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Two things: 1) I don't know what Travis Green has on Benning or Aqualini to have this kind of leverage and still be employed. That picture a fan posted earlier, contrasting our's and Colorado's bench, speaks resounding volumes. Green and the other 2 AHL bums should've been fired after the first 7-1 loss. Looking at Chicago turning their season around makes me cringe at our organization harder than I ever have. 2) If anyone reads this and is planning to buy tickets to watch any home games- please don't. There is no other way ownership will get the message on how disastrous this team is until it starts hurting their pockets.

Why would the players have a problem with management? There is no evidence to support that claim. If anything, the team seemed very excited to enter this season with the new players coming in, as well as Hughes & Petey signing very reasonable deals. What is obvious however, through live footage from the bench and the disjointed nature of play, is that the players are fed up with Green. He is getting the absolute worst out of this roster and making players play the type of game that they are not built for. For further proof, see how the play and durability of players such as Schmidt, Tanev, Edler and even Gudbranson has bettered since they left Green's "systems".

Get rid of the atrocious AHL trio of Green, Baumer and King, and bring in NHL caliber of coaching. I want to see what this roster can do under a seasoned, proper NHL standard coaching staff. Bring in someone like Boudreau or Julien. If we still suck this bad or are at least not a wildcard team, then sure, fire everyone & let the trading begin. But this roster deserves one shot at a proper bench boss. Also, Hoglander with 10 minutes of ice time tonight? Gtfo, this makes absolutely no sense anymore.

One thing that has bothered me about Green a lot, particularly in this season, is that he never holds himself accountable in any way. It's always the players who aren't playing well, not doing what he expects from them, etc. His biggest issue is his glaring lack of self awareness, on and off the ice.

What's that quote again? "To do the same thing over and over & expect different results is the definition on insanity". This is where we are with Travis Green. I see nothing endearing about his coaching that warrants him a single more day as head coach of our team. He has evidently lost the room, and soon we'll lose this season as well if he's still kept around.

I'm noticing the following in terms of synergy between the coaching & play of our players, or lack thereof: Our forward group is a highly skilled one that is being programmed to play safe, grinder style hockey. Watch any other successful team in the league, and you see forward groups being creative with their zone entries, shot selections, and passing. Our team is so predictable with the idiotic dump and chase, and this "system" seems to be exasperating to players like Petey and Miller who thrive on offensive instinct and creative drive. As many have pointed out in this PGT, our defense has been better overall than what we expected, given the lineup. I think that correlates directly with the presence of Shaw, who is instilling some defensive value into this team and undoing years of damage Baumer has brought on. We can be even better defensively if he is given complete control on how to run that department. I'm not even going to get into Green's decision to bench Garland today, our leading and clutch scorer, to send some sort of message. One of several bush league decisions made by Green over the years. I've stated since last year, we have a solid group of players on the come up, but will not get anywhere with this standard of coaching. I hope Benning can bring in someone like Boudreau to run the bench, get the most out of our offense, and Shaw & Clarke have their grip on the defense & goaltending respectively. I can see that being a very successful coaching staff and ultimately, team.

For a coaching staff that preaches defensive responsibility, and has lost players over the years because of their perceived lack of, they really don't know what the heck they're coaching in the defensive end of our ice. Year in, year out it's a tire fire once a team enters our zone. Add to that the perpetual line juggling by Green, how does he expect the team to form any rhythm or chemistry? Why continuously break lines that have worked amazingly in the past? I love the build up of this team, but it will go nowhere with this coaching staff calling the shots on how it is deployed.

The day that contract was announced, I knew the leafs would never be legit contenders as long as Marner is around. Preposterous cap hit for a one dimensional player who simply just folds in the playoffs.

sad thing is most of the twitter crowd and a sizable one here believes in meaningless bs like this. glad to see sanity prevail on these boards. Some of the comments have been pure gold lol

lol all year the colorado butt kissing was unreal, most people had already declared them the cup champs. as of right now, we went further in the playoffs last year (and against vegas) than the holy avalanche

I'm still waiting for the day people realize there's more than one way to rebuild. Each team goes through their own unique circumstances in undergoing and reaching the conclusion of their rebuild. With that said, the OP is not wrong imo, the Canucks and Avs have similar caliber of young players they've constructed their teams around. Only difference I see is that the Avs started much earlier. 2009 to be exact. They drafted Duchene that year, a piece that led them to the a chunk of their young talent. Keeping aside the few awfully bad and negative takes on these boards and the media, and especially after the early exits of Edmonton & Toronto, I think most people are right to assume we are building our team the right way and are on course to become contenders in the near future.

How is it going for the oilers and their multiple top 5 picks? seems like the jets are doing a little better eh

but people think we should rebuild like the oilers lol

Please enlighten me on the multiple top 5 picks NYI, Wild, St. Louis, VGK, Jets (Wheeler, 2004 draftee, was acquired by trade), Caps, Boston, Nashville, Carolina have. Multiple lol. I'll at least name teams with more than one top 5 picks (most have just 2)- Pens, Habs (Kotkaniemi is the 2nd top 5 pick besides Price, hardly a core player. Drouin was acquired via trade) Tampa, Colorado, Leafs, Oilers, Panthers. 5/7 never won a cup with their current roster. Of the two that have, one team has Sidney Crosby (Pens won a lottery during the lockout season), and the other didn't win a cup for 12 years after drafting the first piece of their core. Also, we already went further in the playoffs last year than 5/7 teams. If you're going to preach losing, at least find a correlation between what you're incessantly arguing for and what the actual reality is. A little bit of perspective will do our team's fan base real good. We need to relax and little, things are looking upward, we will be fine.

I wish more people had a more objective and thoughtful perspective on things like you. Hit the nail in the head with this post. I would also like to ask armchair GMs, alternatively, what route did you see us taking through where we would be cup contenders this year? All facts considered, I'd like someone to present a realistic plan we could've taken to our route to being contenders this year like a lot of posters here and especially on twitter expected. Keeping in mind our prospect pool when JB took over, the Sedins wanting to compete until the end of the 2017-2018 season, and the fact we had one of the most bizarre seasons due to many factors after a fairly successful one last year. Instead of the usual doom, gloom and complaining, I really want to hear of a constructive, reality based alternative path. This will at least make for a good discussion.

That was honestly the epitome of b*itching and whining I've seen on the internet in recent years. This includes pivotal moments from around the sports world in all the leagues I follow. CDC and the general Canucks fan base is embarrassingly whiny and premature with their overreactions. Hard to defend us sometimes from friends and family that are fans of other teams

I can overlook the schedule of first half of the season and new lineup to a certain degree as excuses (not completely, but to some extent), but if you're just going to brush off Covid, missing a month of play, and having to suddenly play multiple back to backs and place that into the same category as blaming refs, then you truly don't know what you're talking about bud. We were trending upwards in March, and by all means we could've made the playoffs with a healthy team once the schedule began to balance out. A team's standing at the half point of a close, competitive season is no definite mark of where it will finish at the year's end. Look up over a hundred years of NHL history to verify that claim. There will be changes, which I believe starts with the coaching staff because their systems are objectively bad and they have failed to make in game adjustments many times over several seasons. On top of that, it seems evident the locker room needs a new, more experienced voice. This is also a key off season with many contracts being unloaded and cap space opening up. But right now at this moment, is a time to have context, and not sh1t on your team that is evidently playing their hearts out after overcoming a virus that has caused a worldwide pandemic. I'll reiterate, wait until this off season and see where things go, and determine the actual quality of this team next season when things should be back to where they should be. If we are still bottom feeders at the 55-60 game range, go ahead with the outrage galore, I'll probably join in as well. But the constant negativity and whining right now given the circumstances is outright immature and embarrassing.

I don't know how irrational and out of touch with reality someone has to be to expect this group, with everything that has happened this season, to be a competitive playoff team right now. We were playing well before the covid outbreak, despite many new faces in the lineup and the worst possible schedule in the NHL. And then a virus that has killed millions of people worldwide infected the whole team, and they didn't play for a whole month. Once that was over, they got put right back onto the ice on an even worse schedule they started with. I bet the heavyweight whiners here have never played a sport in their life outside of high school PE, otherwise they'd have somewhat of an idea what taking a month off of a professional sport, with a virus that affects lungs significantly, does to your body, especially when you're playing multiple back to backs without proper time to get back into game shape. It's hard to believe I had to spell out this last paragraph out to full grown adults. For the first time in my life, the media of all people is more reasonable and taking it easy on the team over some of these "fans". The team obviously needs improvements, there's no denying that, but hold your doom and gloom until the off season, or better yet, till we see the performance of the team next year when things are closer to normal.

He may not be articulating it well, but there is a slight logic to his point. It must be unfathomably difficult to think about what to do after going through something like a sexual assault, but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to start a conversation where potential victims are encouraged to contact authorities right away after an incident takes place so that evidence can be collected in a timely and accurate manner, which in turn will further increase the likeness of the perpetrator getting charged and convicted; something which is devastatingly low because it comes back to there usually being insufficient evidence in place. This is not to say that the anyone who comes forward years later is lying or should not be believed, I hope this point doesn't get misconstrued with that. Anyone who comes forward at any point in time should be respected and listened to, and the due investigative process should be carried out, keeping in mind the side of the accused as well so that a fair investigation is conducted. In this case in particular, I will reserve any further comment until more information is revealed by authorities. But my heart goes out first and foremost to anyone who may be hurt by this incident, the players who have gone through so much and probably will from this point onward too, and a big virtual hug to all Canucks fans who've endured quite a wild season themselves.

Can't wait for the sequel, "That's a Good Team Over There"

Fair enough, & I agree that a two year window beyond this season is a fair time frame to give Benning to see his vision through. That will be the right time to make the call on whether he stays here or not.

Even with these points stated, I don't see how Gillis can be regarded as someone who managed the cap well. The only person who took a substantial pay cut was Burrows, besides that, everyone was making market value or close to it. And several of those NTC signings occurred when players were already in their 30s. Bieksa (5x4.6 in 2011) Kesler (6x5 in 2010) Sedins (5x6.1 in 2009) Luongo (12.5.33 in 2009) Look at league comparable contracts at that time, including the rest of the roster from the 2009-2013 period and see if you can justify those contracts and the NTCs as some sort of ideal cap management. And there's no way you can justify that Ballard trade with our without Willie. The trade was a 1st round pick, Michael Grabner (went on to have three 25+ goal seasons; talk about talent evaluation) and Steve Bernier for Ballard coming off a back surgery at a 4.2M cap hit. Ouch. It looks bad in hindsight and definitely did when it happened as well. You can call Miller and Schmidt cap dumps all you want but there are 29 other teams that could've picked them up, but didn't. We're lucky to have gotten them despite the lack of "killer instict" people think Benning might have. And amateur scouting ultimately ends with Benning making the decisions on who we draft. Petey, Boes, Hughes, Hoglander, Demko and Podkolzin being drafted under one GM is outstanding. Jake is a miss at 6th overall but that's one pick, and reserve your judgement on Juolevi for a year or two. He got dealt a rough hand with injuries but he has not disappointing anybody with his play so far. Watch him become a valuable member of our team going forward. I'm not even going to mention the plethora of other amazing prospects we have in the system. Conveniently ignoring a "long list" of pro scouting disasters? Can you please share this supposed crisis inducing list? Benning is not without his mistakes, and I often speak to my friends that he has a 2 year window beyond this season to prove he still deserves to be here. But some of the overreactions and complete ignorance of the reasoning and motives behind his moves is astounding. He has built a team unlike we've ever had before with young talent, and is on his way to building a contender.

Gillis was brutal with contracts and cap management. He gave NTCs to literally anyone and made several pieces untradable because of them. Traded a 1st and a few other pieces for a Ballard who carried a 4m cap, which in today's day is a 5-6M cap hit (and people whine about Myers. Ballard was a much inferior and much less proven defenceman). Then there's Jason Garrisson, Marco Sturm, David Booth, etc. Idk where people get this idea that Gillis was some sort of cap wizard. Also, Benning does have a killer instinct but he's just not flashy and bold like Gillis with his gimmicks. Killer instinct is getting JT Miller for a mid-late 1st, Schmidt for a 3rd, and drafting Petey & Hogs when the general consensus thought otherwise. I'd say that is quite better than "sketchy" evaluation of pro talent, not to mention sly pick ups like Motter and more recently Hamonic. The only thing Gillis did right in my pov is picking up the right complementary pieces leading up to the 2011 run. Malhotra, Torres Ehrhoff and Lapierre fit in perfectly with the core we had. Besides that, Gillis was as disastrous as a GM as they come

You're right about these boards, it's probably the only place where he's gotten his due recognition for his key contributions to the team. I should've rephrased as I feel people on most of social media and other digital outlets don't really seem to recognize the season he's having so far. Either way, we're very lucky to have him and as you noted, his play in the recent games has been huge in getting us these wins

I feel like Hogs doesn't get enough appreciation across the fan base. What a year this guy is having. So stoked to have him on the team. His timely offensive output and tenacity is what wins you playoff rounds, and he's just 20 years old. Love the kid