Schmautzie

I’d like to point out that the expansion drafts in the 1970’s were a joke. Only the absolute dregs of each teams rosters were made available. It guaranteed that expansion teams had no chance of being successful and free agency was not a thing. A brutal decade to be an expansion team.

Still Deb the OP makes a point. Fifty years is a long time that some of us have lived and died with every game of this team. I didn’t realize we were the absolute worst in point percentage. Better days ahead I hope!

I think we’re hiding him from the Kraken scouts.

Hoglander, Motte and now Lockwood always going at 100% effort level. Hopefully all three are on the team next year.

Zegras plus Anaheim’s first?

Green should play Edler as a forward with the empty net.

Looks like he has great offensive instincts. And he has the wheels to get back on defence.

Thanks for that. Makes a bit of sense now.

With the proviso that you try using Hoglander in overtime.

MikeyD you get my vote for new Head Coach!

I think we’re mostly in agreement on Benning and I think he deserves at least one more season to see how the kids work out. My main concern is that many fans defend Benning by saying without him we wouldn’t have drafted all these great kids on our roster. They think his drafting skills make up for his bad trades and questionable free agent signings. My point is that he was often just taking the best player left available in each draft as detailed in the prospect rankings still available for us to see on sites like mynhldraft.com.

I was just going by Button’s prospect rankings on the mynhldraft website. He had Boeser ranked at #9 overall on that. And I did say it’s too early to judge the 2019 draft re Caulfield vs Podkolzin if you read my original post. I’m not saying Button is anywhere near perfect just that there are others out there that would have drafted at least as well as Benning.

Let’s see Hogz in O/T!

This is why we keep watching this team no matter how frustrated we get.

If good drafting was the only criteria then Button WOULD be a good GM. Unfortunately Benning has shown us that drafting alone does not make a good General Manager.

I agree with you that Gillis’s drafting was brutal but we’re talking two different things. I’m just saying that a competent GM (using Craig Button’s prospect list as an example) drafting in the same position as the Canucks did could have drafted as well (or better) than Benning did.

Totally agree. Chatfield is what he is and that’s not an NHL defenceman.

Some of us have been watching this for 50 years. We’re used to it.

Gadjovich - Graovac - MacEwan would be a big fourth line next season.

Turnstiled is the word that comes to mind.

Agreed. I still have high hopes for our prospects as well. I just don’t think that Benning’s drafting is necessarily at the genius level that some make it out to be.

I believe it’s you that’s being selectively blind. My point was that Button as one example would have picked players as good or better than Benning did in the first round. They both would have picked Boeser and Hughes. Many fans would probably say that Button’s picks (Ehlers, Tkachuk, Glass and Caulfield vs Virtanen, Juolevi, Pettersson and Podkolzin) are collectively better than Benning’s. As for Benning’s drafting in later rounds I agree that Demko and Hoglander are home runs and hopefully Gadjovich is as well. However every team has a long list of hopefuls and looking at the current sad sack defence and bottom six we’re icing at the moment I don’t think we have enough after seven years of JB.

I only compared first round picks because the mydraft website analyzed only the top 30 prospects each year. I didn’t ignore Demko and Hoglander because I have no idea where Button or the others had them ranked. Similarly I didn’t include players in later rounds that history shows we should have picked but didn’t. As for Caulfield being a hindsight pick that is untrue. Button’s picks I showed were made pre-draft every year. I have no idea yet whether Caulfield or Podkolzin will end up being the better NHL player and neither do you.

Just for fun I went to mynhldraft.com to see how other prognosticators would have chosen players based on the Canuck’s draft position in each of the drafts that Benning was our GM. I chose Craig Button as a respected evaluator of talent. Each pick was his highest rated player still available based on who other teams picked ahead of the Canucks, Button’s picks would have been: 2014. Nik Ehlers (over Virtanen) 2015. Brock Boeser 2016. Matthew Tkachuk (over Juolevi) 2017. Cody Glass (over Pettersson) 2018. Quinn Hughes 2019. Cole Caulfield (over Podkolzin) The Canucks would arguably be better with Button’s picks vs Benning’s. I’m really glad that we have Pettersson but Ehlers, Tkachuk and possibly Caulfield would have substantially increased our talent level. I understand that Vegas is happy with Cody Glass’s development as well. I guess my point is that Benning’s drafting prowess may be a bit overrated. Someone like Craig Button as our GM could have drafted equally as well (or better) and probably avoided the disastrous free agent signings and bad trades that have been Benning’s real legacy.

You’re right. Individually they are good defencemen but as a group they are not. Leads me to believe that it is the system they are being asked to play that is the problem.