Mike Gillis

Michael David Gillis (born December 1, 1958) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former president and general manager of the Vancouver Canucks.

He was born in Sudbury, Ontario.

Gillis spent his junior hockey career with the Kingston Canadians of the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League (OMJHL) from 1975 to 1978, playing in 111 games and scoring 132 points (39 goals and 93 assists).

He added on 18 points (four goals and 14 assists) in 12 playoff games.

Gillis missed most of the 1976–77 season due to a leg injury.

He was then drafted in the first round, fifth overall, by the Colorado Rockies in the 1978 NHL Entry Draft.

In the 1978–79 season, Gillis played two games with the Philadelphia Firebirds of the American Hockey League (AHL), scoring no points; he also spent 30 games with the Rockies, earning eight points (one goal and seven assists).

He split the 1979–80 season with the Rockies, scoring four goals and five assists in 40 games, and the Fort Worth Texans of the CHL, with 22 points (nine goals and 13 assists) in 29 games.

Gillis started the 1980–81 season with Colorado, and had 18 points in 51 games before being sent to the Boston Bruins for Bob Miller.

Gillis then scored six points in 17 games for a total of 24 points, which would be his career high.

Gillis also appeared in a playoff game, going pointless.

In 1981–82, Gillis then registered 17 points in 53 games, and earned three points (1G-2A) in 11 playoff games.

He spent the majority of the 1982–83 season with the Baltimore Skipjacks of the AHL, getting 113 points (32 goals and 81 assists) in 74 games, good for fourth in AHL scoring.

He also played five games with Boston, earning an assist, then played 12 playoff games for the Bruins, earning four points.

Gillis split the 1983–84 season with the Bruins, scoring 17 points in 50 games, and with the Hershey Bears of the AHL, getting 29 points in 26 games.

He played three playoff games with Boston, getting no points.

Gillis retired from professional hockey in the summer of 1984.

Upon retiring from playing hockey, Gillis coached the Queen's University Golden Gaels hockey team in 1985–86.

He then earned a law degree from Queen's University in 1990 and became a player agent.

His clientele over the years included Pavel Bure, Markus Näslund, Bobby Holík, and Mike Richter, among others.

In 1997, Gillis successfully sued former National Hockey League Players' Association executive director Alan Eagleson for $570,000 for stealing a portion of his disability insurance.

The charges were among many against Eagleson uncovered by Russ Conway.

With the firing of Vancouver Canucks general manager Dave Nonis at the end of the 2007–08 season, Gillis was introduced by the organization as Nonis' successor on April 23, 2008.

Entering into the free agent market as a general manager for the first time in July 2008, Gillis made immediate changes.

He chose not to re-sign former client and longtime Canucks captain Markus Näslund, or forward Brendan Morrison.

He then made an aggressive pitch for unrestricted free agent center Mats Sundin with a two-year, $20 million offer; the deal would have made him the highest paid player in the NHL.

Sundin decided against signing with any team until midway through the subsequent season, but eventually accepted a one-year, pro-rated $8.6 million offer on December 18, 2008.

Several months later, before the 2008–09 NHL trade deadline, Gillis re-signed emerging forward Alexandre Burrows to a four-year, $8 million contract on March 3, 2009, substantially raising his previous $525,000 annual salary.

Burrows was, at the time, in the midst of a career-season in which he scored 28 goals and 51 points, only to follow up with a career season the next year by scoring 35 goals and 67 points.

After winning a Northwest Division title and making it as far as Game 6 of the second round in the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, Gillis continued to re-sign key players.

With the Canucks' leading scorers Daniel and Henrik Sedin set to become unrestricted free agents on July 1, 2009, Gillis flew to Sweden to negotiate with the twins, ultimately signing them to identical five-year, $30.5 million deals hours before the free agency period was set to begin.

Soon thereafter, negotiations began with star goaltender Roberto Luongo, who was entering the final year of his original four-year deal with the Canucks.

Several days after Luongo gave the Canucks a September 13 deadline to come to an agreement before ceasing negotiations for the upcoming season, Gillis signed him to a 12-year, $64 million contract extension on September 2.

Other significant signings in the 2009 off-season included unrestricted free agent Mikael Samuelsson from the Detroit Red Wings and Canucks prospect Sergei Shirokov from the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).

Gillis' first noteworthy trade occurred on August 28, 2009, when he sent prospect forwards Patrick White and Daniel Rahimi to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for defencemen Christian Ehrhoff and Brad Lukowich.

Of the two defencemen acquired, the younger Ehrhoff proved to be the centrepiece of the deal.

San Jose's primary motivation to send him away was to clear salary cap space in anticipation of their acquisition of star forward Dany Heatley from the Ottawa Senators.

For the Canucks, Ehrhoff's acquisition addressed the need for a puck-moving defenceman to move play out of the defensive zone.

Ehrhoff went on to lead the Canucks defencemen in scoring that season.

In the midst of Gillis' off-season transactions, the Canucks were involved in a pair of tampering incidents with Toronto Maple Leafs management.