"On Wednesday, Mike Gillis watched as Daniel Sedin was named the NHL's best player by his peers in the NHL Players Association and Ryan Kesler run away with the Selke as the league's best defensive forward.

He also watched his goaltending tandem of Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider cart off the Jennings Trophy for allowing the fewest goals in the NHL, then watched as Canucks' Alain Vigneault, Luongo and Sedin were edged out for, respectively, the Adams, Vezina and Hart Trophies.

Somewhere in there, Gillis was also named the league's general manager of the year as voted on by his fellow GMs.

So given, the NHL Awards Show looked like a Canucks' team photo, it's hard to think of the team's season as being a failure.

But when asked if hardware haul eased the pain of losing the Stanley Cup final in Game 7 on home ice, Gillis said: "No."

He didn't elaborate. Then again, he didn't need to.

"So much success is built on failure and understanding what it takes to get that extra little push," he said. "There's a ton of material out there about how you have to fail before you succeed. I'm hopeful if we keep all our players together, we'll be able to push at the end.

"(This season's experience) might be good. It might be bad. I don't know."

But this market is dying to find out.

The NHL Awards Show, such as it was, offered a two-day respite for Gillis after the two-month playoff grind and before the real meat of his season. The NHL draft goes this weekend in St. Paul. Free agency starts on July 1 and the Canucks face huge decisions with pending UFAs Kevin Bieksa, Christian Ehrhoff, Sami Salo, Chris Higgins, Raffi Torres, Max Lapierre and others.

The good news is the NHL's salary cap is going up to the $64-million range. The not-so-good-news, as Gillis pointed, is players will be looking for raises after the Canucks' season."