Canucks fire front office executives Laurence Gilman, Lorne Henning, Eric Crawford

Photo Credit: Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports

On Thursday the Vancouver Canucks took the unusual step of firing three senior executives from their management team, including assistant general managers Laurence Gilman and Lorne Henning, and director of player personnel Eric Crawford.

NHL teams generally prefer for their fans to be optimistic about the moves they make at the draft and in free agency, which is why it’s not very often that you see an NHL team reorganize their management group the day after July 1. It just doesn’t exactly signal confidence. 

When the Toronto Maple Leafs fired a pair of assistant general managers in late-July last year, for example, Brendan Shanahan was criticized as “inexperienced”.

The odd timing of the Canucks’ decision to fire three former Mike Gillis lieutenants should be remarked on, because the substance of the decision is unsurprising. We’d expect incoming management to bring in their own people, and it was clear – from the club’s direction, contract work and even who served as a spokesman for the organization in the press and on the radio – that Gilman and company weren’t exactly driving the bus anymore in terms of organizational influence.

Optics-wise the Canucks’ decision to gut their management team in the immediate aftermath of a flurry of controversial moves is awkward. Frankly it implies one of two unflattering things: either the club’s moves caused some sort of ideological rift among upper management, which was implied strongly by Jason Botchford in his coverage of the Zack Kassian deal on Wednesday, or Canucks management were still getting input from executives whom they had no faith in throughout the process.

Party line from the Canucks is that these decisions were made after a review period, which would imply that these decisions were likely made several weeks ago.

“On behalf of our entire organization I would like to sincerely thank Laurence, Lorne and Eric for their commitment and dedication to the Vancouver Canucks,” said Linden in a team release. “They have been important members of our staff for a long time and made significant contributions to the success of this team. Further still, they are great people and respected members of the hockey community.

“We have made some difficult decisions to our roster and staff recently after a thorough review of the team,” continued Linden. “These are not easy decisions, nor were they taken lightly. But they’re important as we transition this team and build for the future.”

Obviously the biggest name fired on Thursday is Gilman, who has always struck us as enormously savvy and who we’ve covered favourably on several occasions over the years.

Though Gilman’s contract work has been criticized in recent seasons for the reliance on no-trade clauses, which have prevented the club from recouping maximum value in a variety of recent deals, that’s sort of the price you pay when you’re icing a team being paid very nearly $67 million in actual salary during the playoffs in a league with a $59.4 million salary cap.

Also at the height of the club’s alleged no-trade clause excesses, the Canucks weren’t an outlier in terms of the number of contracts on their books with trade protection when compared with other NHL teams that entered this decade as legitimate contenders…

You never want to see anyone lose their job and it can be tough for NHL front office-types when they’re relieved of their duties in July, but I’d think Gilman would interest a team looking for a respected and skilled negotiator. Hopefully Henning and Crawford land on their feet too.

As for the Canucks, they’ll obviously restructure the front office further, and it would also seem that Jonathan Wall may be getting a promotion into senior management as part of the restructuring:

A UBC sports management graduate, Wall got his start as an equipment manager with the Vancouver Voodoo and the UBC Thunderbirds before joining the organization as a scouting information coordinator in 1998, according to his bio.