He's a good player, no argument there. Unfortunately in a cap world with so much parity in the league, one bad contract, let alone 2 or 3 or more if you have Benning, really handicaps your team.
It's fine if you're a bad team, the good ones that have higher expectations rarely have any. I guess it depends on what the Canucks are trying to get out of the prime years or Hughes and Petey