5ubmarine Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 Posted a little while ago, but good read in hindsight nevertheless.. ----------------------- How Good Is Jim Benning At Evaluating Talent? Posted on June 18, 2015 by Jackson Hockey fans love narratives, and a popular one after the hiring of Jim Benning was that he was a fantastic judge of talent. For most of Benning’s inaugural year as Canucks General Manager, this assertion was taken at face value. However, ever since the oft-maligned Sbisa and Dorsett extensions, much of the goodwill generated by the blue-collar Lindenning regime has evaporated. Linden has made it out relatively unscathed, but Benning has drawn a lot of ire from Canucks Nation. Even his skill as a talent evaluator, something that had until recently gone relatively unquestioned, was being re-examined. How could someone, who is supposed to be such a great judge of talent, over value his two worst players by such a large margin? This was something I, too was admittedly curious about, so I did some research. I wanted to take a look at the decisions Benning has made in his career pertaining to evaluating talent. I decided that the best era to look at would be his time as the Head of Amateur Scouting for the Buffalo Sabres. My reasoning behind this was that this was the time in his career where he had the most say in making decisions based on talent assessment. I also thought it would be appropriate since the draft is next week, and it might give us a glimpse into what we can expect from Benning on draft day. Here is a list of every draft pick made by the Buffalo Sabres during Benning’s tenure, from 1998-2004: (Big thanks to reddit’s /u/toaster_waffle for making my original list legible.) Dmitri Kalinin ˚˚ Andrew Peters ˚˚ Norm Milley ˚ Jaroslav Kristek ˚ Mike Pandolfo ˚ Aaron Goldade Ales Kotalik ˚˚ Brad Moran ˚ David Moravec ˚ Edo Terglav Barret Heisten ˚ Doug Janik ˚ Mike Zigomanis ˚ Tim Preston Karel Mosovsky Ryan Miller ˚˚ Matt Kinch Seneque Hyacinthe Jr. Bret DeCecco Brad Self Craig Brunel Artem Kryukov Gerard Dicaire Ghyslain Rousseau Denis Denisov (great name) Vasily Bizyayev (another good one) Paul Gaustad ˚˚ Sean McMorrow ˚ Ryan Courtney Jiri Novotny ˚ Derek Roy ˚˚ Chris Thorburn ˚˚ Jason Pominville ˚˚ Michel Vondrka Calle Aslund Marek Dubec Ryan Jorde Keith Ballard ˚˚ Daniel Paille ˚˚ Michael Tessier John Adams Jakub Hulva Marty Magers Maxim Schevjev Radoslav Hecl ˚ Dennis Wideman ˚˚ Martin Cizek Thomas Vanek ˚˚ Branislav Fabry Clarke MacArthur ˚˚ Jan Hejda ˚˚ Denis Yezhov Thomas Morrow Pavel Viroshnin Nathan Paetsch ˚ Jeff Weber Louis-Philippe Martin Drew Stafford ˚˚ Michael Funk ˚ Andrej Sekera ˚˚ Michal Valent Patrick Kaleta ˚˚ Mark Mancari ˚ Mike Card ˚ Dylan Hunter – ˚ = 1 – 199 NHL Games ˚˚ = 200+ NHL Games Overall, from 1998-2004, the Sabres made 66 picks. The players selected have a total of 10,170 games played, with an average of 154 GP per player. The Sabres selected 17 NHL regulars during this time, just shy of a full roster, for a success rate of roughly 25.7%. There are some impressive names in there, but the Sabres did whiff on a couple of their first round picks, ( Kryukov, Heisten, Novotny.) He also left some better players on the table on occasion, passing up guys like Robin Regehr, Simon Gagne, Scott Gomez, Alex Steen, Alex Semin, and Niklas Kronwall in favor of lesser players, but on the whole Benning’s draft record looks quite good, especially when you consider that the GM has the most say over his first round picks, passing the responsibility for the later rounds over to his scouting department. He picked up bonafide stars outside of the first round in Pominville, Miller, and Wideman, while also managing tremendous value picks with Wideman, Sekera, Miller, Thorburn, and MacArthur. The Sabres were also one of the few teams to get an NHL all-star out of the abysmal ’99 draft. By my estimation, they picked the absolute best player available 7 times, and that’s with the benefit of hindsight. Those numbers don’t mean much without context, though, so I decided to look at two other teams’ respective draft records during that era: our own Vancouver Canucks, and the ostensible Gold Standard of rebuilding on the fly, the Detroit Red Wings. From 1998-2004, the Canucks drafted 60 players. Those players went on to play a grand total of 7204 games, with an average of 120. They drafted 11 NHL regulars, for a success rate of roughly 18.3%. Keep in mind, the Sedins were drafted during this period, in spots 2 and 3, and 721 of those games were played by Bryan Allen, who arguably had no business playing that many games in the first place. When you take this into consideration, the Canucks’ record looks pretty unimpressive, with Benning’s Sabres out-drafting them by a wide margin. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, however, because Vancouver is generally considered to have been a poor team at drafting for most of the past 20 years. So how does Benning match up against the scouting dept. of the dynastic Detroit Red Wings? Surprisingly during this period, the Red Wings fared worse than both the Canucks and Sabres in both total GP (7161), average GP (117). They also only produced 1 more NHL regular than the Canucks, and they only managed a success rate 1.3% higher than Vancouver’s. Much in the way that Vancouver appears better than they are in this metric, Detroit appears worse. The Red Wings often were picking at the bottom of the first round, and also pulled off some amazing late round steals in Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Filppula. Benning’s Sabres still out-drafted by a large margin, however, comparing favourably to the Red Wings in terms of both qualitative and quantitative analysis. It is important to note that during this period, the Sabres were actually a fairly successful team, and were often picking in the same range as the Red Wings. The Sabres would later go on to win the President’s Trophy and make it to the Eastern Conference Final in 2007, with many core players that were drafted during the Benning era. I haven’t been a big fan of Jim Benning since he was announced as the GM last summer (to the point where I could be labelled an AntiBenning by this very blog), but the research I did has caused me to re-evaluate the simple-spoken Canucks GM, and admit that he is perhaps smarter than he appears to be. I set out to prove that Benning’s ability to evaluate talent had been overstated and instead ended up proving my own preconceived notions to be completely and utterly wrong. The most encouraging thing I found was that Benning didn’t seem to have any predilection towards any specific nationality, position, or playing style. I trust that Benning can and will pick the best players available at this year’s draft. It’s sure to be very exciting, and I’ll see you on June 26th. ----------------------------------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
touchable Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 That's a pretty damn good draft record in Buffalo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5ubmarine Posted July 16, 2015 Author Share Posted July 16, 2015 That's a pretty damn good draft record in Buffalo. yup, so I am patient Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NucksFanInOz Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 How good is Vancouver at putting their 2nd year manager under a microscope? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NucksFanInOz Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 That's a pretty damn good draft record in Buffalo. One big reason why Benning is the Boss. I truely believe in his evaluation of talent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rounoush Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 I have total faith in Benning at this point. Like 5ubmarine said, we need to have patience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.Strangelove Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 Far better than CDC thinks he is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyHatnDart Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 Must've missed this article the first time around, thanks for posting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aGENT Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 I'd like to clarify that a blog post doesn't qualifies as an "[Article]". Let's not lend legitimacy to things that don't deserve it, shall we? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonMexico Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 I'd like to clarify that a blog post doesn't qualifies as an "[Article]". Let's not lend legitimacy to things that don't deserve it, shall we? Especially with editorial comments like this:How could someone, who is supposed to be such a great judge of talent, over value his two worst players by such a large margin? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejazz97 Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 Dmitri Kalinin ˚˚ Andrew Peters ˚˚ Ales Kotalik ˚˚ Doug Janik ˚ Mike Zigomanis ˚ Ryan Miller ˚˚ Paul Gaustad ˚˚ Jiri Novotny ˚ Derek Roy ˚˚ Chris Thorburn ˚˚ Jason Pominville ˚˚ Keith Ballard ˚˚ Daniel Paille ˚˚ Dennis Wideman ˚˚ Thomas Vanek ˚˚ Clarke MacArthur ˚˚ Jan Hejda ˚˚ Nathan Paetsch ˚ Drew Stafford ˚˚ Andrej Sekera ˚˚ Patrick Kaleta ˚˚ Mark Mancari ˚ That's pretty darn impressive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canuck_In_Paradise Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 Patience is key here folks. We just need to wait and see what good ol Jimmy has got up his sleeves talent wise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComptonCanuck Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 he draft boser over konency that should tell u evrything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldnews Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Good post - (albeit small) - not what I expected either tbh. I was aware he had a good draft record, but expected another chicken little thread. A 66 pick / 6 or 7 year draft span that netted: Miller Roy Pominville Paille Kotalik Gaustad Thorburn Pominville Ballard Wideman Vanek McArthur Sekera Hejda Kaleta is quite successful talent evaluation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HerrDrFunk Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Interesting numbers but the author completely lost me when he called Dorsett one of our worst players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Monahan Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Can't wait to see what baumerman has to say about this he draft boser over konency that should tell u evrything Not sure what you mean by that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CANUCK-EXPRESS Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 he draft boser over konency that should tell u evrythingYou clearly don't know much about the players since you can even spell 'em. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazzle Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 he draft boser over konency that should tell u evrything What exactly does this tell us? Depends on who you talk to, some people thought Konecny was a better pick, but that was only some. Most people believe Boeser was the right choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canucks_fo_life Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Benning is one of the best moves this team could have made after the mess Gillis left, already a huge difference with Benning cleaning some of that up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollumpus Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Far better than CDC thinks he is Far better than some folks here on CDC think they are... regards, G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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