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Almost from the get-go, he felt lost.

A first-round draft pick, fifth overall, of the Colorado Rockies in 1978, Mike Gillis injured a knee in his first training camp, had surgery, and didn't feel healthy for three years. "I fought, really, to hang on," he said. "There wasn't anywhere, really, where you could go to get help."

Thirty years later as the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, Gillis intends to make sure that no Canucks player feels as he did during the transition period from amateur to professional. No matter how unconventional the method — a goaltender as captain, individual nutrition programs, biorhythm bracelets to measure sleep patterns — the former player and player agent is consumed with putting players into the optimal position to succeed.

"We expect an awful lot in our players. And based on my experience in the NHL, we expect them just to get there on their own," Gillis said. "It's somewhat unrealistic to bring a young guy into this city, plant him here, and expect that he is going to get it all right."

Hired nine days after the snap firing of former general manager Dave Nonis last spring, Gillis was effectively declared the smartest guy in the room by Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini. Though agents sometimes prove ill-suited to club administration, Gillis is overhauling the organization and focusing on improving players within the ranks. So far, so good. The Canucks are 9-6-1 heading into their home game tonight against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After earning a law degree from Queen's University in Kingston in 1990, Gillis spent more than 15 years representing players as an agent. The experience positioned him to understand how the best-in-class NHL teams operate, according to player agent Ritch Winter.

"Agents have intimate contact with 30 general managers and gain knowledge and understanding of how they run their organizations," Winter said. "You get to see the best of all worlds."

Gillis is applying those lessons in Vancouver with a twist of West Coast style, thinking more outside the box than inside. Gillis supported coach Alain Vigneault's appointment of goaltender Roberto Luongo as team captain — even though he couldn't serve that role on the ice because of NHL regulations.

"It would be pretty ironic to say: 'You can't be that guy because you have a big stick and pads,'" Gillis said.

ZZZZZzzzzz

Because the Canucks travel extensively, Gillis commissioned a military sleep expert and had the players wear biorhythm bracelets to measure their waking and slumbering hours during an early-season trip. With the bracelet feedback, the team will know which players sleep after games, who sleeps on the plane, and how long they sleep. Ultimately, the data may be used to determine roommate pairings, practice times on the road, and the optimal times to fly into and out of cities.

"The idea behind initiatives like that isn't for us to find something out, it's for [the players] to find something out," Gillis said. "We will be able to watch the commitment level. Guys who are sitting there soaking this in, realizing that careers are short in this business [and] that they want to maximize their opportunity, will know we're prepared to support that."

Defenceman Willie Mitchell used to go to bed after midnight and sometimes after 1 a.m. That routine was good enough to get him to the NHL and made him rich. But now Mitchell is trying to get to bed by 11 p.m. for that all-important rest before midnight.

"He [the sleep expert] made us aware of the things that can happen if you get short on sleep and how much longer it takes to catch up on sleep," Mitchell said. "The details are something that Mike has done really well around here."

DRESSING ROOM CHEFS

On the nutrition side, strength and conditioning coach Roger Takahashi interviewed players before the season to gauge individual tastes and tendencies, and consulted a dietician to design three-square-a-day meal plans "because there is no point in making healthy food if nobody is going to eat it."

The Canucks created menus with the chefs at Aramark, the food and beverage provider at General Motors Place, and Air Canada, their charter airline operator. Both provided a wider selection of ingredients, including local and organic.

"These athletes know it's healthy for them," Takahashi said. "They know this is the right food to eat postgame or pregame. They just have to do it."

For the players with perhaps more money than cooking sense, the take-home meals are healthier and more convenient than takeout. They are also invaluable for the player living in a hotel and eating room service or restaurant food.

"Anything that we can provide that takes the if factor out of the equation, that's our goal," Takahashi said. "We can't control what's happening on the ice, but we can control everything else. Anything we can control, we'll do it."

When defenceman Shane O'Brien was acquired in an Oct. 6 trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning, several Canucks were already on the meal plan, notably former Leafs forward Kyle Wellwood, who reported to camp out of shape. O'Brien, with his third organization in the past three seasons, is susceptible to weight gain and needs to stay close to 230 pounds. O'Brien, 25 and single, receives portion-sized lunches and dinners, and eats breakfast at the rink.

"The first day I was here, Mike talked to me about conditioning and [said] that, 'We're here to help you in any way and get you in the best shape you can be,'" O'Brien said. "We're hockey players. We need a little direction in our life. And they're pretty good at that."

His breakfasts consist of fruits and yogurts, lunches of chicken breasts and salad, snacks of vegetables, and dinners with a lean meat and vegetables instead of pasta. He's down six or seven pounds since the team returned from a six-game trip on Oct. 22.

ALL THE COMFORTS

The new GM Place players' lounge is described by players and team officials as a sanctuary within a sanctuary, equipped with the best of audio-visual amenities and computer kiosks. If a player wants to watch every shift he has played this season, the video is a few clicks away.

By contrast, the Leafs' players' lounge at Air Canada Centre wasn't often used, Wellwood said, because veterans such as Mats Sundin and Tie Domi ignored it. In Vancouver, "guys aren't rushing to get out of the rink," said defenceman Rob Davison, a former Gillis client. "Guys sit around there and talk, whether it be discussion of the game last night, or personal stuff. It is a great way for guys to gel."

DEVELOPMENT

The general manager has also increased the player development budget, believing money is more wisely spent nurturing his own seedlings than buying someone else's product at market.

For Gillis, every element of the organization, no matter how small, will be studied. It has begun with rest, travel, nutrition and communication. Gillis hired former player and client Dave Gagner in June as director of player development and charged him with providing direction to young players such as first-round selection Cody Hodgson, a forward who lasted until the final cut in camp. Ottawa-based agent Larry Kelly, who represents Vancouver players O'Brien and Mitchell, predicts Gillis will improve "the frequency of communication and the nature of communication" that the Canucks have with their draft picks.

What's next? Gillis won't reveal specifics, partly because contracts with service providers haven't yet been signed, and partly because he doesn't want competitors knowing what he is up to.

"We're trying to figure out any way we can to be better," he said. "The motivator is to try and have the best environment we can have for our players."