Nonis FIRED! What's next for Canucks?

When I first heard of Dave Nonis being fired from the Canuck organization I was surprised. Just as he cleared a bunch of cap space for the Canucks off season Free Agent frenzy he's canned. Canuck owner Aquilini obviously didn’t feel comfortable with Nonis signing free agents and resigning & drafting players.

At his press conference this week, Dave Nonis was a class act and I would have been shocked if he was any different. He didn’t rip into management or the players.

One thing he did say that did shock me was in response to the "would you change anything now after knowing you would be fired" question. His answer was no. He mentioned if he would have made deals that would have made them make the playoffs to save his job he would be acting like a 'coward'. His best intentions where the Canucks not just this year but in the years to come. I wish they gave him 1 more year.

The fact is, that under Dave, the Canucks have missed the playoffs the last 2 out of 3 years isn't acceptable. And they lost 8 of the last 9 going into the playoffs? If they won only 1 of those games they would have made it but gotten pummelled vs Detroit. Yes they missed 175 man games to defensemen this year but we should have been in the playoffs regardless. Maybe Nonis told Aquilini that he was thinking of resigning Naslund and Morrison and that and missing the playoffs got him fired. Who knows.

But maybe letting Dave go was the best statement to all the fans that we are going to shake things up on all levels. Maybe coach Vigneault is next? Hopefully Naslund and Morrison too.

Thanks Dave for not trading away our young talent on an overpaid, now decent players like Brad Richards. You have put us in a great spot for this summer I just hope the next GM will sign the right guys.

After being surprised the Canucks let him go I saw this overview of Nonis’ moves and my view of the whole opinion changed…

Nonis was promoted to General Manager and Senior Vice President on May 6 2004.In his tenure, Nonis made the following moves:
- July 2004: signed Jonathan Aitken, Joe DiPenta, Lee Goren, Wade Flaherty, and Jeff Heerema. Besides Goren, none of the above were used in a Canucks lineup.
- August 3, 2005: traded Brent Sopel to the Islanders for a 3rd round pick in 2006.
- August 22, 2005: traded the 3rd round pick in 2006 to Atlanta for Steve McCarthy.
- September 9, 2005: traded future considerations to Tampa for Craig Darby.
- October 7, 2005: traded Fedor Fedorov to the Rangers for Jozef Balej and a conditional pick.
- March 9, 2006: traded a 4th round pick in 2006 (TJ Miller) to the Devils for Sean Brown
- March 9, 2006: traded a 2nd round pick in 2006 (Jhonas Enroth) for Mika Noronen.
- March 9, 2006: traded Brett Skinner and a 2nd round pick in 2006 (Bryce Swan) in exchange for Keith Carney and Juha Alen.
- traded Steve McCarthy to Atlanta for a conditional 7th round pick in 2007 (Charles-Antoine Messier)
- traded Tomas Mojzis and a 3rd round pick in 2006 to the Blues for Eric Weinrich. Ouch.
- June 23, 2006: traded Todd Bertuzzi, Alex Auld and Bryan Allen to Florida for Roberto Luongo, Lukas Krajicek and a 6th round pick in 2006 (Sergei Shirokov).
- July 1 2006: Signed Willie Mitchell as a free agent.
- July 14, 2006: traded a 4th round pick in 2007 to the Sabres in exchange for Taylor Pyatt.
- July 20, 2006: signed Marc Chouinard as a free agent.
- July 25, 2006: signed Jan Bulis as a free agent.
- traded, Dan Cloutier to the Kings for a 2nd round pick in 2007 (Taylor Ellington) and a conditional pick in 2009.
- August 18, 2006: signed Rory Fitzpatrick as a free agent. The "Vote for Rory" campaign soon followed.
- October 4 2006: claimed Dany Sabourin off waivers.
- December 30, 2006: claimed Jeff Cowan off waivers.
- February 26, 2007: traded a 2nd round pick in 2007 for Brent Sopel.
- February 26, 2007: traded a conditional pick to Chicago (who picked Akim Aliu) in exchange for Bryan Smolinski.
- June 23 2007: traded Jason King and a conditional pick in 2009 to the Ducks for Ryan Shannon.
- June 23 2007: traded Jesse Shultz to the Thrashers for Jim Sharrow.
- July 2 2007: signed Byron Ritchie and Brad Isbister as free agents.
- July 3, 2007: signed Curtis Sanford as a free agent.
- July 9 2007: signed Aaron Miller as a free agent.
- August 1, 2007: traded Francois-Pierre Guenette to the Blues for Zach Fitzgerald.
- August 21, 2007: re-signed Trevor Linden.
- February 26, 2008: traded Matt Cooke to Washington for Matt Pettinger.
(copied from http://hockey-madness.blogspot.com/ Zanstrom’s hockey blog and a pretty good one that I check out sometimes)

4 things that Nonis did well and the rest bombed. Personally I liked Nonis but looking at that list if he didn't make the Luongo trade happen he was a bad GM. But he DID move Bert (who is done), Allen (who is average) and Auld (who is decent/done) for Luongo (a goalie stud), a decent dman in Lukas Krajicek, and a draft pick.

#1 move was the Luongo deal.
#2 move was signing Willie "I might be the next Canuck captain" Mitchell
#3 move was getting T.Pyatt from Buffalo.
#4 move was dealing Cloutier's salary and getting a pick in return.
oh yeah and #5 would be getting Shannon off Burke for Jason King.
Other than that he didn't do much except try and get Marc Chouinard, Byron Ritchie and Brad Isbister to do something in Van. Didn't work.

Now the new question is who will replace Nonis as GM of the Canucks? That decision will make or break us. Rumours are flying but don’t deceive yourself Brian Burke and Pat Quinn are not coming back to Vancouver. I have no idea who is coming but I hope it’s someone solid who isn’t afraid of signing a couple scoring Free Agents.