Vancouver Canucks: Mike Gillis is ready to change the NHL

Former Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis has traveled the world studying how other sports teams have operated and built winning cultures.

On Friday, former Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis was at Ryerson University in Toronto to speak at the TeamSnap Hockey Coaches Conference.

There were a Q&A and interview session, where Gillis shared his thoughts and opinions about his time in Vancouver, and how to change the front offices of the NHL.

Gillis’ plans for an NHL return

Gillis does indeed want to return to the NHL. However, he doesn’t want to be a general manager.

“I don’t think my role any longer is to be the GM of an NHL team,” Gillis said, via Sportsnet’s Luke Fox. “That one person, over time, gets worn out and starts to make poor decisions.”

He even said the jobs in the NHL front office are harder than they were five, 10 and even 20 years ago:

"“I’m really interested in analytics, sports science, human performance, and how to blend those things into a high-functioning organization. As a general manager of a team you’re myopic, really focused on your team performance, individual performance, coaching performance, and I like that part of the job. But right now I’m a little more interested in how you build an organization and how you see results, how you measure results and being high functioning.”"

Gillis and the premier league organizational structure

Gillis gave out his ideas on how teams across the NHL should be run in the modern era. He suggested that the NHL should employ four assistant general managers kind of like how the best soccer teams in the English Premier League do. That way, the GM has less pressure and a group of people can influence the team’s direction.

In the English Premier League, the head coach (commonly known as the manager) doesn’t just set the line ups and make strategies, he/she buys, sells or loans players and scouts young talent for the academy (there is no draft, teams scout young players and sign them to their youth academies).

It might sound like a daunting task for one person but the manager has four assistant coaches to help him with these roles and they work together collectively as a group. (Depending on the team there might be more.) They together influence the direction of the club.

If the NHL were to adopt this model, the Canucks, for example, would have the general manager and four assistants. One person could be in charge of overseeing the amateur scouting staff and drafting, the other could oversee the pro scouts and have ideas on trades and signings and so on. It takes off pressure from the GM and together as a group can work together to make a team successful.

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Gillis’ ideas on modernizing NHL organizations

Gillis also talked about his ideas for modernizing how NHL organizations work. For example, he talked about how he doesn’t like morning practices. He suggested that the practices should be at 4 PM. He even talked about making changes to the scouting system.

“It needs to be transformed, Gillis also said, via John Matisz of theScore.com. “There’s not enough evidence. The analytics are poor. There’s no real predictiveness in drafting. If you’re bad enough to (draft) in the top 10, you’re probably getting a good player, but you might not because you picked the wrong one.”

Gillis even stated that the combine interview, which is a part of the scouting process every year, as “absolutely useless.”

Another interesting thing said by Gillis was that teams should play five forwards on the ice at even-strength situations.

“I can envision teams playing with five forwards all the time to increase that speed and opportunity for offense,” he said. “Defensively, players now are learning defensive responsibilities at such an early age that I think it’s really detrimental to the game. I just see this push toward more offense.”

Gillis and the Canucks

There were reports that the Canucks were interested in bringing Gillis back as president of jockey operations a few months ago, but those were quickly shut down in a tweet from Francesco Aquilini.

Gillis’ tenure with the Canucks wasn’t perfect, but the club was ahead of many teams in with their use of analytics, sports science and tracking players sleeping patterns. Their methods worked and the team went to the Stanley Cup Final and won consecutive Presidents Trophies.

Gillis also discussed some of the science they used on former goalie Roberto Luongo. The latter had “a degree of performance anxiety.” Gillis added that the Canucks tried finding “a way to get him over that hurdle,” adding that Luongo has “a great sense of humour.”

Is it time for him to return to the NHL? Would you like to see him in an executive role with the Canucks or a different team? Or do you think he shouldn’t come back ? Let me know in the comments down below.