Whose downfall was the biggest: Sutter or Gillis?

[nik-]

Gillis' was more sudden, but Sutter screwed this team over a 4 year period.

Sutter left a bigger mess.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by nik-

Gillis' was more sudden, but Sutter screwed this team over a 4 year period.

Sutter left a bigger mess.

I think Gillis' mess just hasn't been fully realized yet

[old-fart]

I don't think it is a particularly fair comparison. Sutter took a garbage team with very few pieces that had missed the playoffs for 7 straight years and led them to a single goal away from the Stanley Cup and years of respectability, before falling back into mediocrity.

Gillis took over a pretty stacked team, didn't do much, got a lot of credit for work done long before he got there, then stood by and watched as it sank into oblivion.

edit: what ComixZone said.

[moon]

Originally Posted by nik-

Gillis' was more sudden, but Sutter screwed this team over a 4 year period.

Sutter left a bigger mess.

Sutter left Iginla, Kipper, Regehr and Bouwmeester all with a ton of value that could have been moved.

Not Sutters fault that Feaster is an idiot and misjudged the team and as unwilling to do a rebuild.

Gillis was a much bigger downfall and much, much worse GM. At least Sutter made a lot of moves to make the Flames a top team and didn't just inherit everything and add little or negative pieces.

[nik-]

Feaster was here because of Sutter.

[moon]

Originally Posted by nik-

Feaster was here because of Sutter.

That is a big black mark on his record hiring him but still doesn't come close to negating all the great stuff he did or compare to the basically no good, all bad of Gillis.

[Plett25]

Originally Posted by moon

Not Sutters fault that Feaster is an idiot and misjudged the team and as unwilling to do a rebuild.

We get it, you don't like Feaster, but does Feaster have anything to do with this thread?

[moon]

Originally Posted by Plett25

We get it, you don't like Feaster, but does Feaster have anything to do with this thread?

We are talking about the state of the franchise and what was left since Feaster came in after Sutter he plays a role in what happened after Sutter left the team.

Its really not that hard to follow.

[FAN]

Sutter for me. Darryl traded one of his best assets for a bunch of castoffs without getting any significant futures in return. At least Gillis kept his picks and recognized the team needed to get younger when the team didn't look like contenders.

Originally Posted by MattyC

Gillis inhereted a Stanely Cup contender to which he barely added anything. And then the more he tried to do after the fact, the more he effed it up. Losing two starting goalies without getting any shred of help back is just plain awful.

Has there ever been a GM who inherited a Stanley Cup contender? I never understood why anyone thought Gillis inherited a Cup contender. He inherited a team that missed the playoffs.

Ultimately, Gillis lacked vision. He thought he was adjusting to what it took to win in the NHL but what he was really doing was getting away from what made the team successful.

[CaptainCrunch]

Sutter saved this team, turned it around, made it into a year after year contender, then in the last year or so, lost his mind for whatever reason, then made some really bad panic decisions.

Gillis inherited a very good team from Nonis and promptly drove it into the ground with the force of thors hammer. Gillis was terrible at his job from the start, Sutter went insane.

[Plett25]

Originally Posted by moon

We are talking about the state of the franchise and what was left since Feaster came in after Sutter he plays a role in what happened after Sutter left the team.

Its really not that hard to follow.

Originally Posted by Thread Title

Whose downfall was the biggest: Sutter or Gillis?

Obviously it is.

[nik-]

I wouldn't say Gillis promptly drove it into the ground, they got to the finals 3 years after he took over.

[moon]

Originally Posted by Plett25

Obviously it is.

Yes it is when this is a factor in the job that Sutter did:

Originally Posted by nik-

Gillis' was more sudden, but Sutter screwed this team over a 4 year period.

Sutter left a bigger mess.

When looking at the mess some consideration should be made to whether or not what he left was actually decent or whether the guy that came in flubbed those assets.

And since when are you the thread police that is supposed to tell people what they can and can't talk about in a thread?

[nik-]

where did I tell someone what they could and couldn't talk about?

[moon]

Originally Posted by FAN

Has there ever been a GM who inherited a Stanley Cup contender? I never understood why anyone thought Gillis inherited a Cup contender. He inherited a team that missed the playoffs.

Ultimately, Gillis lacked vision. He thought he was adjusting to what it took to win in the NHL but what he was really doing was getting away from what made the team successful.

What pieces did Gillis add to make it a Cup contender?

That team was based around the Sisters, Burrows, Kesler up front did he bring them in? Luongo as the star goalie was that a Gillis move? Bieksa and Edler on the defense?

I think he brought in Hamhuis which was a good move but for the most part he added bad pieces (Booth, Garrison, Ballard) and then moved out guys for nothing.

You talk about moving a top asset for nothing in Phaneuf that seems to be pretty much what Gillis did with Luongo and Schneider, although I guess that Horvat could turn into something.

[moon]

Originally Posted by nik-

where did I tell someone what they could and couldn't talk about?

Plett25 not you.

Just realized how it looks with the quote.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Sutter:
Best: Building a competitive team.
Worst: Not the trading. It was the poor choice in coaching hires. From these bad choices, Sutter kept trying to fix the team's offence or defence depending on how the coach played them, and ultimately led to those 2 miserable trades.

Gillis:
Best Attribute: Erhoff. Everything else was 'meh' moves that didn't really do much (IMO).
Worst: Luongo Fiasco.

[ForeverFlameFan]

This can't really be deciphered until we see how Vancouver is in a couple of years. Right now Sutter's is, but we still have to wait and see Gillis' damage.

[CSharp]

Sutter's the worst of the two GM firings IMO. With the Canucks currently, they still have a pretty good team intact. The only reason why the Canucks weren't able to make it into the playoffs this year is 2 things:

1) they fired a coach that the team was success with
2) they had some injuries that set them back a lot.

In comparison, though, the Canucks fired Gillis probably at the right time and they can still live with a team they have going forward and still be very competitive in the next few seasons barring any major injuries. However, similar to the situation with Calgary, now that Gillis is gone, so too must Torts go. If not, the Canucks team will perform like what Calgary did when Brent Sutter ran the team down to shame.

Firing Alain Vigneault at the end of last season was Gillis' biggest mistake. The second big mistake with Gillis is signing Luongo to that 12-year $64 mil contract. Third mistake is
instead of letting the Sedins walk, he re-signs the twins to a contract to the end of their careers. After that Boston Cup final, everyone knew how to play their top line hard. The Sedins are the typical Swedish/European prototype - skilled and soft.

As for Sutter, after the initial run for the cup and the Flames were at the top, he was not able to re-enforce any depth at the center position. He kept tinkering with the big solid defencemen that was the trademark of the Flames and ignored bolstering the depth of the forward lines. Then, to top it all of, it was his unwavering nepotism that got this whole club into the downward spiral. I guess hiring Brent Sutter and firing Iron Mike was the topping for the disaster in addition to the greediness to get J-Bo. Maybe if Brent wasn't coaching those 3 years and Hartley was, the complexion of the team would be totally different.

[kingkahuna]

I think the fact that Sutter was able to submit his resignation rather than getting outright fired says it all. Sutter left the team and the organization in better shape than he found it while thats not the case for Gillis.