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[Blog] How Good Is Jim Benning At Evaluating Talent?


5ubmarine

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Drafting is everything in the cap world. It's the biggest reason why the Canucks have had limited succes over the years.

They can't sustain a winning team because they haven't had enough young players to come up and replace the vets.

Very true. There is a huge void of younger talent because the drafting from 2005-2010

'05 Bourdon RIP

'06 Grabner

'07 White

'08 Hodgson

'09 Schroeder

'10 Ballard

Bourdon was on track to be a very good player but the rest is just poor decision making. That 5 year period is like a wasteland of Canuck draft picks. We can only hope that recent picks can turn this tide in Canuck favor

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Nice vid Junkyard.

Soooooo I thought his name was pronounced BO-zer this whole time... Like dozer. You all can feel free to facepalm away. However I think it sounds substantially cooler than Bess-ER. So I shall continue calling him that and let people correct me for the rest of his career :P

I heard some one call him Bosser which I liked a slightly more than Besser
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I like his moves so far. He has been decisive and methodical all at the same time...a nice change from Gillis's paralysis by analysis.

Read this post over at Hockeybuzz and think it sums the situation up nicely:

The rebuild comes down to the draft. If benning hits on enough picks, the team will be set quite nicely. If not, abandon all hope
wink.gif

But these ancillary issues like the signings and trades for low level players won't mean much.

I agree that they could be a harbinger of misfortune.... But looking at it from the long view, perhaps benning wants good character, hard nosed guys b/c he foresees a couple seasons of losing.

Either view can be supported. But there really is no need to get hysterical. Criticicize but don't go chicken little. Big picture that sh!t.

I.E. Canuck fans are way too quick to judgement...everyone needs to chill

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The year after Jim Benning joined the Boston Bruins as assistant general manager their first pick in the first round of 2007 was...............................Zach Hammil!

That was a horrible pick no doubt but I am hard pressed to find one GM that hasn't had an outright dud with their first round pick , heck even top 5 pick etc

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Interesting numbers but the author completely lost me when he called Dorsett one of our worst players.

.....? Love Dorsett, but who is he better than? If the list is small, then yes Dorsett is one of our worst players... Stop being so biased.

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The year after Jim Benning joined the Boston Bruins as assistant general manager their first pick in the first round of 2007 was...............................Zach Hammil!

Zack Hammil was a solid pick at the time. Who would have guessed he had character issues....

Wait..

Did I just say character issues?!

JB's #1 box on his talent evaluation check list is character. The evaluation of a player starts and ends with that 1st box.

I'm not sure about you but I value a GM that has made mistakes in the past, especially when he is clearly learning from them.

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It may be too early to tell but from what it looks like right now, he has drafted well in the past 2 drafts. Virtanen, McCann, Demko, Forsling, Stewart looked good. Boeser, Brisebois, Jasek, Zhukenov all look great as well.

Now it's time to focus on defense. We don't necessarily need a top 3 pick, but we need to start using our picks on defensemen. Brisebois was a good start, and we have promising guys like Hutton, Corrado, Clendening, Pedan, Tryamkin, but we still need more. Philidelphia has arguably the best group of D prospects and they didn't need a top 3 pick to build it. They just made sure they used their picks to draft guys they needed. Provorov, Morin, Sanheim, Ghost, these 4 guys are all promising, and none of them were top 3 picks. We just need to use our picks to solidify our defense and we should be set. We don't have many holes, and the holes should be filled with UFA's. We have a good group of forward prospects, it's time to finally draft a defenseman in the first round and there are many to choose from next year.

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.....? Love Dorsett, but who is he better than? If the list is small, then yes Dorsett is one of our worst players... Stop being so biased.

Macmillan, Kenins sometimes, Burrows sometimes, Matthias three quarters of the time....night to night I liked him more than a lot of our guys.

Zack Hammil was a solid pick at the time. Who would have guessed he had character issues....

Wait..

Did I just say character issues?!

You have to be a douche to fit in with the Bruins. A lot of good young guys seem to get run out of there. I'm hoping that Benning wasn't part of letting Seguin go...all though I think Sweeney has topped everyone there. I think Reilly Smith will be a 30 goal winger, so at least I can imagine that Benning was in there making sure that they landed someone good.

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He's much more offensive than he is defensive, in fact he could use a bit more work defensively. He is definitely a better goal scorer than both Merkley or Konecny. Arguably has one of the best shots in the draft. Is a good skater with a solid frame.

Fast skilled goal scorer who competes hard, is strong with the puck and that has room to grow into his solid frame.

This is a solid pick

Reminds me of Roenick!

In more ways than one...

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Very true. There is a huge void of younger talent because the drafting from 2005-2010

'05 Bourdon RIP

'06 Grabner

'07 White

'08 Hodgson

'09 Schroeder

'10 Ballard

Bourdon was on track to be a very good player but the rest is just poor decision making. That 5 year period is like a wasteland of Canuck draft picks. We can only hope that recent picks can turn this tide in Canuck favor

every gm on the league would have made that hodgson pick, but i agree other than that.

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I'm not on the anti-Benning bandwagon whatsoever but his drafting skills doesn't necessarily make him a good GM. If anything, it'd make him a perfect head scout.

IMO, he's been on the losing side of all his trades. And the Sbisa/Dorsett contract extensions were pretty bad to say the least.

I repeat, good drafting skills doesn't not = good GM. There's more to a General Manager than drafting.

Of course, Benning could very well turn out to be a good GM but I'm still in wait and see mode. Virtanen, the highest first round pick we've had in years, has not impressed me very much either.

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If Benning is able to bring that drafting success to the Nucks, and supplement the team sensibly through free agency and trades, then we will be back competing in 3-5 years. If he's had it, and he's lost his marbles, we are stuffed. I have faith in Trevor Linden but I am not 100% convinced we're going to get where we want to be.

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Zack Hammil was a solid pick at the time. Who would have guessed he had character issues....

Wait..

Did I just say character issues?!

JB's #1 box on his talent evaluation check list is character. The evaluation of a player starts and ends with that 1st box.

I'm not sure about you but I value a GM that has made mistakes in the past, especially when he is clearly learning from them.

Benning was not the Bruins GM. I doubt you have inside knowledge about who made the final call on

Hamill. Benning appears to have that level of control in Vancouver. As you suggest his career path

should have given him valuable experience to guide the Canucks.

Canuck fans should not undervalue the Utica AHL ownership as a critical tool to develop prospects

over time. IMHO it is a very big deal. A big part of drafting success is providing top development.

Canucks had that briefly with the Moose. The history of the org has been moving prospects to quickly

to the NHL. Hurt many.

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