OffThePost.org

Sedin's are another example of Gillis's mistakes. I was and am happy that they'll finish their careers here. They signed on knowing that there was a youth movement coming and chances for another cup were slim but were committed to helping younger players to grow so that was their choice. The problem I have with Gillis is he reacted to Daniel's early season splurge thinking he had returned to form. For an organization that supposedly is all over advanced stats they should have realized this might just be a statistical aberration. Sure enough he's returned to the same non-goal scoring form he's maintained since the Duncan Kieth hit. They could have waited a few months just to mitigate that risk but now they're committed to paying him $7 mil when he's worth half that.

As for Tort's I've appreciated his candor and honesty with the media, he's really reformed himself. However he is too old school imo. Every human looks for patterns in individual or social behavior to achieve understanding. It's just how our brains work, we're not linear in the sense that a computer digests information. The problem this creates is that we tend to assume that correlation then equals causation which often is incorrect. Cam Charron did a great write up on why the decision to insert Lack over Lui for the Heritage Classic was incorrect. http://canucksarmy.com/2014/3/3/if-eddie-lack-was-the-answer-then-you-asked-the-wrong-question Being a hot goalie for a few games or a shit goalie for a few is meaningless. It's too small a sample size. And is he points over Lu's career, previous performance is a pretty lousy indicator of next games performance. That's why stats are so important, they cut through the bullshit biases we all develop to give a clearer indication to make the correct decision. I don't expect most people to get this, people prefer gut instinct to math and reason. However I do expect the Canuck's as an organization to hire coaches who do understand this and will make use of the available data and that the coaches are capable of then seeing past their own biases and improve their understanding of coaching. Tort's failed this test and it's a pretty significant indicator of his approach to coaching imo. He's leaving opportunity to improve himself and win games on the bench.

And the decision to give him a 5 year contract always perplexed me. I don't believe Torts had so many suitors that this was required. Pretty sure they could have gotten him for three years and if he didn't work out easy enough to move on. He had so much baggage and Gillis did not mitigate this risk.

All of this just indicates to me that Gillis doesn't pay a lot of attention to advanced stats either or he would have hired a coach who either understood them or was at least very amiable to learning from them and he would have held off on the Sedin contract decision a couple more months.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

What I simply don't understand is why Gillis would re-sign the Sedins early in the season instead of just letting them play out the year in view of ALL the uncertainty over the last 2-3 years. It makes zero sense given the obvious risks this season presented. At the start of this campaign, would it be fair to say there was a 50% chance of them needing a complete overhaul? Or even 40%? Even if it was 30% why re-sign them? The liklihood was far too great. It just further limits their already limited options, given NTC's and term on deals and salaries. He's too loyal to the players and still believed in this core right through to Olympic break. Not strategic IMO.

With regards to Torts 5 year deal (I forgot it was 5, not 4 - ugh), my sense was that it was a vanity deal and they eventually caved to Torts wishes and explained it away internally as good optics for the team because AV signed with the Rags for the same term. Copy cat league -- copycat guy, our guy is as good as yours etc. Torts may be open to play the youth in the organization a lot and give them more of a chance, but he's more likely to hammer home his system by rewarding anyone who fits into it. Is he really the right coach with the right system in this league for a total rebuild? His mind set is to play the best players he has at any given moment as much as humanely possible without causing death. They're not dogs Torts...

I'm not as down on Gillis as most of you, but I absolutely want Tortorella gone as soon as possible. In fact, can I take the opportunity to quote myself on the day of his hire? Because it has turned out exactly as I feared:


I have felt shades of 1997-98 since the start of this down period. There is just a lot of similarity, right down to special occasions (All-Star Game vs. Heritage Classic), disgruntled star player, trading guys away weeks after acquiring them -- Raphael Diaz, you are the new Enrico Ciccone! Congrats!

I was also bang-on with the loads of injuries and media circus. I'm not trying to say "I told you so" (though I also am) so much as this was all rather predictable.

I don't think Torts will be fired, though, unfortunately, because I think Aquilini might block it, even if Gillis is fired. Unlike Vigneault, who was sure to be hired right away if let go, Tortorella likely won't get work so quickly after this, meaning the owner would be on the hook to keep paying him and a new coach for quite a while, and we know he doesn't like throwing money away in principle (such as the buyout situation, and the rumors that even Ballard was refused at first). And then there's one other aspect...


Can we get to a bit of an elephant in the room? I'm actually surprised this hasn't come up more often except jokingly, not that I'm making a pronouncement on it one way or the other, but rather just floating the idea... is it possible that the Italian factor has something to do with it? Especially considering the reported ownership involvement in Luongo's contract as well? (I know a few other areas where this has come up too, and no, I'm not thinking of Santorelli). Is Aquaman thinking a bit with his heart at times?

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Being right is overrated.

Seriously though, nice prediction J21. I hope you are wrong about your second prediction regarding Torts not being fired. It seems like he hasn't matured with the game as a coach and his bombastic, control freak routine has already worn out here. His tenure as an NHL head coach seems to be slowly drawing to a close. But who knows when that will be. Chances of him finding head coaching work right away are uncertain and 4 years salary is a lot for Aquilini to eat so quickly after signing him with all the rumours swirling that he influenced the hiring of Torts to begin with. Given his distaste for not throwing money away we could be stuck with both at least until the beginning of next season. I believe Gilles has 3 more years left on the contract extension he signed in 2012.

One of these two has to go but I would rather see Torts go knowing that only one will likely be fired. Too riskly to dump both in the offseason.

It terms of the elephant in the room, couldn't agree more. It is pretty well documented that Luongo was an Aquilini guy. You can't help but infer that this may have had a hand with the Torts hiring. Aquilini does honour his heritage and is a control freak when it comes to trust in his business ventures as well. Do not cross the Godfather. Hands on owners become dysfunctional in hockey and rarely work. If the rumours are true about all his meddling, it's little wonder we are where we are right now. It's more than just owning and running of a business. This is a public trust. Despite how much he cares about this team and it's success, if his input is even 30% on hockey decisions, somewhere along the lines he didn't get the memo to leave hockey operations to the experts and would therefore, be the most culpable for running this team into the ground.

Far out, I don't' mind playing boring hockey if it's winning hockey but it's not right now (right now being this calendar year) We finally beat a team and I wish we'd lost cause I want a better draft pick. If Gillis goes as he should, Torts should be the next GM's decision, what's this BS about not replacing them both? We've gone from contender (arguably) to looking at a top ten (at least) pick in a year - as the saying goes you can't trade 'em all. This team should definitely be better than that even with all the injuries