Jim Benning's mid-season press conference

[filthycanuck]

1 hour ago, Silky mitts said:

Extremely underwhelming for their selection spot . Are they not ? Especially with the picks around . 

Virtanen yes, considering the players that were picked immediately after him and the chances the team has given him. This is his 6th - 7th season, theres not much upside we are waiting for anymore. Hes had his chances with 2 coaches and he's been put in all 4 lines. Juolevi's sample size is small still, and his play is encouraging. If he ends up being a half decent top 4 d-man in a year or 2, his draft position is justified. Teams would take an every day top 4 dman all the time regardless of where they are drafted

[Provost]

5 hours ago, spur1 said:

You might want to mention Hoggy who was a second rounder. 

Ya, he would be covered on the part about 2nd and 3rd rounders having a decent success rate in the draft.  That is expected historically... the question is whether Benning is beating the average of having 1/3rd of his 2nd rounders and 1/4 of his 3rd rounders make it as NHL regulars.

It isn’t a steal to have those guys show up on the roster, that is expected at a certain rate.  
The post being responded to was about good players being found all through the drafts.

[spook007]

5 hours ago, 189lb enforcers? said:

Lol

 

The herd has caught up... looks good on you. 

 

No Silver lining awards for the GM anymore???  

You don’t say... 

 

Years of unintentionally picking where EP’s come from, with cap teams, were acceptable for a while, but now it’s all about results.  Benning is a lame duck GM. 
 

 

 

Hi @189lb enforcers? ... haven’t seen you in a while...

Might not agree on this one, but good to see you back nevertheless.

 

I want to see JB pull a few more rabbits out of the hat. In 2-3 years this years draft is going to be the ELC’s keeping the cap down to cover for Petey, Quinn and BB (possibly Bo or Miller as well). 
 

Big Question will be how can this team look in a year or two, when most of the vets have left... think we could be looking at an interesting and very competitive team. 

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by spook007

[Drakrami]

16 hours ago, Squamfan said:

lol what , so u only prepared to face 5 teams lol

 

 

 

Benning does realize.. Canucks are not special, it's happening to other teams as well. To even mention it is just dumb. 

[Dazzle]

Why why why is he thinking about extending Green? This was a great opportunity to see what's out there. If he could have said he'll look at all options, including Green, I'd be fine. At this point, there is no due diligence.

[spur1]

18 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

Why why why is he thinking about extending Green? This was a great opportunity to see what's out there. If he could have said he'll look at all options, including Green, I'd be fine. At this point, there is no due diligence.

No need to see what is out there. Green is solid. 

[Devron]

14 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

Why why why is he thinking about extending Green? This was a great opportunity to see what's out there. If he could have said he'll look at all options, including Green, I'd be fine. At this point, there is no due diligence.

He’s not going to say that even if it was true. At the end of the day Greens contract it up at the end of the year. He’s not going to say hey guys I think we are going to make some changes when it’s mid season. Anyone on the team can watch these pressers. I guess people were just expecting to feel better about things after this? Haha I don’t know why anyone cares. Literally changes need to be made in off-season. What is the point of rocking the boat. Canucks have a very slim chance here to make the playoffs but a chance nevertheless 

[Devron]

8 hours ago, janisahockeynut said:

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..............

Yeah I’m bummed about Joulevi not playing too. I want to know the facts. Is there a minimum games played for expansion. protection purposes or not. Or does he have to be protected regardless? As well it would be nice to know if some of it is due to protecting him a bit this year cause of all the injuries he’s had. I have no clarity on this one.

 

Also it doesn’t hurt for Benn to be playing so teams take notice if we do move him. But I’d rather just see OJ play. Hamonic is playing well now. Maybe he fits for a 1 year extension need a righty still 

[spook007]

23 minutes ago, Devron44 said:

He’s not going to say that even if it was true. At the end of the day Greens contract it up at the end of the year. He’s not going to say hey guys I think we are going to make some changes when it’s mid season. Anyone on the team can watch these pressers. I guess people were just expecting to feel better about things after this? Haha I don’t know why anyone cares. Literally changes need to be made in off-season. What is the point of rocking the boat. Canucks have a very slim chance here to make the playoffs but a chance nevertheless 

Spot on... 

Canucks, whether it be FA, Benning, Green or whoever are not going to start their dirty washing in a presser....

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by spook007

[Josepho]

2 hours ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

As great as it sounds to just shed all that weight, they do provide key services for this team.

 

Sutter - plays a good 15 minutes a night, 5-on-5 nothing exciting but he wins key faceoffs and is one of our best penalty killer. We'd need a 3rd line center to replace him and to play top PK minutes, not sure who's going to do that...

 

Beagle - as a 4C, he plays 12-15 minutes because again he's one of the best faceoff men in the league and plays hard PK minutes. Again, we don't have anyone in the organization to replace him.

Roussel - he can absolutely go, doesn't bring anything to this team, no grit really and while he's on the PK, just about anyone can do what he does, he's not fantastic defensively or skating-wise, I think Hoglander would do a brilliant job in his role but maybe even Jake or someone a bit more "expendable" who can skate well.

 

JV - tough one, I think JB is going to see what Virtanen brings over the next few games until the TD. If he scores more he'll stay, but if that 2 goal outing was a flash in the pan, I think he's gone to the Ducks and rightly so.

 

Pearson - tricky one again because he scores at a 15-goal, 40 point pace, plays 2nd unit PK minutes and occasionally PP minutes. Like Horvat he does it all, to a lesser extent. He fills a lot of this team's needs, fights hard along the boards and is a big veteran presence now for the younger guys (like a poor man's Miller). It's all well and good to say Podkolzin is going to come in next season and play 2nd line minutes, but can he defend as well, is he as strong along the boards and will he play 2nd unit PK minutes? I don't think so. Pearson brings a lot more to this team than just offence so will be another void to replace.

 

Eriksson - of course he brings nothing to the team but a big cap but I doubt JB will be able to move him yet again, he's tried for years.

 

Edler - I think the Canucks deserve it to Edler to do whatever he wants. If he wants to move to a contender, then trade him. If he wants to stay and retire a Canuck, re-sign him. Best defenceman this team has ever had, he's been through it all and is the Sedin-equivalent of a defenceman for this organization so they better do him right. Of course, we could get a juicy 1st round pick/decent prospect for him (maybe), and unlike the forwards, we have Juolevi waiting in the wings who could replace some of his minutes nicely, especially next season, but JB owes it to Edler to do whatever he wants.

 

So yes, it'd be lovely to free up some cap space and move Sutter, Pearson, Beagle, Roussel and maybe even Virtanen, but then that's our best faceoff men and penalty killers all gone in one fell swoop, and we have no good centers in our organization to replace the hard minutes Sutter and Beagle play. JB would have to look the UFAs to find someone and quite frankly there's not many great defensive centers out there.

 

If he's really smart, he'll trade Virtanen to someone (+/- a package) for a decent young 3rd line center. Tierny has come up time and time again as a perfect 3C for this team, and he might be impossible to pry, but someone like him would be a perfect replacement.

 

I'd be happy to keep one of Sutter or Pearson in that vein but really need to trade Roussel and Virtanen (if he continues to slump).

Through good pro scouting, teams like Toronto/Vegas/Tampa are actually getting effective veteran players cheaply. We're the only team that spends an obscene amount on what isn't even a good bottom 6. Literally look at anyone else's bottom half of their lineup on capfriendly, even a team like Edmonton with a cheap bottom 6 is getting far better results than they were in 2016-2018.

 

It's great that we've managed to draft good players with high picks (that we've mainly gotten from Jim's teams being complete garbage), but actually supporting players is what separates the well-run successful teams from the poorly-run teams, and Benning has clearly shown very little ability to do such a thing.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Josepho

[CanucksJay]

4 hours ago, Silky mitts said:

Extremely underwhelming for their selection spot . Are they not ? Especially with the picks around . 

I feel like Jake's draft year was a troubling year for many GMs. 

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Look directly at the picks before Jake. 

You have Bennett and Dal Colle. 

You then have Hayden Fleury directly after Jake. (are all the other GMs morons too?) 

The question is, should Benning have known to go with the smaller guys like Ehlers or Nylander or did he want size? 

There's also guys like Pasternak and Larkin sprinkled throughout first round. 

Benning would have to go way off the board for them. 

Sometimes picks don't work out as planned. Was NJ and Philly stupid for taking Hirschier and Patrick when Pettersson was available? 

[Josepho]

16 minutes ago, CanucksJay said:

I feel like Jake's draft year was a troubling year for many GMs. 

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Look directly at the picks before Jake. 

You have Bennett and Dal Colle. 

You then have Hayden Fleury directly after Jake. (are all the other GMs morons too?) 

The question is, should Benning have known to go with the smaller guys like Ehlers or Nylander or did he want size? 

There's also guys like Pasternak and Larkin sprinkled throughout first round. 

Benning would have to go way off the board for them. 

Sometimes picks don't work out as planned. Was NJ and Philly stupid for taking Hirschier and Patrick when Pettersson was available? 

Sure every team has their misses, but the pro-Benning arguments are that his drafting is good enough to make up all of his other shortcomings. You can simultaneously also brush up any positive things Benning has done outside of drafting (i.e. "a broken clock is right twice a day" with the miller trade or "vegas came to him" with the schmidt deal), this reeks of self-serving bias and you have to keep your logic consistent.

 

I personally don't think Benning's drafting overcomes every other fault of his, and this team's record over the past half-decade speaks for itself.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Josepho

[spook007]

7 minutes ago, Josepho said:

Sure every team has their misses, but the pro-Benning arguments are that his drafting is good enough to make up all of his other shortcomings.

 

I personally don't think they have, and this team's record over the past half-decade speaks for itself.

Without looking for an argument, but did you expect him to draft players and 2 years after they should be competitive? 

Surely if you make a team through the draft, it'll take longer than that.

Except for JV (who has played lots  of hockey )and OJ (both whom which has been beaten to death), what drafting are you unhappy about?

How many NHL players did expect him to draft each year? 

Edited March 6, 2021 by spook007

[Josepho]

5 minutes ago, spook007 said:

Did you expect him to draft players and 2 years after they should be competitive? 

If you make a team through the draft it'll take longer than that.

Except for JV (who has played lots  of hockey )and OJ (both whom which has been beaten to death), what are you unhappy about?

How many NHL players did expect him to draft each year? 

Hoglander, Demko and MAYBE Woo if we're lucky are likely the only 2nd rounders that are going to stick in the NHL and Gaudette is currently the only late round pick to even be an NHL regular. Shrugging off JV/OJ like that is extremely flawed, because the team is unquestionably in a significantly better spot if those picks are made correctly, this is like if I shrug off Benning's best trades and talk about how they've been beaten to death by Pro-Benning people.

 

How many NHL players I expect an NHL GM to draft every year is irrelevant in this case, I'm holding Benning to a higher standard here because the discussion was about how Benning's drafting overcomes all of his other deficiencies. For Jim to overcome his awful track record outside of drafting, he has to be drafting multiple impact players consistently, year-after-year. He has not done that.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Josepho

[CanucksJay]

6 minutes ago, Josepho said:

Sure every team has their misses, but the pro-Benning arguments are that his drafting is good enough to make up all of his other shortcomings. You can simultaneously also brush up any positive things Benning has done outside of drafting (i.e. "a broken clock is right twice a day" with the miller trade or "vegas came to him" with the schmidt deal), this reeks of self-serving bias and you have to keep your logic consistent.

 

I personally don't think Benning's drafting overcomes every other fault of his, and this team's record over the past half-decade speaks for itself.

Benning's biggest mistakes occurred in his first few seasons signing guys like Eriksson and Sutter and giving large amounts to Beagle and Roussel. 

I was not a fan of those moves. Even this year, I was not a fan of the Holtby signing but one could argue that Holtby allowed Demko some breathing room to develop into a true number 1 when looking shaky to start the season (whereas I thought Demko showed enough to be a clear number 1 after last playoffs) 

The reason I give Benning slack is that he did draft absolute home runs in Boeser, Pettersson, Hughes, Hoglander. 

Juolevi looks like he'll be a solid top 4 dman.  We are getting good vibes about Pod. 

Jake at this point looks like a disappointment compared to his draft position but still an NHLer. 

I think letting Tanev, Markstrom, Toffoli leave this year was the price paid for Sutter, Beagle, Rousel, Eriksson which hurts. But that was a mistake from many years prior. Him letting them go this year to me shows that he's learned his lesson. 

His plan is to save the cap space and build around the young core which is absolutely what he should be doing. 

Firing him would be like firing him for a mistake made 3 years ago rather than seeing that since then, he's drafted well and learned from those bad signings and making the correct moves this year. 

 

[spook007]

2 minutes ago, Josepho said:

Hoglander, Demko and MAYBE Woo if we're lucky are likely the only 2nd rounders that are going to stick in the NHL and Gaudette is currently the only late round pick to even be an NHL regular. Shrugging off JV/OJ like that is extremely flawed, because the team is unquestionably in a significantly better spot if those picks are made correctly.

 

How many NHL players I expect an NHL GM to draft every year is irrelevant in this case, I'm holding Benning to a higher standard here because the discussion was about how Benning's drafting overcomes all of his other deficiencies. For Jim to overcome his awful track record outside of drafting, he has to be drafting multiple impact players consistently, year-after-year. He has not done that.

I think its fair to mention a few more players as good possibilities... Lind, Rathbone, Costmar, Madden, Jasek,, Tryamkin... all also drafted by Benning

[CanucksJay]

11 minutes ago, spook007 said:

Without looking for an argument, but did you expect him to draft players and 2 years after they should be competitive? 

Surely if you make a team through the draft, it'll take longer than that.

Except for JV (who has played lots  of hockey )and OJ (both whom which has been beaten to death), what drafting are you unhappy about?

How many NHL players did expect him to draft each year? 

That's a good point. Did we expect Hughes and Pettersson to be this good this fast? 

I'm glad they were immediate stars but a 5th and 7th pick normally take a few years to develop. 

If they went the normal trajectory for development, guys like Eriksson, Beagle Sutter, Roussel would all be average veteran players on a bottom feeding team that is rebuilding. 

The fact that Hughes and Pettersson were immediate impact players made the contrast in the bottom 6 greater. 

If JB came out during Pettersson draft year and said he doesn't see the team being competitive until 2022 and everything before then is bonus and set the right expectations, would we be this upset? 

 

[Josepho]

13 minutes ago, CanucksJay said:

Benning's biggest mistakes occurred in his first few seasons signing guys like Eriksson and Sutter and giving large amounts to Beagle and Roussel. 

I was not a fan of those moves. Even this year, I was not a fan of the Holtby signing but one could argue that Holtby allowed Demko some breathing room to develop into a true number 1 when looking shaky to start the season (whereas I thought Demko showed enough to be a clear number 1 after last playoffs) 

The reason I give Benning slack is that he did draft absolute home runs in Boeser, Pettersson, Hughes, Hoglander. 

Juolevi looks like he'll be a solid top 4 dman.  We are getting good vibes about Pod. 

Jake at this point looks like a disappointment compared to his draft position but still an NHLer. 

I think letting Tanev, Markstrom, Toffoli leave this year was the price paid for Sutter, Beagle, Rousel, Eriksson which hurts. But that was a mistake from many years prior. Him letting them go this year to me shows that he's learned his lesson. 

His plan is to save the cap space and build around the young core which is absolutely what he should be doing. 

Firing him would be like firing him for a mistake made 3 years ago rather than seeing that since then, he's drafted well and learned from those bad signings and making the correct moves this year. 

 

Juolevi is playing OKAY with extremely sheltered minutes and he turns 23 this season -- he very likely will top out as a bottom pairer at best.

 

I don't think he's learned his lesson and nothing in Benning's track-record indicates cohesive strategy or planning. In the last two offseasons, he's signed Myers/Ferland/Holtby all to overvalued deals, and got bailed out hard by Ferland going to LTIR. Letting Tanev, Markstrom and Toffoli leave (aka actual good players) doesn't show that he's learned his lesson from overpaying what are bad players -- it's only shown that he's been forced to pay the consequences for overpaying what are bad players. He was clearly trying to sign Markstrom and Toffoli in particular, and lost them because he showed no form of proactivity in negotiations and had too much money allocated on other garbage, there was no "lesson learning" here.

 

Additionally, it's also his ability to literally never find any sort of bargain on the market that's sinking him and preventing him from improving the team -- look at how much better Toronto is with what Spezza/Thornton are doing there very cheaply.

 

So here's my question, what's he going to do with this cap space to "build around this young core", and why do you think it's positive? Specifically, what gives you the confidence in his ability to bring in a quality, affordable bottom 6 and fill out the rest of the defence. We'll need someone to replace Edler eventually, and we still haven't really found such a player 7 years into his tenure.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Josepho

[CanucksJay]

1 minute ago, Josepho said:

Juolevi is playing OKAY with extremely sheltered minutes and he turns 23 this season -- he very likely will top out as a bottom pairer at best.

 

I don't think he's learned his lesson and nothing in Benning's track-record indicates cohesive strategy or planning. In the last two offseasons, he's signed Myers/Ferland/Holtby all to overvalued deals, and got bailed out hard by Ferland going to LTIR. Letting Tanev, Markstrom and Toffoli leave (aka actual good players) doesn't show that he's learned his lesson from overpaying what are bad players.

 

Additionally, it's also his ability to literally never find any sort of bargain on the market that's sinking him and preventing him from improving the team -- look at how much better Toronto is with what Spezza/Thornton are doing there very cheaply.

 

So here's my question, what's he going to do with this cap space to "build around this young core", and why do you think it's positive? Specifically, what gives you the confidence in his ability to bring in a quality, affordable bottom 6 and fill out the rest of the defence. We'll need someone to replace Edler eventually, and we still haven't really found such a player 7 years into his tenure.

I think labelling Juolevi's ceiling as bottom 6 is short sighted. He's had many injuries that hampered his development but is looking very solid in his rookie year. 

Ferland LTIR may be seen as a blessing for you but I see his injury as a detriment. 

I would rather have a healthy Ferland running around banging bodies and chipping in goals. It would also allow guys like Jake to play bigger too. 

So the question is more, should Benning have known that Ferland wasn't fit to play? 

Maybe Benning thought if he's fit to play, he'll help the team but if not, he'll be LTIR? 

Myers? I absolutely love him on this team so we see things differently there. 

 

You are right though about not knowing whether he has learned from his mistakes for future signings with the capspace.

 

There is a trust gap for you in that you think he'll make bad signings once the current bad signings come off the books (hence better to get rid of him now) 

I see it more like he has his fingerprints all over the young core of this team. He felt the pain of losing some key players due to his earlier blunders. His priority is the young core. He will sign them and then fill the rest of his roster as required (being smarter with contracts this time around) 

I already see that with signings like Hamonic and Holty (on a 2 year). 

To me, I'd rather go with the guy that constructed the young core of this team and that made mistakes in the past but seems to have learned from it

 

[Josepho]

28 minutes ago, CanucksJay said:

I think labelling Juolevi's ceiling as bottom 6 is short sighted. He's had many injuries that hampered his development but is looking very solid in his rookie year. 

Ferland LTIR may be seen as a blessing for you but I see his injury as a detriment. 

I would rather have a healthy Ferland running around banging bodies and chipping in goals. It would also allow guys like Jake to play bigger too. 

So the question is more, should Benning have known that Ferland wasn't fit to play? 

Maybe Benning thought if he's fit to play, he'll help the team but if not, he'll be LTIR? 

Myers? I absolutely love him on this team so we see things differently there. 

 

You are right though about not knowing whether he has learned from his mistakes for future signings with the capspace.

 

There is a trust gap for you in that you think he'll make bad signings once the current bad signings come off the books (hence better to get rid of him now) 

I see it more like he has his fingerprints all over the young core of this team. He felt the pain of losing some key players due to his earlier blunders. His priority is the young core. He will sign them and then fill the rest of his roster as required (being smarter with contracts this time around) 

I already see that with signings like Hamonic and Holty (on a 2 year). 

To me, I'd rather go with the guy that constructed the young core of this team and that made mistakes in the past but seems to have learned from it

 

What about Ferland makes you think he'd be "chipping in goals"? He literally had 0 goals in his last 24 games in Carolina and 1 in his last 38 if you extend that to his time here, this was absolutely an asset trending in the wrong direction and he looked very sluggish here.

 

And yes, Ferland's concussion issues were well-documented before he signed here.

 

I don't actually hate Myers as much as a lot of the fanbase, but he's overpaid and the contract will only continue to age worse. Most players do decline significantly before they turn 34 (which is when his contract ends).

 

Being "smarter with contracts" isn't the only issue here, targeting the correct players is also the problem here. Signing bad players to cheap, short deals doesn't improve the team. Free agent acquisitions can't just be good OR cost-efficient -- they have to be both.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Josepho