Jim Benning's mid-season press conference

[Dr. Crossbar]

This season is a write off for me. I'm treating this season as an anomaly. It's way too problematic and challenging to solve things this season. It is a very good development year. 

 

I'm willing to roll JB and Green over to next season and start fresh in a more normal state. We'll be much better with Hoglander, Hawryluk, Juolevi, and Demko all taking the next step. The entire core will be better. Next season Podkolzin comes, hopefully Tryamkin, Rathbone ... AND we peel off some contracts. We'll have much more to work with. 

 

If we have the same start next season, I'll be much more on board for change.

 

Unpopular, I know, but this season IS unusual. I'd rather get this season over with, get back into a more normal state, and then reassess. 

 

[PunjabiCanucks]

Its either Markstrom or Demko ... can only keep 1 long term and tbh Demko is ready

Toffoli hurts because he scored so many against us, take his games against us out and he isnt as hyped

Schmidt is getting back to his habits in Vegas. Upgrade!!! 

 

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Ericksson, Myers, Beagle, Sutter, Roussell ---- over payments, plain and simple but Ericksson was to be worth 6mill, Jim didnt fail us Ericksson did

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Miller is a steal by Benning , as is Schmidt trade.

 

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Without Benning, some argue Jude Brackett, we don't have the propspect/ young talent.

 

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Benning came in with no prospects other then Horvat.

[J.I.A.H.N]

1 hour ago, Devron44 said:

I mean we are still trying to win with the players we have/had. Markstrom was a no brainer to me, why would you move him when you have a chance at playoffs which was a great experience for the young players btw. He was also good for Demko. In a perfect world you would have kept Marky one more year but it doesn’t work that way. 
 

We would still be in the same spot right now if he did trade those players away. None of the return would be ready to play right now. 
 

I don’t know man I think people read too much into an interview.

 

Losing those players was partly due to covid and that’s a fact. We also wouldn’t have traded for Toffoli if the nhl shutdown before the deadline. Sometimes things change. People are jumping the gun a bit here but I totally get that the message has changed a couple time over the course of his tenure. Part of that is on the owners not just JB 

Here is the thing. "IF" he had moved those vets for assets, then those assets would be here pushing for jobs, either now, or soon. Now, there is no way of knowing how good they would have been, but Benning's and Bracket's track record has been solid.

 

So....fast forward to this past summer, and Benning could have either kept the assets, or used those assets to rid us of Eriksson's, Roussell's, and possibly Beagle's (although I like Beagle and his contribution), but the point would have been, it would have given Benning options. Option's he did not have this year because of it.

 

Now, I would like to address the giving the young players Playoff experience....yes it did, and then he backed up by creating a lot of frustration amongst the players..........Aka, just look at how frustrated Miller has been. It is inconsistent at best.

 

To me, it reeks of being a Cluster &^%, with good, and bad, but it also reeks of Jimbo flying by the seat of his pants.........I am not happy with him............

 

Just imagine where we would be with out Jim getting lucky with Schmidt!

 

Lastly, Covid..............every team in the NHL has had to deal with that, none had the turn over we had, and it was only going to be a 3 million increase at best..........sure Covid did not help, but he went after OEL, and traded for Schmidt................just all very all over the place, and very inconsistent.

 

And talk about confusing................take a look at Juolevi's stats....or just use the eye test. IMO he has been very consistent, and yet they treat him like, I do not know what?

There is an advertisement for any NCAA free agent looking to sign here...............aka, they don't even treat their 1st rounder well here. And without any context, that is exactly how it will appear outwardly..............

 

Personally, JImbo has been screwing up too much lately

[combover]

29 minutes ago, danjr said:

Didn't like this presser. 
When asked the real hard questions, the only answers I heard were, BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Nothings changed. He’s been like that since was hired.

it’s just the sales pitch Has been proven to be bullsht.

“We live day to day” probably the stupidest thing a guy can say when your supposedly BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE.

then To cap it off with “this team will be real competitive in 2 years” 

just like the sales pitch we’d rebuild while staying competitive. 7 years later 5th worst winning %. 
my definition of “competitive” Is clearly different than this refool. 
guy needs to go. He’s the worst gm in the nhl right now. And has the stats to back it. 

[Nuck1991]

basically he doesnt wanna admit that he made mistakes and we are done for this year

[Devron]

Could have just posted this in the presser thread. 

[King Heffy]

I don't think it's fair to evaluate any of our D until Baumer is fired and replaced with a real coach.  Markstrom did play great for us, but is likely to start his decline in a year or two.  That contract will end up being an anchor.  Myers is fair value; he was the best UFA available that year and actually played pretty well for us in the playoffs if you ignore the terrible calls.  Beagle and Roussel got fair value to come to a bad team at a time we didn't have the players available to fill their roles.  Schmidt was a top 4 on one of the best teams in the league; he does not have negative value.  We may have taken a step back this year, but the core pieces are still together and improving together, while many of the contracts the OP is moaning about will expire in the next year or 2.

[Patrik Laine]

Your pulling your hair out?? Come on jimbo786 we both know your bald. There is nothing worse than a guy with no hair pretending he has hair. I gotta go, me and Fabio are getting our hair braided. 

[Jester13]

[CBH1926]

Benning, do we really need him?

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

10/10 thread. Would read again.

[Lancaster]

[camaro ss]

Best prospect pool we’ve ever had. Benning keeps finding gems through the draft. 

[Patrik Laine]

6 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

10/10 thread. Would read again.

Is this sarcasm 

[sassbs]

He lost me when he said green and the rest of the coaching staff are doing a good job.

 

after that comment, no doubt in my mind he needs to go!  Fire everyone!!!!!

[Junkyard Dog]

52 minutes ago, DSVII said:

oh yea I agree. 

 

ELC is just a spin on the concept of 'how you use your cap'. Ultimately you want players who produce on the cheap. But in general when you have stars, you have two window periods. The first is when they're on the ELCs, and the second window is when you build your core around them after they get paid.

Even then you have to consider the fact that these young players are also inexperienced. A lot of these cup winners last decade have gone through tough losses, even the Penguins(lost in the quarterfinals 1st time with that core and vs Detroit in the finals) and Hawks(3rd round prior to their cup wins and lost in the 2nd round twice after 1st cup win).
 

In theory of course you’d like to compete when your stars are on their ELC to make the most out of the cap but in reality it’s tough to rely on young players so much when they’re inexperienced. 
 

IMO if you want to compete with stars on your ELC you need a strong supporting cast of experienced and seasoned veterans who are good enough to be on a playoff team and know what it takes(have lived through the ups and downs). We have some of those types of veterans but not enough as evident as we only made it to the 2nd round last year. 
 

JB just needs to manage the cap better now that we have a core. Can’t have anymore losses in FA. He’s fortunate that most of these contracts are ending within the next 2 seasons. Anymore bad contracts we will be cutting into the primetime of our core(after they’ve signed). That’s if he’s still around. Who knows in this sort of environment.  Only thing that’s certain is that if there are changes they won’t happen till the off-season.

[Coconuts]

Interesting presser, but a lot of it seems pretty standard. Definitely some excuses and dodges in there, but JB's a pretty straight shooter and I'm inclined to believe that he believes at least some of what he's saying. 

 

I think almost any answer regarding coaching is a dodge at this point, him and Aqua have made it pretty clear they're not gonna come out and trash their coaching staff. I still expect Green to be allowed to walk at the end of the season, Benning was never going to throw him to the wolves in a media presser. That being said, even the possibility that he's got faith in this coaching beyond this season is troubling imo. 

 

Pearson's expressed interest in staying, JB's expressed interest in retaining him, but JB's also mentioned that he expects calls on players and that they'll go from there. That they haven't spoken to Pearson's camp yet leads me to assume what's done with him rests on how these next few weeks go. I expect we'll probably see him traded. 

 

The answer regarding Jake seems pretty cut and dry, I could see him being retained or shipped out. 

 

Our looking inward to improve the team lines up with what we've seen from Hoglander, Chatfield, Juolevi, and Michaelis getting looks. I expect we'll see more of the same next season. 

 

Nice to see Loui acknowledged as a bad contract. 

 

 

 

 

[DeNiro]

8 minutes ago, Silky mitts said:

Hope all you jimbo worshippers are wearing knee pads the length you guys are going defending him. Fans like this that allow incompetence to happen . 

Yes because fans whining clearly have an impact...

 

The Aquilinis are going to do what they wanna do. It has absolutely nothing to do with fans praising him on a message board.

 

As businessmen they like having new young exciting players to market every season. And yes you will keep tuning in and buying tickets and they know that.

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by DeNiro

[Pickly]

His lack of accountability is alarming. I don’t know if he was coached by Aquilini before hand on what or what not to say but he had that deer in headlights type vibe and fumbled his way through the whole thing. Continuously having excuses for everything and not willing to shoulder any sort of blame for any of the shortfalls speaks volumes about why we are where we are. He made is abundantly clear at the beginning of the year he didn’t expect the team to take a step back and boom, now he’s eating his words. All he had to do was say something along the lines of: “We are disappointed with the way the majority of the season has gone given how well we played last season. I don’t think anybody expected to take a step back this year and I understand if fans are frustrated. That being said we are seeing a lot of good things with a lot of our younger players and I still feel the future is bright.” Something as simple as that could have smoothed over a lot of things. Instead, we just live in a day to day world and we take it one day at a time. Christ. 

[Ballisticsports.]

49 minutes ago, Pickly said:

His lack of accountability is alarming. I don’t know if he was coached by Aquilini before hand on what or what not to say but he had that deer in headlights type vibe and fumbled his way through the whole thing. Continuously having excuses for everything and not willing to shoulder any sort of blame for any of the shortfalls speaks volumes about why we are where we are. He made is abundantly clear at the beginning of the year he didn’t expect the team to take a step back and boom, now he’s eating his words. All he had to do was say something along the lines of: “We are disappointed with the way the majority of the season has gone given how well we played last season. I don’t think anybody expected to take a step back this year and I understand if fans are frustrated. That being said we are seeing a lot of good things with a lot of our younger players and I still feel the future is bright.” Something as simple as that could have smoothed over a lot of things. Instead, we just live in a day to day world and we take it one day at a time. Christ. 

Excuses are the crutch that losers lean on  Now, that doesn't mean that everyone who loses, is a loser with an excuse. No, true winners are successful even in the face of defeat because they own their mistakes, learn from them, then leave them in the past.

The problem with excuses is that nobody believes them. Unless people are truly fools, they will not be stupid enough to believe  excuses. Maybe a couple of people who love him will nod their heads in agreement, or pat his back. But the vast majority of people will smell the BS a mile away.

 

Ninety-nine percent of the failures comes from people who have the habit of making excuses. – George W. Carve

Edited March 6, 2021 by ba;;isticsports