After the hectic playoffs, Vancouver Canucks’ GM Mike Gillis is ready for the offseason –NHL Updates
Vancouver Canucks played hard all through the regular season and emerged as the best team in the National Hockey League (NHL) at the end of the season.
The playoffs uncovered a whole new story as Vancouver struggled to make it to the top, but in the end, it was all back down to the bottom again.
Canucks might have lost to Bruins in a seven-game Stanley Cup Finals’ series, which no doubt has really hurt it, but now that everything is done and over with, the team’s general manager, Mike Gillis, has a lot on his mind now about other things.
For starters, Gillis is facing the problem of negotiating with a number of players who will become unrestricted free agents on the first of July.
Along with that, the NHL Entry Draft is also coming up and in order to build up the team further, he will need to push the limits and make quick and smart decisions in a small time frame.
It is certainly hard to manage the offseason when you make it so far in the playoffs. Like starting fresh, Vancouver Canucks will have to focus on multiple things simultaneously.
"Well if I put my agent hat on, we've got tons of time", Gillis said. "You can get a hockey deal done in five minutes. I've done hundreds of them. I'm not concerned about the time frame. Right now I'm very confident, but we just ended”.
Christian Ehrhoff and Kevin Bieksa, both defensemen, are on the top of the priority list of players who are on the unrestricted free agents’ list and need to be dealt with as soon as possible.
Both players are also committed to stay on the team and are certainly confident of coming to terms with Vancouver’s management.
"We didn't talk to any player during the season about their contract for a reason because we didn't want it to become a distraction; we didn't want anyone to feel like they were being treated differently", Gillis added.
Sami Salo and Raffi Torres are also on the list to become unrestricted while Maxim Lapierre and Jannik Hansen pose another challenge since they are restricted free agents.
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