Over the past several months, former Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis has been interviewed a few times by the New Jersey Devils. If there is anyone that thinks his name sounds familiar, it was when Lou Lamoriello seemed to have pulled “a major heist” dubbed by Pierre McGuire on 2013 NHL Draft Day for Cory Schneider for New Jersey’s first-round pick. Later on, Mike Gillis was ousted from the title he held as GM.
Mike Gillis took over as Canucks GM on April 23, 2008 until April 8, 2014 when he was fired. Judd Brackett does have his connections to Mike Gillis after he moved on from being the GM when Jim Benning took over in Vancouver. Bracket’s contract is also up by July 1st, 2020 if he doesn’t re-sign with Vancouver. He is another candidate that could be scooped up by the Devils and possibly joined alongside Mike Gillis.
Let’s start off with Judd Brackett. As cited by nucksmisconduct.com, Brackett’s release was by no surprise. The native of Massachusetts had been with Vancouver since 2008 when he was first brought on as a scout. This of course was prior to a later promotion in 2015. Since that time, Judd Brackett had been serving as Amateur Scouting Director.
So, in the first part before the 2015 Draft, I’m going to list players that stood out that were/are NHL players in his drafts from 2008-2014 he helped influence or had a say in. 2008: Cody Hodgson. 2009: Jordan Schroeder, Kevin Connauton. 2010: No NHL players produced. 2011: Nicklas Jensen, Frank Corrado 2012: Brendan Gaunce, Ben Hutton. 2013: Bo Horvat (ninth overall from NJ Devils in the Cory Schneider trade), Hunter Shinkaruk. 2014: Jake Virtanen, Jared McCann, Thatcher Demo, Nikita Tryamkin, Gustav Forsling.
In a nutshell, Judd, under Mike Gillis, was able to go for a lot of “high reward” players in the early rounds and wasn’t afraid to trade picks around to get assets to improve their roster. This was in a push to compete during the season and push towards playoff contention and success.
During that era of 2008-2014, Judd scouted seven really solid core NHL players that have influenced the Vancouver Canucks. They have influenced in different ways as they did well in the regular season and went on to end up short in Game Seven of 2011 Stanley Cup Finals. That was despite a really talented and very promising team of core players. I must say this was the beginning of Brackett’s start to his success as a scout.
2015-2019 as Director of Amateur Scouting in the post Mike Gillis GM era looked like this. 2015: Brock Boeser. 2016: Olli Juolevi. 2017: Elias Pettersson, Michael DiPietro. 2018: Quinn Hughes, Jett Woo, Tyler Madden. 2019: Vasili Podkolzin, Nils Hoglander.
From the 2015-2019 Draft Classes under Judd Brackett as Director of Amateur Scouting, it appears there is plenty of upside and loads of young talent from Brock Boeser as a sniper. On the other hand, Elias Pettersson is growing into one of the upcoming elite scoring wingers in the NHL.
Goaltending in Michael DiPietro can push fellow Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko in or out of a goaltending job that could influence Vancouver to trade one of the two with Markstrom as an RFA who must be re-signed. Quinn Hughes, to me, is hands down the 2019-2020 Calder Trophy winner because of the way he not only can score, but is able to change the outcome of a game. Quinn has all the potential to be an amazing defensemen in the NHL. Jett Woo is a defensemen who will take time and has the upside that will help him be competitive along with Tyler Madden. Madden is a very solid forward like his dad, John, who played in New Jersey with that grit and determination. However, Tyler is in the L.A. Kings hands these days.
Vasili Podkolzin, to me, is a great promising forward the Canucks would be very pleased to have and is an excellent speedy player. He can navigate via traffic up the ice while also able to protect the puck. He has the potential to be a lethal player once he joins the Canucks in Vancouver. Nils Hoglander will eventually make it to the NHL and a guy like Brackett would be lucky to have him.
What would Gillis and Brackett bring to the New Jersey Devils front office? Well, if Gates Orlando doesn’t stay with the Devils organization, I can see Judd Brackett becoming the DOA Scout in New Jersey and Mike Gillis taking a Hockey Operations job that Tom Fitzgerald would be very fortunate to have in his front office. Meanwhile, assistant GM Dan MacKinnon will keep Tom Fitzgerald in check and challenge him on every decision that is made around the Devils.
The objective is to build around the pool of prospects already in the New Jersey Devils farm system and promote as many from within due to internal competition for spots. The other will come from trades, signings and using Tyler Dellow and the Hockey Analytics Department to help break down what players would be great to target with the scouting department.
If all goes well with these personnel, you can see the New Jersey Devils trending upward to a very competitive environment that will lead back into winning. What Fitzgerald, MacKinnon and a possibility of Gillis and Brackett would have as pieces in front of them are guys like Okhotyuk, Misyul, Bahl, Walsh and Canadian Ty Smith in the pipeline. At the NHL level, you have Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Nikita Gusev, Kyle Palmieri, Damon Severson, PK Subban and Mackenzie Blackwood as pieces to work with. The three untouchables are Hughes, Hischier and Blackwood that are the three building blocks the new executives would need to build around.
However, as long as the Devils get the right people to improve drafting and acquiring talent to develop, this team won’t be too far off from being back to achieving the ultimate success in postseason contention. This would also account for making it big off the early prime years of Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier. The defence and goaltending around Blackwood will be a huge role to fulfill because nothing has been smooth sailing since a legendary goalie in Martin Brodeur hung up the skates.