Run n Gun

That core absolutely carried the load... but without a good supporting cast, they probably wouldn't win any cups, either. Management absolutely plays a huge role in building a championship team, especially with the salary cap. Finding value, instead of bleeding it, etc. Bad management would have fumbled the star power and overpaid for 3/4 line plugs or overpaid 6/7 D-men with top 4 salaries... And by the way, they had to suck a long time to get those players.

It helped that their management sucked for all those years, and continues to suck right now. Plenty of teams "sucking" for a period and are true contenders now. Great management is key. I'm thanking our lucky stars that Benning is finally gone.

For some reason this game reminds me of the entire Vegas playoff series

Benning pretty much handed out NMCs and NTCs in the form of overpaying pretty much everybody. The team is in cap hell and bare cupboards in terms of prospects... He spent his load for a bubble playoff team. 8-0-1 is great... I've been cheering the whole way but let's not get ahead of ourselves... They were close games against mostly bad teams... The nucks have their work cut out for them against the cream of the crop still..

Kane is the first player you trade away in a dysfunctional team... You don't add him to an already dysfunctional team to make things worse...

I've been a Benning hater since he signed Sbisa to a ridiculous contract. Yes, that's a long time to be a hater... I'm not going to regurgitate the crap moves he has made over the years.... tons of posters have gone through them better than I could... That is is not the point of the post. Even though I'm in the "Fire Benning" camp, I do believe keeping him for another year makes sense from an ownership perspective. With the expansion draft and arguably the negotiation of the two most important contracts (Petey and Hughes) this off-season, it's good to have a management team that has somewhat prepared for these scenarios. It would seem like near suicide to bring in a new management team to deal with these issues with no prep-time. Now, how much of a plan this current management team has remains to be seen. I don't hold out too much hope for the current group to really pull out a win, but it's a lesser of two evils at this point?

because GMJB has to go first.... new GM will choose their guy.

we're not into paying top dollar for top free agents... we're into paying top dollar for mid or bottom tier free agents.

I would also like to add that this is the first year in many that I'm actually excited about the upcoming season. But, I can see why the Nucks are still ranked so low by those who follow hockey... Some might feel that Miller is playing too high in a top 6 role and would be better suited for a bottom 6 Ferland plays a hard game that lends to missing some (maybe a lot) of games Myers billed as a top pairing D-man but maybe needs protected minutes to be effective Hughes as a rookie - yet most Canucks fans already have him pegged as an effective top 4 D-man. Let the kid learn and grow. May be some growing pains involved. Injury prone line-up of players returning (you know the names) It'll be an interesting season. I'll be paying attention and finally buying a Canucks jersey for the first time in a while.

ooooh, you got me there alfie! My original comment just pointed to how silly these message board reactions are to predictions made by the media... mostly from people who are offended that the Nucks are always ranked so low - like our team can do not wrong. Even Benning commenting one year about how he couldn't wait for the season to start to prove everybody wrong... we all know how that season played out. Anyway, I think we're a bubble playoff team - not a grand prediction - it's pretty in line with most of the opinions around the city. Will the playoff race be like last year where it was mostly because most other teams sucked, or will it be a true playoff race where the all the teams are really good? That will play into if the Nucks make it this year or not... and the fact that our goaltending has to be top notch, of course.

Maybe on paper, but that's why we play the games. On paper, we won the Cup in 2011.

For the past 4 years... The media have had low projections for the Nucks. Followed by outrage from these very message boards.... yet the Nucks have continually proven that they are a bottom feeding team. Will this year be different? I sure hope so... but I can also see why projections for the team are all over the place for this year. Let's not get our panties in a bunch, folks.

Both are bad contracts + many others on the team. MG may have handcuffed Benning in the beginning, but Benning did himself no favours in handing out ridiculously bad contracts over and over again.

Not just "us" fans. Lots of criticism for a lot of JB's moves, everywhere.

My favourite will always be the Skate on the 90's colour scheme, as I started following the Canucks around that time as a kid. I think that the BEST choice for primary jerseys would be the current color scheme and the stick and rink logo (original or new, doesn't matter). That logo is very simple and elemental and is easily recognizable - much like a lot of the classic logos around the league. Whatever happens, I have and will always hate the Orca. The old Orca, the new Orca, the Vancouver lettering. All of it has to go. It is easily the worst logo in the NHL and the only reason why I'm not buying any jerseys at this point and time - there are no current choices to buy other official jerseys with name bars...

It's gotta be this one - it wasn't available as a vote, which means that they were going to bring this back at some point. I'm def getting this if it's true.