Mentioned it a bunch of times, but it bears repeating, 30-31 (kraken) other GMs experienced the pandemic, and 16 of them made playoffs, and cup contenders were put together on tighter cap situations than Benning. No excuse here. The expansion drafts are even less of an excuse, Benning lost less during those drafts than other teams that had to lose core players. You can't blame the circumstances considering everyone else experienced it and he navigated them as poorly as one could.
The only IF i would venture is that had Benning had that extra cap space, he would have squandered it, he's shown that he doesn't prioritize fixing his internal budget over pursuing a player that catches his eye.
The theory is correct, if we're talking about the hey day of this, this team had arguably five guys playing below their contracts (LE, Sutter, Beagle, Roussel, Myers) . That's too much of an anchor even for Hughes and Petey on their ELCs.
Bolded: was that Sutter or Beagle?
When we dissect this, it's not that impressive.
Myers has been with us 4 seasons. All but 2 of his seasons is 50% of his time here.
And, having a huge share of a miniscule pie isn't that impressive. If I reword your technically correct phrase, we can say Myers was a 21 pt defenseman for two of his four years here on a 6M contract.
Is that a market value 6 Mil defenseman? Is the Canucks production from the back end considered league average where a phrase like 'having the highest point shares' has any meaningful weight? I'd say no.