Nonis fired!!!

Good. I said it before and will here again, ownership has to take a stand. They have to execute where necessary. Winning teams/organizations know this. Failure is acceptable to a degree, when a plan is present. A feasible plan that is.

And some of these dopes on the TSN are making it sound like a knee jerk reaction by Aqualini. I highly doubt a business man of his level could succeed to his degree by knee jerk reactions. Sometimes the crud these pawns spew makes me really shake my head.

Who should be GM?

The likely. Tambilini, Burke a longer shot.

The others I personally would like to see.

Bowman.
Neil.
Quinn.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least that they have their man picked already. If I am the Canucks owner I would want my GM in place sooner not later. The draft is coming and the changes on this team are only bigger now where philosophy is concerned. Time is of the essence and time's a wasting. The new GM should be in place in the next two weeks.

I got a hunch the entire staff might be cleared out.

With ever ending there is a new beginning.

RB

Badat said:

I'm kinda surprised by this, but I guess there is no appreciation in Canuck land. The guy gets you a world class goaltender and things go a little bad cause of injuries one year and you drop him like a bad habit, but then I really shouldn't be surprised. :thumbsdow

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Yeah yeah...just crawl back into your little hidey-hole where you can keep sucking at the tit of Kevin Lowe and wallow in that blue and orange kool-aid he has you all drunk on.

We're supposed to give Nonis a pass because Keenan dropped Luongo in his lap 2 years ago? Name me one other move besides Luongo and Mitchell that he made that has taken this team forward in pursuit of the Stanley Cup.

This same guy made Salo unmovable with a stupid contract and an NTC and set his team up for this rash of injuries by hiring an Andy Murray clone to coach the team with the league's worst travel. When all is good Nonis is a genius but when things go bad he bears no responsibility? Give me a break.

I can list at least a half a dozen major mistakes that Nonis has made that have been incredibly damaging for this team over the last 4 years, but it's almost 2:30 in the morning and I'm tired.

Come back out from under your rock tomorrow and I'll enlighten you then.

I was just reading Bob McKenzie's blog on TSN.ca, and he seems to think this is a terrible move on the organization's part. I usualy agree with Bob's comments, he does make sense in most of what he says, but this I disagree with.

Everywhere, everybody is saying the same thing. "How can you fire the guy that brought you Luongo?"

Poeple seem to think that Nonis is a mastermind for pulling off that deal. Nonis wasn't a genius, Keenan was an idiot, period. I don't know of one GM that would of passed on that, so what makes him so special.

I understand the point that he sould've been givin at least one more year to see what he could do now that he has the money to do so, I was sure that's what was going to happen too.

But here's the thing. If management doesn't have confidence in him, why would they keep him around. Maybe they knew what his intensions were for this summer and did not agree with them. Maybe he would've wasted our free cap space on singing half ass players to long term deals, and then what? We're back to where we were, no cap space, and not a better team to show for it. And everybody jumps back on to the "I hate Nonis" bandwagon.

Anyways, this is my opinion, agree or disagree, it's up to you.

Cheers :beer

P.S. I just notice this is my 100th post. It's about time after 2 1/2 years. lol

Canuck said:

Well there goes our chance to sign Fabian Brunnstrom. Stupid move, should have gave Nonis 1 more year to build the team he wants or we should have fired him after Brunnstrom was signed. There odds of Brunnstrom coming to Vancouver now arent very good since Nonis was the main man pushing the deal.

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Let me ask you something. Aside from 4/5ths of the first fleet of Russians that came over and Daniel Alfreddsson, name me ONE other overage euro that came over here and did anything but bust.

This is exactly my point about some of the fans here. If your expectations are so low that you would keep a GM around based solely on the possibility of getting a possible 30 goal scorer from across the Atlantic, then its no wonder that Trevor Linden and just making the playoffs sends you into a euphoric tizzy.

I mean, slap me up side the head with a dead monkey if I'm wrong, but there are 30 goal scorers on THIS side of the Atlantic, are there not?

You know, if Dave Nonis had done his freaking job at the draft table over the last 4 years, they wouldn't have to be fawning all over an underachieving 23 year old from Sweden.

Dave shoulda listen when I said that if he wanted a offensive player at Dollar Store prices, he shoulda called Anson Carter and maybe he wouldn't be in the doo doo he made for himself. Everbody keeps saying how genius he is making that Luongo deal. I agree with groleau97 that Keenan was the real reason for making Nonis look good. Keenan likes to trade goalies remember Sean Burke's stint with the Nucks - it was so short that I can't remember how long he was here. Good thing that Aquilini is listening to the fans who are dead tired of a team whose goal is just happy to make the playoffs and anything after that is just gravy. We need a Cup champion. What eats me up about this years lot was that a reasonably healthy Nucks team couldn't beat a Blackhawk team made up of their farmhands - that's when I knew the Nucks wouldn't make it.

BE-LEAF-ABLE said:

1 season of missing the playoffs and he's gone? Man... I'd love to have management like that.



That'd be like music to my ears.

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It's not just about missing the playoffs this season, it's about his entire body of work over the 4 years he was here.

Remember game 6 vs Dallas last year? How they didn't even show up for it? Injuries or not, there were too many games like that this season...The 6-2 loss at home vs Colorado, the 5-1 loss in Chicago, any of the seven games they lost in the last nine games of the season.

Then you look at the games where there were efforts this year and you could plainly see that they just didn't have the talent. January was a good example of this, where in 14 of their 15 games that month they had leads of either 1-0 or 2-1 and gave up the next goal.

Then there were the myriad of reclamation projects here under Nonis. Park, Carter, Noronen, Pyatt, Bulis, Cowan, Ritchie, Isbister, Beech, Pettinger and almost Brunnstrom.

There was the fact that he couldn't draft an impact player in the first round of the draft. Again, one project after another meant there was almost no help from the system when they needed it.

And then the coup de grace...the fact that he had one of the best goalies on the planet and a 48 million dollar payroll and missed the playoffs again.

This was not a knee jerk reaction, despite what the idiots in the media want you to believe. This is about the fact that Nonis took over a 100 point roster, missed the playoffs 2 out of three years and has left the roster smaller, weaker and with more holes in it than when he took over, Luongo or no Luongo.

Consider all the mistakes Nonis made here.

- He is one of the 2005 draft lottery winners, moving up from 23rd to 10th. Despite this team's long standing need for both a top 6 scorer and impact centre, he takes a project defenseman in Luc Bourdon and passes on Anze Kopitar, who went next to the Kings.

- Needing to get under the cap coming out of the lockout, he panics and dumps Sopel off for a 2nd round pick. This leaves him with Ohlund, Jovanovski, Salo, Allen and Baumgarnter as his only NHL calibre defenders. His answer to the problem was Steve McCarthy, who didn't last the season.

- Coming out of the lockout, he had an entire third of the league to add from through unrestricted free agency, knowing that he had questions in goal, a lack of depth on defense and was short at least one top 6 forward. His only additions were Richard Park and Anson Carter, despite the fact that Scott Neidermayer wanted to sign and play in Vancouver. Despite an obvious need for another NHL calibre defenseman, Nonis says no thanks. Scott Neidermayer would sign with the Ducks, take them to the WCF in his first year and the Stanley Cup in year two.

- Knowing full well that Ed Jovanovski was not part of his long term plans, he opts not to trade him at the deadline and lets him walk as a free agent withgout compensation. Going in to the deadline that year, they are playing their backup goalie Alex Auld and still have not addressed their obvious weakness on defense, even though both Ohlund and Salo have been knocked out of the lineup with injuries they sustained at the Olympics. His answer to these problems at the deadline are Mika Noronen, Eric Weinrich and Sean Brown, none of whom would play another year in the NHL. Shockingly, the team misses the playoffs.

- In the 2006 draft, Nonis takes Michael Grabner with his first pick, a player that is not ranked as a first round selection on any prospect list on the planet. In fact, most people have him pegged as a late second round or third round pick.

- That summer he allows Jarrko Ruutu, a third round pick, to walk away as an unrestricted free agent.

- Despite the fact that Anson carter scored 33 goals and helped turned the Sedins into legitimate first line scoring threats, Nonis decides he's too expensive at 2 million per and opts not to resign him. Having dealt Bertuzzi to Florida in the Luongo deal, he is now short at least two top 6 scorers and still hasn't acquired an impact centre. His answers to these problems are Jan Bulis and Taylor Pyatt.

- Going in to the 2007 trade deadline, he has the hottest team in the league and his goaltender is having an MVP season that has the team on pace for it's best regular season in team history. But he still has the need for an impact scorer, and it's clear his leading scorer and captain needs an elite forward to help maintain his offensive production. His answer to this need is Bryan Smolinski. The team scores more than 2 goals in just 2 of its 12 playoff games, blows another 3-1 series lead and then bows out in 5 games in the second round.

-Still in dire need of help on offense, he takes a project centre in high school player Patrick White and passes on David Perron, a scoring winger who won the gold medal with Canada at the WJCs that winter. Perron goes on to score 14 goals and 38 points as a rookie with the Blues. No one really knows where White is.


- Completely ignores the team's need for more scoring. His answer in the summer of 07 is to sign Byron Ritchie and Brad Isbister. And despite having an obvious problem with his blueliners ability to stay healthy, he resigns the most injury prone defender in the league in Sami Salo to a 4 year, 14 million dollar contract AND throws in an NTC for good measure.

- Loses a top 6 forward and a top 4 defender to long term injuries in November and his only answer to pick up Kris Beech off of waivers. Beech is cast off by the goal starved Blue Jackets and doesn't last three weeks as a Canuck.

- Despite an obvious need for scoring and having a blue line that is decimated by injury, while watching his team slide inexorably out of a playoff spot, he answers at the trade dealine with third line forward Matt Pettinger. Pettinger had 2 goals when acquired by Nonis.

- He leaves the team faced with the very real possibility that both Morrison and Naslund will walk out of this organization as UFAs, again with no compensation, leaving the team short at least 3 top 6 forwards and STILL NO IMPACT CENTRE. His answer to the problem this time around was to offer a 2 million per contract to 23 year-old underachieving Swede, Fabian Brunnstrom, a player that was not even drafted.

Now you can say hind sight is 20 / 20, but with every one of those decisions, there was a t least one Canuck fan on this board pointing out that these were stupid decisions that would hurt this team rather than help. So if we as fans can see it, what the hell was Nonis' problem?

Outside of the Luongo deal and signing Willie Mitchell, Dave Nonis did a horrible job here and has likely set this team back at least 5 years.

Firing him was not only the right thing to do, it was long, long overdue.