Would Canucks had been a dynasty, had Jim Benning been drafting for Mike Gilles

[RonMexico]

4 minutes ago, ForsbergTheGreat said:

It depends, part of mike gillis drafting woes were simply because he traded a lot of picks away.  So it would really come down to if we believe JB would have been able to land a gem with the picks Gillis left him.  Although it wouldn't be entirely accurate (since JB was only assistance GM), i think the closest representation would be to compare Boston's picks in the same range.  I'm bored so I will do the work

 

2008
10 Cody Hodgson vs Joe Colborne (16)
41 Yann Sauve vs Maxime Sauve (47)
131 Prabh Rai vs Jamie Arniel (97)
161 Mats Josten-Froshaug vs Nicolas Tremblay (173)
191 Morgan Clark vs Mark Goggin (197)

    
2009
22 Jordan Schroeder vs Jordan Caron (25)
53 Anton Rodin vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
83 Kevin Connauton vs Ryan Button (86)
113 Jeremy Price vs Lane MacDermid (112)
143 Peter Andersson vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
173 Joe Cannata vs Tyler Randell (176)
187 Steven Anthony vs Ben Sexton (206)

2010
115 Patrick McNally Vs Craig Cunningham (97)
145 Adam Polasek vs Justin florek (135)
172 Alex Friesen vs Zane McIntyre (165)
175 Jonathan Iilahti vs Maxin Chudinov (195)
205 Sawyer Hannay vs Zach Trotman (210)

2011
29 Nicklas Jensen vs Alexander Khokhlachev (40)
71 David Honzik vs Anthony Camara (81)
90 Alexandre Grenier vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
101 Joe Labate vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
120 Ludwig Blomstrand vs Brian Ferlin (121)
150 Frankie Corrado vs Rob O'Gara (151)
180 Pathrik Westerholm vs Lars Volden (181)
210 Henrik Tommernes

 

2012
26 Brendan Gaunce vs Malcolm Subban (24)
57 Alexandre Mallet vs Matt Grzelcyk (85)
147 Ben Hutton vs Cody Payne (145)
177 Wesley Myron vs Matthew Benning (175)
207 Matthew Beattie vs Colton Hargrove (205)

 

2013
9 Bo Horvat vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
24 Hunter Shinkaruk vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
85 Cole Cassels vs Peter Cehlarik (90)
115 Jordan Subban vs Ryan Fitzgerald (120)
145 Anton Cederholm vs Wiley Sherman (150)
175 Mike Williamson vs Anton Blidh (180)
205 Miles Liberati vs Mitchell Dempsey (210)

 

So when really breaking it down and comparing what Boston did to Vancouver in similar ranges I think we can see the answer would be no.  In fact, giving the picks he had, Gills actually drafted better than Boston did. 

 

With the exception of Hutton and Horvat, the rest of that list from both teams is vomit-inducing.

[Kelly Green]

mike gillis talked ownership into putting money into a scouting system that could find skill players in later rounds the way detroit was doing at the time , and he made some good trades considering other gm's didn't seem to want to deal with a former player agent.

he did a good job imo considering how bare the cupboards were after that poser nonis got canned  :-)

 

anyone remember trading draft picks for renting the guy with the yellow visor and the guy who looked like bertuzzzi?

[Alflives]

Yes! 

[ForsbergTheGreat]

5 minutes ago, RonMexico said:

With the exception of Hutton and Horvat, the rest of that list from both teams is vomit-inducing.

Yep,  I didn't include hamilton (9th) or Seguin (2nd) as those picks were not in the range of canucks during those years but year, neither team was any good at finding real talent outside top 10.  The best teams were:

 

Calgary - Johnny Gaudreau, T.J. Brodie, Sven Baertschi, Lance Bouma, Markus Granlund, Micheal Ferland

 

Chicago - Brandon Saad, Andrew Shaw, Kevin Hayes, Marcus Kruger, Brandon Pirri, Teuvo Teravainen, Phillip Danault, Ryan Hartman

Det - Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, Riley Sheahan, Calle Jarnkrok, Andrej Nestrasil, Andreas Athanasiou, Tomas Jurco, Anthony Mantha

 

OTT  - Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman, Jakob Silfverberg, Zack Smith, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Cody Ceci, Ryan Dzingel, Curtis Lazar, Robin Lehner

 

WSH -Marcus Johansson, John Carlson, Filip Forsberg, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Cody Eakin, Andre Burakovsky, Dmitri Orlov, Tom Wilson, Connor Carrick, Braden Holtby

[JM_]

30 minutes ago, apollo said:

MG did that and won back to back president trophies. 

 

 

Also MG has drafted our MVP... Bo... He had lots of great picks/additions considering the limited # of draft picks we had. 

 

Got Tanev for free... 

 

He's given us our best forward and best dman... what more do people want? 

 

MG = GOAT. 

 

and dry gulch for a prospect pool thats going to take 5 years to rebuild (2 left to go). And hey, had that resulted in a cup that would have been great. But MG made a lot of mistakes too, some we're still dealing with. On balance, he was OK but drafting and development was not his strong suit. 

[48MPHSlapShot]

For whatever reason, it seems Benning is doing a much better job scouting talent here than he ever did in Boston. Go figure.

[Alflives]

Just now, ForsbergTheGreat said:

Yep,  I didn't include hamilton (9th) or Seguin (2nd) as those picks were not in the range of canucks during those years but year, neither team was any good at finding real talent outside top 10.  The best teams were:

 

Calgary - Johnny Gaudreau, T.J. Brodie, Sven Baertschi, Lance Bouma, Markus Granlund, Micheal Ferland

 

Chicago - Brandon Saad, Andrew Shaw, Kevin Hayes, Marcus Kruger, Brandon Pirri, Teuvo Teravainen, Phillip Danault, Ryan Hartman

Det - Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, Riley Sheahan, Calle Jarnkrok, Andrej Nestrasil, Andreas Athanasiou, Tomas Jurco, Anthony Mantha

 

OTT  - Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman, Jakob Silfverberg, Zack Smith, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Cody Ceci, Ryan Dzingel, Curtis Lazar, Robin Lehner

 

WSH -Marcus Johansson, John Carlson, Filip Forsberg, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Cody Eakin, Andre Burakovsky, Dmitri Orlov, Tom Wilson, Connor Carrick, Braden Holtby

Considering JB's current record at the draft with us (especially later in round one, and other rounds) I think we win several Cups with the Twins, Luongo, and Kesler.  

[NewbieCanuckFan]

43 minutes ago, NUCKER67 said:

But when I look at Gillis' drafting, it's not very good. Gaunce, Hutton and Horvat are his best (only good?) picks over the 6 years he was GM. That's not much. To his credit, he also brought in Markstrom. To his discredit, he didn't do his homework on Kassian and basically gave Hodgson away. 

To be fair, Kassian is still playing in this league & Hodgson is retired.

 

 

[apollo]

3 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

and dry gulch for a prospect pool thats going to take 5 years to rebuild (2 left to go). And hey, had that resulted in a cup that would have been great. But MG made a lot of mistakes too, some we're still dealing with. On balance, he was OK but drafting and development was not his strong suit. 

He's still the greatest GM in Franchise history. 

 

It's not a small feat to win back to back president trophy's. Less teams do that than win cups. 

 

All I remember... was for 5 years, my team (our team) won more games than anyone elses. Mike's team dominated on the ice... IMO it was a Dynasty. 

 

The playoffs aren't on Mike's shoulders... NHL changed the rules on us every year. 

[spook007]

39 minutes ago, NUCKER67 said:

Benning has had the ability to make better draft picks because of the Canucks drafting order the last few years. This has allowed him to draft Virtanen, Boeser, McCann, Juolevi and Pettersson with the 1sts. But what Benning has also done is sign good undrafted players (Stecher, McEneny, Chatfield and MacEwen), signing some good UFAs (Nilsson, Del Zotto, Vanek and Burmistrov and trading to get Gudbranson, Goldobin, Dahlen, Granlund, Baertschi, Pouliot and Sutter.  

 

Gillis had the benefit of taking over a team ready to contend and make a push, he added some nice pieces for their run (Lapierre, Samuelsson, Ehrhoff, etc). But when I look at Gillis' drafting, it's not very good. Gaunce, Hutton and Horvat are his best (only good?) picks over the 6 years he was GM. That's not much. To his credit, he also brought in Markstrom. To his discredit, he didn't do his homework on Kassian and basically gave Hodgson away.

 

Benning is taking this team from the bottom of the league and building it back up into a contender. I don't think Gillis would be capable of that.   

Cheers Nuckers67... I deliberately left out the low picks of JV, OJ and EP, in order to compare the picks we could have had, if we had been a contender

19 minutes ago, ForsbergTheGreat said:

It depends, part of mike gillis drafting woes were simply because he traded a lot of picks away.  So it would really come down to if we believe JB would have been able to land a gem with the picks Gillis left him.  Although it wouldn't be entirely accurate (since JB was only assistance GM), i think the closest representation would be to compare Boston's picks in the same range.  I'm bored so I will do the work

 

2008
10 Cody Hodgson vs Joe Colborne (16)
41 Yann Sauve vs Maxime Sauve (47)
131 Prabh Rai vs Jamie Arniel (97)
161 Mats Josten-Froshaug vs Nicolas Tremblay (173)
191 Morgan Clark vs Mark Goggin (197)

    
2009
22 Jordan Schroeder vs Jordan Caron (25)
53 Anton Rodin vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
83 Kevin Connauton vs Ryan Button (86)
113 Jeremy Price vs Lane MacDermid (112)
143 Peter Andersson vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
173 Joe Cannata vs Tyler Randell (176)
187 Steven Anthony vs Ben Sexton (206)

2010
115 Patrick McNally Vs Craig Cunningham (97)
145 Adam Polasek vs Justin florek (135)
172 Alex Friesen vs Zane McIntyre (165)
175 Jonathan Iilahti vs Maxin Chudinov (195)
205 Sawyer Hannay vs Zach Trotman (210)

2011
29 Nicklas Jensen vs Alexander Khokhlachev (40)
71 David Honzik vs Anthony Camara (81)
90 Alexandre Grenier vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
101 Joe Labate vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
120 Ludwig Blomstrand vs Brian Ferlin (121)
150 Frankie Corrado vs Rob O'Gara (151)
180 Pathrik Westerholm vs Lars Volden (181)
210 Henrik Tommernes

 

2012
26 Brendan Gaunce vs Malcolm Subban (24)
57 Alexandre Mallet vs Matt Grzelcyk (85)
147 Ben Hutton vs Cody Payne (145)
177 Wesley Myron vs Matthew Benning (175)
207 Matthew Beattie vs Colton Hargrove (205)

 

2013
9 Bo Horvat vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
24 Hunter Shinkaruk vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
85 Cole Cassels vs Peter Cehlarik (90)
115 Jordan Subban vs Ryan Fitzgerald (120)
145 Anton Cederholm vs Wiley Sherman (150)
175 Mike Williamson vs Anton Blidh (180)
205 Miles Liberati vs Mitchell Dempsey (210)

 

So when really breaking it down and comparing what Boston did to Vancouver in similar ranges I think we can see the answer would be no.  In fact, giving the picks he had, Gills actually drafted better than Boston did. 

 

Cheers Forberg... well put forward. Pure garbage so it wouldn't have made much difference. Definitely nothing earth shattering.

 

16 minutes ago, Tre Mac said:

Prez: Linden

GM: Gillis

Asst GM/ Cap Guy: Gilman

Head Scout: Benning

Asst Scout: Me

Coach: Quinn

Asst Coaches : Sullivan, AV, Brown

Stick Boy: You

 

That's the dream team

Cheers Tre Mac for taking me on to your all star team... being a stick boy is more than I could have hoped for. Maybe work my way up to be in charge of drinks, we all got to start somewhere 

 

16 minutes ago, kloubek said:

I would say that Benning is a better drafter and might have helped, but we were not going to be a "dynasty" regardless.  Even with GMMG at the helm we probably would have done ok if we didn't try to keep our window for the cup open for so long... which I'm assuming was ownership's decision. One year, sure - by trying to do so for the length of time we did completely depleted our prospect base and had crappy draft positions.

 

The 2011-2012 season wasn't bad by any stretch, but you could already see our age catching up with us, and getting blown out in the first round by the Kings should have been the wakeup call.  We should have dismantled everything, started a full rebuild (minus getting rid of the Sedins which likely wasn't possible) right away.  Had we done that, we would have had all these young guys already suitable for the NHL (and some coming into their prime) while the Sedins were still strong contributors and would have been contenders again maybe as of last year or perhaps even the year prior.  Instead we waited until the Sedins lost their game and now have to replace their production too. 

It was all bad decision making, but it is what it is.   We're well on our way now to being "great again".

Cheers Kloubek. This was the reason, I thought better drafting could have extended our cup window. With no influx of youth the players just got older and older and old..... And all the NTC's etc totally handcuffed any sort of change out, until they (Kesler) got fed up of it him self.

As @ForsbergTheGreat showed it likely wouldn't have made much difference, as the players they drafted around the same time were just about as poor as the ones we chose.

[Tortorella's Rant]

lol christ. try winning a cup first

[spook007]

11 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

and dry gulch for a prospect pool thats going to take 5 years to rebuild (2 left to go). And hey, had that resulted in a cup that would have been great. But MG made a lot of mistakes too, some we're still dealing with. On balance, he was OK but drafting and development was not his strong suit. 

NTC's....

[kloubek]

19 minutes ago, spook007 said:

Cheers Kloubek. This was the reason, I thought better drafting could have extended our cup window. With no influx of youth the players just got older and older and old..... And all the NTC's etc totally handcuffed any sort of change out, until they (Kesler) got fed up of it him self.

As @ForsbergTheGreat showed it likely wouldn't have made much difference, as the players they drafted around the same time were just about as poor as the ones we chose.

Like I said - better drafting might have helped, but it was entirely a different draft class so who knows who Benning would have picked had he been in his current position. At the end of the day though, one of the reasons we have the prospect pool we do is because of the trades that have been made and getting rid of washed-up vets and not just the drafting. We were able to get rid of a lot of older guys and got some decent returns as well.  Maybe MG in Benning's current position would have been able to get Baertschi and Granlund for next to nothing.  Maybe he could have gotten Dahlen and Goldobin in return for our vets.  

 

So it's not just Benning's drafting, but also his ability to make trades.  Yes he's had some misses but he's been really good at assessing young talent.  As a general feeling though, I think Benning is far and away a better GM than Gillis... though even with him at the helm I think it all comes down to ownership trying to win with the old, stale team.  And had Benning been in place back then, it likely would have been that way then too.

[AK_19]

55 minutes ago, ForsbergTheGreat said:

It depends, part of mike gillis drafting woes were simply because he traded a lot of picks away.  So it would really come down to if we believe JB would have been able to land a gem with the picks Gillis left him.  Although it wouldn't be entirely accurate (since JB was only assistance GM), i think the closest representation would be to compare Boston's picks in the same range.  I'm bored so I will do the work

 

2008
10 Cody Hodgson vs Joe Colborne (16)
41 Yann Sauve vs Maxime Sauve (47)
131 Prabh Rai vs Jamie Arniel (97)
161 Mats Josten-Froshaug vs Nicolas Tremblay (173)
191 Morgan Clark vs Mark Goggin (197)

    
2009
22 Jordan Schroeder vs Jordan Caron (25)
53 Anton Rodin vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
83 Kevin Connauton vs Ryan Button (86)
113 Jeremy Price vs Lane MacDermid (112)
143 Peter Andersson vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
173 Joe Cannata vs Tyler Randell (176)
187 Steven Anthony vs Ben Sexton (206)

2010
115 Patrick McNally Vs Craig Cunningham (97)
145 Adam Polasek vs Justin florek (135)
172 Alex Friesen vs Zane McIntyre (165)
175 Jonathan Iilahti vs Maxin Chudinov (195)
205 Sawyer Hannay vs Zach Trotman (210)

2011
29 Nicklas Jensen vs Alexander Khokhlachev (40)
71 David Honzik vs Anthony Camara (81)
90 Alexandre Grenier vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
101 Joe Labate vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
120 Ludwig Blomstrand vs Brian Ferlin (121)
150 Frankie Corrado vs Rob O'Gara (151)
180 Pathrik Westerholm vs Lars Volden (181)
210 Henrik Tommernes

 

2012
26 Brendan Gaunce vs Malcolm Subban (24)
57 Alexandre Mallet vs Matt Grzelcyk (85)
147 Ben Hutton vs Cody Payne (145)
177 Wesley Myron vs Matthew Benning (175)
207 Matthew Beattie vs Colton Hargrove (205)

 

2013
9 Bo Horvat vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
24 Hunter Shinkaruk vs BOS HAD NO PICK IN RANGE
85 Cole Cassels vs Peter Cehlarik (90)
115 Jordan Subban vs Ryan Fitzgerald (120)
145 Anton Cederholm vs Wiley Sherman (150)
175 Mike Williamson vs Anton Blidh (180)
205 Miles Liberati vs Mitchell Dempsey (210)

 

So when really breaking it down and comparing what Boston did to Vancouver in similar ranges I think we can see the answer would be no.  In fact, giving the picks he had, Gills actually drafted better than Boston did. 

 

Great Post. It makes me wonder why Benning had a reputation as a great scout when he first arrived here. I'm happy his drafting for the Canucks is at least better than during his time with the Bruins. 

[Nucker 67]

36 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

To be fair, Kassian is still playing in this league & Hodgson is retired.

 

 

Yes, I give full credit to Kassian for getting his life together.   

[Grape]

1 hour ago, kloubek said:

I would say that Benning is a better drafter and might have helped, but we were not going to be a "dynasty" regardless.  Even with GMMG at the helm we probably would have done ok if we didn't try to keep our window for the cup open for so long... which I'm assuming was ownership's decision. One year, sure - by trying to do so for the length of time we did completely depleted our prospect base and had crappy draft positions.

 

The 2011-2012 season wasn't bad by any stretch, but you could already see our age catching up with us, and getting blown out in the first round by the Kings should have been the wakeup call.  We should have dismantled everything, started a full rebuild (minus getting rid of the Sedins which likely wasn't possible) right away.  Had we done that, we would have had all these young guys already suitable for the NHL (and some coming into their prime) while the Sedins were still strong contributors and would have been contenders again maybe as of last year or perhaps even the year prior.  Instead we waited until the Sedins lost their game and now have to replace their production too. 

It was all bad decision making, but it is what it is.   We're well on our way now to being "great again".

Mind you, we had the best record in the league that year, so I'd call it more than "wasn't bad," even though we didn't do anything in the playoffs. 

 

Also, generally, no matter what the situation is, starting a rebuild right after having the best record is unheard of. Only in hindsight, it was bad decision making as we didn't win a cup. But we could all be sitting here saying the Caps should've traded Ovi back when he was a 60 goal 120 point player because they haven't won anything important since then. 

 

It's not like we were absolutely destined to be crap after that season, we still made the playoffs 2 of the next 3 seasons with very good records and capable teams to do something in the playoffs. 

[kloubek]

21 minutes ago, Grape said:

Mind you, we had the best record in the league that year, so I'd call it more than "wasn't bad," even though we didn't do anything in the playoffs. 

 

Also, generally, no matter what the situation is, starting a rebuild right after having the best record is unheard of. Only in hindsight, it was bad decision making as we didn't win a cup. But we could all be sitting here saying the Caps should've traded Ovi back when he was a 60 goal 120 point player because they haven't won anything important since then. 

 

It's not like we were absolutely destined to be crap after that season, we still made the playoffs 2 of the next 3 seasons with very good records and capable teams to do something in the playoffs. 

Ok fair - we had a good regular season, but we were absolutely manhandled by the Kings that playoff round.  It was obvious that we just didn't have "it" anymore.  Sure, maybe wait one more year to rebuild but even then we would have had a decent team in far quicker fashion.  You're right - hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy to say now right?

[ForsbergTheGreat]

Just now, kloubek said:

Ok fair - we had a good regular season, but we were absolutely manhandled by the Kings that playoff round. 

 

But it so did every team that year. And we were missing our top goal scorer. It was easy to write that off as just a hitting a good team on a roll. 

 

Just now, kloubek said:

It was obvious that we just didn't have "it" anymore.  Sure, maybe wait one more year to rebuild but even then we would have had a decent team in far quicker fashion.  You're right - hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy to say now right?

I think the earliest we could have really committed to a rebuild was after our early exit against the sharks. That summer we should have seem some major roster changes but instead got a coach swap in hopes we could band aid the problem and that failed. 

[MoneypuckOverlord]

3 hours ago, DrJockitch said:

Were the Bruins or Sabres a dynasty?

Well in Boston he was the assistant gm, and he did not have the final say in things so it was kind of a different situation.

[xereau]

We were picking deeper in those years, so it is hard to say.  I think that we might have had some surprising deeper picks.

 

But there were some successes from the Mike Gillis era.  Burrows and Hansen were arguably the best depth outside the box pickups in the NHL in the last 10 years.  Gillis got us closer than we have ever got, so please, quit selling the guy short and crap talking him years after he is gone?  Thanks.