filthycanuck

Horvat has been a great captain and Im pretty ok with him being on the team. That being said, he hasn't been as impactful this season as he has in previous years. It seems like at the biggest moments, most times JT comes up in the spotlight with Bo being late to the party

The term is the issue with Miller, not the money. 9.5 X 4 years? I think we can stomach that over an 8.5 X 8

To some extent i agree, but considering the last 7 seasons of trash we've seen, I don't think anybody would be complaining if we were even just a legit playoff team for the next few seasons. Florida coming to this season weren't expected to be stanley cup contenders, and here they are now one of the top teams in the league

I agree. Schenn if anything has been a suprise that hes playing pretty well. If he is ever going to be traded, I would not be taking anything less than a 1st rounder. Its overpayment, but fact is, like you mentioned, no one in the farm can replace him. Theres also no UFA thats going to come here, play top 4 minutes, and get paid under 1 million. Schenn is found money and he's under contract for another season.

Michkov is a Russian Sidney Crosby

If the Sedins were moved = EXCUSES

But you said we are doing fine without those guys. How is probably missing the playoffs again doing "fine" exactly?

Yeah thats called success, and success matters. Unlike all the hopes and dreams crap like you Benning fanboys like to hang their hats on. "What happened before matters", ok like i said, Benning fanboys and their excuses. The fact that you guys are complaining about the success Gillis had is ridiculous. Guess by that stupid line of thinking, Julien Brisbois (Tampa GM) should have no credit whatsoever because Yzerman built that team "We won't even know how good or bad for a couple seasons yet. " Seriously, how many years were you gonna give Jim Benning? 50 years? 8 seasons was long enough to see how much of a garbage GM he was

Not a huge loss, yeah right. He just won 2 cups right after being here, playing a big part on those wins too. Jim Rutherford says so. Oh! He was also under contract for another season, at like what? 2.5? We ended up signing Sutter for 5 years at around 4.5 mill. Sutter in no point in his career as a Canuck has ever outplayed Bonino

Well, Markstrom Tanev and the Flames finished better than us last season and are probably laughing at us since they are going to the playoffs this year. Im sure they are enjoying their greener pastures

Also reality is that the Sedins even in their down years, despite their contracts, were better than the garbage players Benning replaced that free cap room with

I think we must have been the only team in league history (since the cap era) that was rebuilding and yet mired with cap problems even during post Sedin Im noticing a trend with Benning fanboys. They love to have excuses, and seem to fail on mentioning his FA signings. Notice how they don't even mention Ericsson, Beagle, Myers, Dickenson, Poolman, Rousell, list goes on and on and just stick to his drafting "prowess"

GMJB I'll give him credit, for what he was given with keslers demands got a pretty nice haul, 1st round pick (McCann) Bonino. Typical Benning fashion, he makes 1 good move and makes 2 stupid ones = trades them for Sutter and Gudbranson,

Where we are now is still a team thats just HOPING to make it to the playoffs. Blah blah blah if Bruce was the coach from the beginning we'd be in the playoffs. Geezus, did you think that Benning was even going to hire Boudreau? I guess you didn't know that part of the reason Bruce is even coaching here is because of his relationship with Rutherford Again, you are just filling this thread with excuses. OK the Sedin contracts ended, and the rebuild started. What did Benning do? Sign Myers, Rousell, Beagle, and still had overpaid contracts on the books for Brandon Sutter and Ericsson. Was that Gillis fault? Thats about 22 million worth of garbage Benning signed. So pretty much for every Petterson, Hughes, etc. hes' drafted, Benning has managed to attach dumba$$ players with overpaid contracts.

Thats my whole point of why there is something wrong with the farm. Abby/ Utica hasn't churned out enough players that are actually sticking in the Canucks roster. Brisbois, now gone Rafferty, Chatfield, the list goes on and on, guys that just had their toes in the water but never turned out to be everyday players here. Like you said, prospects are just magic beans, whether they were drafted in the 1st or 6th round, they mean nothing to the teams success unless they play actual games As for your TB comparison, actually quite of their stars have had a stint in their farm club, some bigger than others. Kucherov played in Syracuse, Palat, Cirelli, and Brayden Point, all graduated from the farm to the bigs. Look at the TB roster last season, you'll find theres many players played for Syracuse, and a majority of them are mid round picks.If you recall, that same core got swept 3 years ago and proceeded to win 2 straight after not just because of the stars. They played a big part, but TB made some savvy deals along the way and signed players that massively contributed to those cup wins. Marroon, Schenn, Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow played big roles on those wins. Saying that superstar players are the only thing that matters and to hell with the rest of the roster is a weak excuse or else Crosby, Malkin , Ovechkin, Kuznetsov in the peak of their careers should've been in the finals annually. Matthews, Draistl, Marner, all are top end players, theyve never even come close to being in the finals. Superstars defintely help with accelerating a team's chance for success but its not the be all and all. The rest of the roster still matters

Yes because clearly Crosby and Malkin were on the ice for 60 minutes, just those 2. Not another winger, No D-men, no goalie, thats why they won the cup. Who honestly cares about the other guys, like Guentzel, Dumoulin, Kessel, Bonino, Hagelin, etc they were just on the bench, drinking beer, eating hot dogs, waving their pom poms. CLEARLY if you have 2 top 5 players in the league, Stanley cup is guaranteed! How many rings does McDavid and Draistl have?

Calgary Flames do, they had guys like Mangiapanne, Dube, Kylington and others come from their farm, and the Flames are one of the best teams in the league. What EU system? Did you think the Canucks had a big imprint on the development of Petey, Hoglander, or in college Boeser, Hughes? Sorry to burst your bubble, no they didn't. Having them in one camp or sending them emails on "hey Brock, work on your glutes, its going to help your skating" means very little on the Canucks having a hand on their development. Its not like Utica/ Abby where Canucks brass and developmental staff would frequently visit them and have SOME input on how they are deployed. Canucks have no pull whatsoever on how Michigan plays Hughes,how N Dakota plays Brock or the Swedish team Dahlen was playing in. Dahlen mentioned that Utica wasn't using him properly and went back to Europe, and played for the Barracuda (sharks farm) and now hes in the NHL. Im not sure what you were expecting out of Holland in Detroit, were you expecting them to have 8 decades of dominance in the league? LOL. Newsflash, great teams are going to go through a phase where they are going to suck. The fact that Ken Holland was able to do hat with with TWO different cores was remarkable. You also forgot to mention how Holland was able to supply the Red wings with talent from their FARM to supplement Datsyuk and Zetterberg. Kronwall, Holstrom, Hudler, Abeldaker, Franzen, Helm, guys that were drafted late and were developed properly. Yet again, that garbage of excuse that Benning inherited nothing, and yet Bennings best season was his first with primarily Gillis team. When finishing below 20th overall league wide 5 times and the GM has had 8 seasons to turn the ship around, I don't care whether the canucks had crappy drafts 30 years straight, thats no excuse to be that awful. The Canucks were considered an upcoming team like what? Once? The rest of the time we'd be lucky to have meaningful games in March. You Benning fanboys can whine and cry all you want about Burke, Gillis and Nonis and their shortcomings. You know what they had in common? They all had better records than Jim Benning. They all have banners in Rogers arena, Benning has squat.

Lol once you read the whole thing after that paragraph, its actually quite funny. Thats a lot of work!

Lol exactly. For Brocks case its all "he wouldve done this, done that" "if he had a playmaker"" or "hes on pace for this " blah blah blah. He either did it or he didnt, fact is he doesnt have a 30 goal season under his belt. Good player, yes. Elite? Hardly He might see his ceiling in another team who knows, im actually ok with keeping him if the offers arent up to snuff. But lets not kid ourselves that we are trading Brett Hull in his prime

Don't be suprised if Benning ever gets a job as a GM. As a chief scout perhaps, but Benning isn't good enough to manage a dairy queen, let alone a hockey franchise

The 2 California teams started their rebuild after Jim Benning was hired and they look far more promising. LA prospect pool is just brimming, and Anaheim looks very good. Funny how that works when you accumulate assets and don't go for the quick fix, you end up being better in the long run. But in Bennings case, he was a totally different breed of stupid. During the 8 seasons Benning was here, those 2 Cali teams were rebuilding, can we honestly say even in their down years, were we THAT much better than them? Not really

Atlanta at least had a few seasons when they were trending upwards. Just took a look at all time records of both teams, and it honestly made me feel even more embaressed on how our city as suffered. If you discounted Bennings first season, which the team was still primarily still Gillis team, the Canucks have had a whopping ONE 80 plus point finish. Atlanta Thrashers were in existence for 11 seasons, they've managed to have 2 90 plus point seasons, and 2 80 plus point seasons

It didn't need to be successful but at the very least be able to feed some talent to the big club. To my knowledge, Demko, Gaudette, and to a lesser extent McEwen are the only guys that became full time players from the farm in 8 seasons. Granted thats more than the Gillis regime, but we were winning. There weren't many holes to fill. The whole mess in Utica/Abby is why the team is where it is. Could you imagine if Lind, Juolevi actually just became roster players? We wouldn't need to dip into the UFA pool and overpay for garbage like Poolman, Dickenson, thats 4.5 million plus that would've been freed to perhaps sign one of our main guys or get a productive FA. There is something wrong in how they are developing players over at the farm, guys are getting full tenures over there in A, pretty high draft picks and aren't close to making the club. Just because players aren't 1st round picks and don't jump into are lineup immediately, doesn't mean that the other prospects are just cast aside. Since you mentioned Yzerman, remember when most people were laughing when they drafted Moritz Seider so high? I'll always give Stevie Y the benefit of the doubt, the guy knows how to spot talent, and knows what he's doing considering what he did in TB. I can see the Red Wings making some noise in the next 2-3 seasons

Just look at the prospects forum and you'll see how low the bar has gone. People are just hyping up excitement our 4th, 5th, 6th round draft picks like they are gonna be all stars when this time last season, the same posters were leaving their keyboards sticky with guys like Kole Lind, Jonah Gadjovich which pretty much amounted to nothing. Almost reminds me how Leafs fans were just overrating their players in the 2000's hyping up guys like Jerry D'amigo, Justin Pogge etc

Hamhuis as well. Kole lind, gadjovich, gone for nothing. To think, the Benning preachers just a season ago were going ga ga over the last 2 guys lol . "Oh man Kole Lind is gonna play with Bo and Pearson" "Gadjovich would be a great net front for pp1" If only hope and hype scored goals and came with a $5.00 cap hit, wed be planning the parade route already