Mike Gillis had his season ending press conference at Rogers Arena this morning. Any General Manager in the NHL will say that a season ending press conference in late April is not on any ones agenda, especially from a GM that had built a Presidents Trophy winning team for the second consecutive year. Not to mention a team that went to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals. Mike Gillis would have much rather of woken up in a luxurious hotel in Los Angels awaiting Game six of the Western Conference Quarter Finals with the Kings.
You can view the whole press conference right here.
Lots of topics were addressed. What is the future of the head coach Alain Vigneault and what is his plan going to be with starting goalie Cory Schneider and back up goalie (if you want to call it that) Roberto Luongo. Other topics were why he decided to trade away Cody Hodgson and the health of Mason Raymond and Manny Malholtra after both enduring serious injuries last year.
It is a given whenever a Presidents Trophy winner goes out in the first round that change has to happen. The 2012 Canucks are no exception. Mike Gillis will determine how drastic the changes will be.
Gillis didn’t give many hints to whether or not Vigneault will be the Canucks coach when training camp rolls around in September. One would think that it’s his time to be shown the door. He has been the Canucks coach since 2007 and considering there are extremely high expectations with the Canucks team every year; it might be time to fire the coach. Keep in mind Vigneault has the fourth longest tenure in the NHL and just because a coach is fired it doesn’t mean he was a bad coach or that his time in Vancouver was a complete failure. As the saying goes: “Coaches are hired to be fired.” Gillis did mention that if he had a chance to trade Cody Hodgson again he would still make the trade. Gillis wasn’t going to share any personal encounters the two of them had over the course of the season. Gillis believes that every player should have the ability to talk to him while the conversation remains private. My guess is that Hodgson wasn’t happy playing in Vancouver or wasn’t happy with the ice time he was getting. Hodgson is Ontario born and the fact that he was traded to Buffalo leads me to believe that he wanted to play on the east coast close to home.
Gillis acknowledged that he was going to take some time to see what goalie he is going to go with for the long term. After all, it is a massive decison that could affect the team for years to come. There are pros and cons about each goaltender that I’ll go in depth with closer to July 1st. Gillis mentioned that not only Luongo and Schneider great competitors on the ice, they’re also great friends off the ice. Luongo did say when the players cleaned out their lockers today that if the team was wanting to trade him in the offseason he would be willing to waive his no trade clause.
We can’t take too much from the press conference today. However, it gives the fans a general outline of what the offseason is going to look like. Don’t expect any moves to be made this week. No trades can be made until the day after the Stanley Cup Final is over and a coaching change if one is in the future would likely come in ten-twenty days.
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