket holders can get their deposit refunds. Mike Gillis has indicated that if Sundin doesn't sign he has several options with other teams who have stepped over the salary cap.
This is the equivalent at the poker table of wearing sunglasses so no one can read your eyes. You may in reality be blinking, as fast as a humming bird's wings, but on the outside you look cool and collected.
Finally, the river card for MG is getting a third 10 (Sundin signs), or bust if (Sundin doesn't) and someone like Bob Gainey or Glenn Sather calling his pre-flop "all in", but who's sitting comfortably with face card pocket pairs.
Either way he had to play the hand, since folding was not an answer, at least not after his big mouth shot off at his initial conference.
that and the fact that only rookie poker players slow play a pair of pocket 10's.
Mike Gillis is gambling like the Kenny Roger's song, and like all other GM's he's gambling that he is smarter then his peers.
We shall see if his gamble pays off.
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