The Defense of JB and co

[GB5]

3 hours ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

Well that part of the plan didn't work out well.  It stunk (piled on losses after that first season.  Worse records in years 2 to 4 than even under coach Tortorella).

Pretty much what I said in my next sentence that you omitted from your quote.........

[Hairy Kneel]

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

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We were handcuffed by their last 3 or 4 years. On the verge of retirement we tried to build around them like they were young kids. You can't build around aging vets.

[khay]

Injecting quality youth every season. That is the most important metric for evaluating a GM on a rebuilding team followed by upward trajectory (as measured by say, points per game).

 

JB did inject quality youth. The team improved every season since 2017 up until this abnormal season. He doesn't need to be defended for some of the misses on his signings during the retooling and rebuilding years.  

 

Now, the job gets even harder.

 

Inject youth (continue to draft well) while adding roster players to help the team compete for the Cup.

 

 

[khay]

3 hours ago, Maddogy said:

The biggest mistake J.B. made was he thought he had more time with the retool/rebuild. He did not anticipate the Pettersson pick and the Hughes pick. That's why he overpaid and signed all those veteran players on the bottom 6 for lengthy contracts. He also thought that he had at least  6 years and therefore the Eriksson contract would not be an issue by the time the prospects can take over. 

 

 

 

 

I wouldn't call that a mistake. Well, unless he could see the future, how can he know in 2016 (signing of Eriksson), that he would pick Pettersson and Hughes in 2017, 2018 and that they would become elite franchise players?

 

Other signings like Myers, Roussel, and Beagle were needed to improve the bottom 6 and defence depth. Otherwise, we would see Chatfield on RD and Chaput and Megna on the 4th line.

 

 

[Fred65]

4 minutes ago, Hairy Kneel said:

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

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We were handcuffed by their last 3 or 4 years. On the verge of retirement we tried to build around them like they were young kids. You can't build around aging vets.

Absolutely correct IMO .... however they could prepare for the retirement. They filled the roster with doubtful skill, long term expensive  contracts with untradeable terms and jettisoned draft picks. None of that was necessary

 

[Nuxfanabroad]

6 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Since 2003 Colorado has missed the playoffs 8 times. Since 2003 Vancouver has missed the playoffs 7 times. 
 

Since 2003 Colorado has won 8 playoff rounds including this year. Since 2003 Vancouver has also won 8 playoff rounds. 

Since 2009 Colorado has picked in the top 10 of the draft 7 times, with 1 player selected first overall and 1 player selected second overall. Since 2009 Vancouver has picked in the top 10 of the draft 6 times, with their highest pick being 5th overall. 

 

Obviously at this moment Colorado has a much more exciting team and has a chance at winning the Cup this year while Vancouver failed to make the playoffs. But if you go back 17 years the success of both teams up until this year is quite similar. Their draft trajectory is also quite similar with Colorado having the luxury of picking much higher in the draft on several occasions since 2009. 
 

I would say Vancouver is around 2 years behind Colorado. The make up of both teams looks similar if you look at the young core of players. MacKinnon makes Colorado a much better team but when he was Pettersson’s age he wasn’t dominating as he is right now. He won the Calder but so did Petey.  MacKinnon didn’t become dominant until his 5th year in the league. He also was a #1 overall pick.  Vancouver has never had the luxury of picking first overall. Nevertheless let’s see where Petey is at in his 5th year. I’m sure he will be a more exciting and better player than he is right now. 
 

At the end of the day the biggest difference for Colorado is they have been able to build a superior team around their young core. Benning hasn’t been able to do that yet. But he has been able to build his young core through the draft similar to Colorado. Let’s see what happens over the next two years. Maybe Benning will surprise us. 

 

Thanks..awesome post.

[Nuxfanabroad]

14 minutes ago, Hairy Kneel said:

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

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We were handcuffed by their last 3 or 4 years. On the verge of retirement we tried to build around them like they were young kids. You can't build around aging vets.

That said, I like that we never went into any season with the absolute intent of nosediving. As injuries(lack of depth), nasty travel, etc..wore the team down each season, we'd fall back. But I personally like that they always gave their best.

 

So the twins had such an impressive send-off. & now they could return to help build a very solid team again. With their character, believe they'd do all that's humanly possible to see this through. There's the highest level of trust between our fanbase, & these two high-quality blokes.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

40 minutes ago, Hairy Kneel said:

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

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Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

 

We were handcuffed by their last 3 or 4 years. On the verge of retirement we tried to build around them like they were young kids. You can't build around aging vets.

Definately NOT handcuffed in their first year with Benning.  Each of those guys were in the top ten in total points & were a large reason the team rebounded to a 100+ point regular season & playoff berth.

[Hairy Kneel]

2 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

Definately NOT handcuffed in their first year with Benning.  Each of those guys were in the top ten in total points & were a large reason the team rebounded to a 100+ point regular season & playoff berth.

They're defense kept trending downward.

[Nurnge]

AS I see it .

1. I like JB but he does seem to go sideways some times . He was new to being a GM when he got here so some things were inevitable I guess . Not using the Cap effectively when after the 100 point season was the anomaly not going to be the norm . Linden said Rebuild and shortly after he left . while JB kept trying to retool . Wished he would have gotten more draft picks not less as He and/or his team has been really good at picks . Not all home runs But some and lots of promising players . [ Hope to see some them mature in Abby .  Utica was hard for me to fallow ]  . and yes I think some of his bottom 6 signings could have been different but not all of them as some have suggested .

2. JB has done a Fantastic job building a young core . 

3. JB needs to be a better communicator or find someone to help out there .that appears to be one of the things that Linden was very good at and I think should be replaced 

4. Don't really like to talk about the good the bad and the ugly of the Canucks these last 7 years as most of you know way more than I do and Canuck management knows way more than all of us [ I hope ] .  But it is nice to write out my thoughts sometime so thanks for reading . could say so much more but I will stop here

[IBatch]

2 hours ago, Hairy Kneel said:

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

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Sedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin'sSedin's

 

We were handcuffed by their last 3 or 4 years. On the verge of retirement we tried to build around them like they were young kids. You can't build around aging vets.

That's a lot of Sedins.   Personally i'm glad we took the high road with all the last core guys.    Glad they retired Canucks, and glad somehow JB managed to fix most of our pool issues despite what he was faced with.    The Sedins will be two of the greatest players we've had for quite some time most likely.    Sure the HHOF will be calling sometime for both of them too.   We did have a chance for 7-8 years while they wore our jersey.   Can't say that for a lot of other players these days. 

[IBatch]

1 hour ago, Nurnge said:

AS I see it .

1. I like JB but he does seem to go sideways some times . He was new to being a GM when he got here so some things were inevitable I guess . Not using the Cap effectively when after the 100 point season was the anomaly not going to be the norm . Linden said Rebuild and shortly after he left . while JB kept trying to retool . Wished he would have gotten more draft picks not less as He and/or his team has been really good at picks . Not all home runs But some and lots of promising players . [ Hope to see some them mature in Abby .  Utica was hard for me to fallow ]  . and yes I think some of his bottom 6 signings could have been different but not all of them as some have suggested .

2. JB has done a Fantastic job building a young core . 

3. JB needs to be a better communicator or find someone to help out there .that appears to be one of the things that Linden was very good at and I think should be replaced 

4. Don't really like to talk about the good the bad and the ugly of the Canucks these last 7 years as most of you know way more than I do and Canuck management knows way more than all of us [ I hope ] .  But it is nice to write out my thoughts sometime so thanks for reading . could say so much more but I will stop here

I am still waiting to see what Linden said and what the divide is.   Yes where there is smoke there is fire but nothing has been actually substantiated yet.   It does fit the narrative.   And obviously something was amiss because the owners chose JB over whatever exactly it was Linden was proposing.   But nobody knows what that exactly was either do they?    Wasn't it Linden who was in full support of not asking anyone to waive?   Some more conjecture.   And against playing the kids?  More conjecture.    Do look forward to the time when a tell all is revealed.    Linden is so popular (and should be) in this fan base - he's got enough sense and respect not to make any waves.    He could wave his magic wand right now and have literally thousands of fans picketing against JB right now if he wanted to. 

[Hairy Kneel]

21 minutes ago, IBatch said:

That's a lot of Sedins.   Personally i'm glad we took the high road with all the last core guys.    Glad they retired Canucks, and glad somehow JB managed to fix most of our pool issues despite what he was faced with.    The Sedins will be two of the greatest players we've had for quite some time most likely.    Sure the HHOF will be calling sometime for both of them too.   We did have a chance for 7-8 years while they wore our jersey.   Can't say that for a lot of other players these days. 

I agree with what the twins contributed to our Canucks, but do not consider their last few years as contributing to the rebuild. They took a lot of cap and ice time. Of course I'm being more objective about their roles, more the cost loss ratio to the rebuild. I think they'll be in the HOF for sure, but we spent so much to keep their playoff dream alive. 

[Me_]

Button has Hughes going 8OA21 to LAK…

If he's still available…

 

LAK

Virtanen

Something else

9OA21

 

VAN

8OA21

 

I just feel Virtanen could thrive in a city where he can get lost…

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Me_

[Alflives]

12 minutes ago, Me_ said:

Button has Hughes going 8OA21 to LAK…

If he's still available…

 

LAK

Virtanen

Something else

9OA21

 

VAN

8OA21

 

I just feel Virtanen could thrive in a city where he can get lost…

 

It would be great to get Luke Hughes, but I think he’s gone top five.  Plus, Jake likely has no value, and we will buy him out.  If your scenario does occur (would be cool, of course) then OJ might be the cost of switching picks.  

[Fred65]

11 minutes ago, Alflives said:

It would be great to get Luke Hughes, but I think he’s gone top five.  Plus, Jake likely has no value, and we will buy him out.  If your scenario does occur (would be cool, of course) then OJ might be the cost of switching picks.  

I'd do that in a heartbeat

[Arrow 1983]

7 hours ago, Bob.Loblaw said:

Maybe you just don't understand what asset management is?  Every transaction has its opportunity cost.  When the Oilers draft McDavid, they chose to give up Eichel.  When they signed McDavid to that monster contract, they probably gave up a decent depth player to the cap.

 

Jim Benning acts like a scout.  In the summers, he sees players like Beagle, Roussel, Eriksson etc. and sees talented players.  I mean, that was poor scouting, but according to you that wasn't his fault either.  In the winters, he sees Tanner Pearson.  Do you know what most others saw?  Cap room, roster spots, and draft picks.  Benning has shown to be a pretty good drafter, and yet he almost never trades for draft picks.  Unless Pearson absolutely ramps it up and revives his career, he is NOT an indispensable player.  He was surely worth a second-round draft pick in a seller-friendly deadline.  Instead he chose to re-sign, which sacrifices both an extra draft pick and a chunk out of our limited cap room.

 

Benning works for an owner who obviously wants the team to make the playoffs each year.  You speak as though Benning intended to rebuild in September.  The bare minimum of a rebuild requires trading for draft picks at the deadline and showing some discipline in free agency to save cap room for the future core.  Benning has never done a rebuild.  "This is year 2 and by our 4th (2017-18) or 5th (2018-19) I expect that we are right there with the elite teams in the league." “The bottom line is our goal is win games and to be competitive to make the playoffs. That’s what we’re here for.” The second quote was from 2018.  Benning wishes we made the playoffs 4-5 times.  God knows he went into each season trying.

How long if ever does a second rounder come in to this line up an contributes.

Pearson will benefit this team now and has decent chemistry with Horvat.

Is he indispensable NO.

But would I give him up for a draft pick NO.

This team needs to start winning now.

Pods and hogs are on elc contracts

Hughes and Pettersson are probably going to be on 2-3 year bridge deals.

A second rounder might come in and help the Canucks in 2-3 years if he is another Hogs. But most 2nd rounders don't even play 500 games. So yes I understand asset management.

On another point, I asked is it JBs fault? It is a question. You seem to have a problem with so I ask you directly is it his fault. He has to own his mistakes but is it his fault that these players refuse to bring there game. Is it his fault that these players have become complacent.

I want you to consider Boeser for a moment. His first season he was shooting like a sniper his second he couldn't buy a goal. The season after the stories came out that he worked on his shot all off season.

How about the Sedins, they where off season work horses.

Hughes is a prime example the organization has to offer him ideas to help his defensive game the can even provide him a trainer but at the end of the day it is Hughes that will need to and want to become better defensively.

This goes for Virtanen as well. The Canucks have given him optimal opportunities to achieve success but he just hasn't taken it or understood it his up to him to take the next strides

 

So I pose the question again directly to you and all that would blame Benning who's fault is it when a player doesn't produce to their potential.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Arrow 1983

[wallstreetamigo]

10 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Since 2003 Colorado has missed the playoffs 8 times. Since 2003 Vancouver has missed the playoffs 7 times. 
 

Since 2003 Colorado has won 8 playoff rounds including this year. Since 2003 Vancouver has also won 8 playoff rounds. 

Since 2009 Colorado has picked in the top 10 of the draft 7 times, with 1 player selected first overall and 1 player selected second overall. Since 2009 Vancouver has picked in the top 10 of the draft 6 times, with their highest pick being 5th overall. 

 

Obviously at this moment Colorado has a much more exciting team and has a chance at winning the Cup this year while Vancouver failed to make the playoffs. But if you go back 17 years the success of both teams up until this year is quite similar. Their draft trajectory is also quite similar with Colorado having the luxury of picking much higher in the draft on several occasions since 2009. 
 

I would say Vancouver is around 2 years behind Colorado. The make up of both teams looks similar if you look at the young core of players. MacKinnon makes Colorado a much better team but when he was Pettersson’s age he wasn’t dominating as he is right now. He won the Calder but so did Petey.  MacKinnon didn’t become dominant until his 5th year in the league. He also was a #1 overall pick.  Vancouver has never had the luxury of picking first overall. Nevertheless let’s see where Petey is at in his 5th year. I’m sure he will be a more exciting and better player than he is right now. 
 

At the end of the day the biggest difference for Colorado is they have been able to build a superior team around their young core. Benning hasn’t been able to do that yet. But he has been able to build his young core through the draft similar to Colorado. Let’s see what happens over the next two years. Maybe Benning will surprise us. 

 

Going back 17 years will average out almost every team in the league to a certain degree though. Its far too long to compare.

 

Vancouver is nowhere near as good as Colorado on the ice or in how they havebuilt out their team at this point. I understand why people need to go back two decades to try to justify that they are but cmon.

 

Colorado and Vancouver do have some similar core players, specifically at forward. Their defense is built around several top young players. Ours has 1 who is actually pretty one dimensional at this point. A d a bunch of 30 plus guys who are not likely to be a contributing part of this teams cup contending window.

 

The Canucks are not at this point 2 years away from for sure being a dominant team. It actually wont take many more mistakes to force a whole new core rebuild at least to some degree.

 

I would take Colorado's roster andcoaching over ours 100 times out of 100.

 

 

[Alienhuggyflow]

16 hours ago, Arrow 1983 said:

After reading what I wrote I have found my conclusion.

 

It is my understanding of the re-tool re-build method that we have witness over these years.

 

JB had no choice. He couldn't tear it down. There was nothing to tear it down to (no one to fill those spots)  and nobody he could trade to make it seem like a tear down. So he let the natural progression of the team take place. The contracts he couldn't trade ran out. The core aged and got worse and the benefit was JB could do what he new best, draft young talent. Everything else was a means to ice a team and improve the prospect pool if possible with the little he had to work with all in the name of keeping us the fan engaged. 

The number one issue that bugs me about the anti- Benning crowd is how they ignore or don't understand the mess that Benning inherited. 

He took over a team that was clearly on a downswing full of players past their prime who had little value and full nmc. Even if he was allowed to rebuild the only real moveable asset (Kesler forced him to work with 2 teams as opposed to a team like the Avs who Duchene, ROR among others to parlay into assets.

He was also mandated to try to win and actually did just that his first season. 

Since he wasn't allowed to do a full re-build and the fact we only had a few players under the age of 26 and easily the worst prospect pool, the only way to transition to younger players while trying to build the prospect pool was to move picks other than the 1sts to trade for younger players like Sven, Vey, etc, all while still trying to keep the team competitive while the twins were still here.

 

That's a task no GM let alone a rookie with a meddling owner and a prez loyal to the aging core wouldn't find daunting.

 

Once the twins retired and we bottomed out there was no way the prospect pool was ready or deep enough to add from within the only option was to sign ufas as place-holders while he continued to build up the youth. 

 

Sure some trades early were a miss but to his credit, he was able to rectify some of them and since he traded Motte for Vaneck he has arguably won every trade since.

Before covid when he traded for TT there was a plan and expected cap space to retain him and also got extremely unlucky with Ferland. Imagine the difference those two would have made this season.

Last offseason he made all the right choices while adding Nate and Hamonic while not anchoring the team with aging contracts to Tanev and Marky.

He did all that without being forced to trade assets to unload contracts and now has the option to do so with LE at a much cheaper cost if he wants to add this summer, plus a few other ways that wont really hurt long-term.

Next season we are in a great spot to add to the fantastic core he's assembled.

One only needs to look at the other team's that have rebuilt in the same time frame to see how much better off we are and unlike them, we had no top 4 pick or assets that were used to snag 1st round picks or young players.

We also have seen that our young core is able to elevate their game in the playoffs and even before we add in Podz and Rathbone or whatever pieces he adds in a normal season where we don't have a totally impossible schedule or a whole team get covid, we would have most likely been a playoff team this season.

 

When I look at teams like the leafs, oilers, flames, jets, habs, devils, sabres, etc and compare our core, prospects and long-term cap, I see us clearly ahead and lump us with the Avs, Canes,  etc. Not saying we are them right now but we are certainly on the way with a few good moves and the young talent joining panning out from being there. 

 

 

[Crabcakes]

Cudo's to the OP who attempted a very ambitious post.  I tried it once myself and it's not easy.

 

I think it's true that if you isolate some of the moves that Benning made like the Sutter trade and Eriksson signing, that at the time, people were happy with them.  All you have to do is check out the comments at the beginning of each of their threads.  

 

To paraphrase the first page of the Sutter thread ....[Sutter was seen as a shutdown centre who could shelter Horvat.  People were predicting up to 50 points.  Sutter was the 3C on Pitt behind Crosby and Malkin and just wasn't playing with good players.  Even so, he put up 21-12-33 in his final year in Pitt.  Much better fit for the Canucks than Bonino (incidentally, Bones is 1 year older than Sutts)]

 

Eriksson.  ["Best right winger to ever play with the Sedins" "Will rejuvenate and extend their careers" People predicting 20-30 goals a year.  Comments were glowing and nobody had anything negative at all to say ......] from the first 2 pages of Loui's thread... 

 

I honestly think that fan's opinion of JB was torpedoed by the local media who didn't take to the way he came across.  JB isn't the most articulate to say the least while Gillis was very good at selling his vision.  The media still slags him when they can but I've always said that if you put anybody under the microscope, you will find warts