Dazzle

Such as?

It was a head scratching move to give him a one-way NHL contract to begin with. Literally had proven nothing up until that point. It was a pretty inconsequential move in hindsight that had no bearing on the cap space, but still... it was not a good Benning signing.

But not with the 6th overall pick, right?

Do you think it's real? I see a real link.

It's amazing that people on these forums even watch this team, despite having an overabundance of opinions.

The narrative about "blowing" top 10 pick is a strange one. Virtanen, yes, was a reach that didn't pan out. Juolevi WAS listed on scouts' lists in the top 10 and so was Podkolzin.

Go ahead and report me then for holding multiple accounts, if you think so. The post I made earlier was merely to point out how unreasonable of a person you sound, which I agreed with DougieL. But hey, I better go back onto my dougieL account and agree with Dazzle. /sarc

Two lefts make a right...

He'll fit right in with the Blue. I don't hate this signing at all. It's a very responsible signing.

I have rarely agreed with how you see things, mostly because of how you think, like this post. You just don't make logical sense and I'm neither of those people that you mentioned.

I'm not going to apologize for anything. He said last year that the team would be a playoff contender (or close to it). Erm?

He signed less than Demko and has already proven himself in the playoffs. Not sure what's there to complain for this one.

Silovs was doing pretty good, but there was no sense in putting him to fail. They should've left him there instead of having him play meaningless games. I am not blaming him for helping us. Far from it. The team clearly needed to go through a small rebuild of some kind. Instead, we offloaded the Horvat pick to buy a luxury item instead of being patient. The team simply needed to float. Bring up some new guys to showcase them in a trade. We didn't finish that much better than Detroit, so we could've gone to 8 or 9th. If we had kept the second 1st rounder, we could've gotten ASP or someone else. One of these guys could fill the role of Hronek. Do we REALLY need Hronek? What if Hronek gets injured or busts in the future? Will people still think it's a good trade? It's an incredibly short sighted move to begin with. And if Hronek doesn't perform as expected, this trade will be awful.

I don't actually. This is the problem with people here. They only remember the stuff I criticize about, not the stuff I praised. Like Benning, this management has had good moves and bad moves. Good moves: Loved Hirose Loved Kuzmenko Loved Joshua These are all EFFECTIVE moves that Benning could not for the life of him do, in any given year. Questionable moves: Hronek - RFA due for a raise, cost us a mid 1st and a 2nd while we were a nonplayoff team. All other nonplayoff teams have been selling. We have been BUYING. Context: Detroit had three picks in the 1st round. We only had one. Despite the talent differences (with us being better), Detroit actually finished slightly worse than us, standing wise. They picked before us with the 9th overall, before getting to pick again with the Horvat pick. We are on the wrong side of the rebuild. This management has failed to recognize that. It's not their only failure. Prior to this season, they had essentially guaranteed us to be a playoff team. And during the Bedard chase, what does management do instead of selling or sitting pat? We tried to do everything we could to win games lol. So far, this management has made a couple of good picks. Lekkerimaki, Pettersson (D) are pretty good. I really liked Pettersson. He's going to be a stud. Wallinder is also very good. So, like I said, I have mixed feelings about this management. They have made good moves. They have also made shockingly poor judgement moves as well in their short tenure.

The trade was not a steal. Hronek was an expensive pickup which costed us some money and two decently high picks in a deep draft. Hronek hasn't shown enough so far to really say if this trade was a bad one or not.

Eh... this seems kind of like a pick that is similar to drafting Ian Clark's son. I doubt we'll be at the very bottom, but even if so, Macklin isn't a Bedard, no disrespect intended.

Some more insight on him: https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/canucks-hockey/canucks-pick-matthew-perkins-119th-overall-at-the-2023-nhl-entry-draft-7216835 He's not a bad pick at all. He is a big project player. If he pans out, he'll be a serviceable NHL player. Skating can be worked on.

The scouts were like, why bother when the important picks were thrown away?

So now that Detroit selected Axel Sandin Pellika, we have essentially picked Hronek for him and a high midround 2nd round pick. Is it worth it? I don't think so.

Hindsight is 20/20. Schmidt looked great and Benning hoped to steal someone of Schmidt's calibre at a discounted price (they were up to the cap). Unfortunately, as I said, that didn't pan out. Let's not PRETEND the trade for Schmidt wasn't at first glance a good one. It was universally panned as a good trade AT THE TIME. Signing Tanev/Toffoli for a long term contract is a hilariously hypocritical action, given how we HAD been complaining that we would be signing players for too long. The idea at the time was that signing a longer term contract after 28 was NOT a good idea. We saw how bad Eriksson declined and he was just a smidge at 30. Context matters. Benning would make a good move (trading for Toffoli) and then not signing him would be one of those good move/bad moves. You can easily judge something in HINDSIGHT, but I doubt you could've predicted all the moves would've been bad. Hell, even OEL could've turned out good.

Hindsight is 20/20. Had we signed a long extension for him, it would've added to the whining about long term contracts for 30+ year olds. We gambled on Virtanen, a younger player that had been apparently trending upwards, for a much cheaper price. Had it panned out, it would've looked better. We were also tight against the cap, so Toffoli was seemingly never an option. Unfortunately, Benning was always looking like he made the wrong choices, but at the time, things could've turned out differently. If Juolevi stayed healthy... who knows what would've happened? If Clendenning was a stud... If Goldobin turned out to be a steal... There were so many of these factors that just didn't pan out. Benning was possibly the most unlucky GM. Inherited a barebones prospect pool when he started. Had an owner that wanted playoffs 24/7. Signed a bunch of players that never panned out. Injury problems for certain players. Poolman, Sutter (to an extent), Juolevi, etc etc.

I guess we can put to rest the idea that the NHL hates Canadian teams.

I would argue that our new management isn't that much better.

This I can agree with. People will continue to be stupid though.

It's kind of telling. The ones who deserve to be billionaires (by that, I mean they are good people, worked hard, and are willing to give a lot back) aren't billionaires. The ones who don't deserve to be are. There's so much good that can be done without giving away all their wealth. It's their money after all. It's just the amount of hoarding and the fact that they force people to pay for their shit is garbage. See bailouts - exhibit A. See taxpayer funded arenas.