There is no name for this award, well at least one I couldn't find. So I decided to name it after the Canucks first GM. That and you can never go wrong by naming a trophy after a guy named Bud. Rather fitting as well considering his son, and 2001 winner, David Poile is nominated again. He is joined by Mike Gillis and Steve Yzerman.
Nothing against the junior Poile, but his teams are always the same. They play tight defense, have limited scoring, and rely heavily on their goaltending. They usually make a veteran pick up at some point, this year it was Mike Underwood-Fisher. They do develop young talent though and for that he should be commended. But the best GM? Sorry junior, not this year.
Next up is our very own Mike Gillis. Mike was sneaky good this year. I remember last summer being a little confused as to his additions, Dan Hamhuis, Keith Ballard, Manny Malhotra and Raffi Torres. Adding more defense seemed mind-boggling to me, but he was smart to sure-up the third line, which Malhotra and Torres did. The only major subtraction turned out to be Michal Grabner, who turned out to be fairly good. His deadline add-ons of Max Lapierre and Chris Higgins turned out to be great.
The third nominee was Steve Yzerman, who hasn't even had an entire year in the position, but has done wonders. He immediately went to work completely changing the culture of the team. He picked up key third and fourth line players, traded for Simon Gagne, and later in the year acquired Dwayne Roloson for essentially nothing. He stole Guy Boucher from Columbus with a visit, and turned an 80 point team into a 103 point team.
In my mind their is no doubt the First Annual Norman "Bud" Poile Trophy goes to the boy from Cranbrook, BC, The Captain, Steve Yzerman. True that Mike Gillis had to be more cautious with his cap space, and he would have won, if Yzerman had made on mistake, which he didn't. Not that its all that surprising, he has excelled at everything he has done.
No comments:
Post a Comment