Montreal's number 77 is a hard player to evaluate objectively.
In the first half of his career (the non-playoff years with the Oilers and leading up to his buy-out from the Minnesota Wild), Gilbert was relied upon to carry the flag on teams which were not very deep, or very good.
He outperformed expectations in tough minutes but was never interested in hitting everything that moves and didn't put a ton of points on the board. Because of that, mainstream media and the average fan rode him hard, which was unfair. He was just a victim of his circumstances.