How do you feel about our Management group?

[J.I.A.H.N]

I have been feeling quite impatient this year about the Canucks. I am feeling Benning has had enough time, to rebuild, and feel this is the sink or swim year, although we are still imcomplete, in terms of still needing some pieces (RHD).

 

In saying all that, I am very willing to let this version of the Canucks have their turn, and give it the old college try. I have to admit, I am finding the CDC noise a little disruptive, in that there are so many negative views this year, so I thought I would ask you, how you all feel.

 

I am admittedly mixed, in my opinion and this is becoming a make or break season for me. the following are my thoughts on our Canuck management to date.

 

Aqualini.......I think we are lucky to have such a owner, in terms of his deep pockets, and love for his team. I wonder though, if at times, it does not get in the way of some sound judgement, although, it has been hard to pin any blame on  him, in regards to his participation, I keep getting the feeling, he has had a hand in some decisions. Good or Bad, it is his team, and his dollars. But by in large, we could do alot worst than Francesco.

 

Benning.......The buck starts here. I have generally always been a supporter of Jim's, and felt from the very start, he was given a huge task of rebuilding, with very little in the way moveable assets. Sure there were some veterans that could have been moved, and he did move some, but in other cases, was handcuffed with not being able to move fan favorites ( I believe in some way Aqualini had some say in this decision, but I have no actual proof)

 

Benning 's early years, must have been very difficult, in terms of the decision to either Re-build or Re-tool. I think Aqualini, and the Sedin's had some say in this, but again no evidence. But the decision to re-tool, cost the franchise in time and in asset management. Again, I do not blame Benning completely on this, and any good boss wanting his job, would never throw his boss under the bus, but again I believe Aqualini had alot to do with this decision.

 

Now, once Jim got into his tenure a couple of years, he had finally started to move out some veterans, but again, earlier trades like Kesler's, handcuffed him and he was criticized for that, in that the return was not great, but in actual fact Anaheim had him by the neck, and he had no choice. Later trades, seemed to be much better, in Burrows, and Hansen, his last trades involving Beagle, Player Name and Roussel, was very inventive and quite courageous, and inventive, and has brought us OEL and Garland, who the jury should still be out on, but have shown to be massive improvements over those players which were moved out. The Miller trade was his best to date, so I am not sure how people can really criticize his trades, considering, his early handcuffing. I mean, where the hell do you start, when your team is aging out?

 

Now drafting is a different matter. Teams in general must draft approx. 2 players a year, that will play long careers, more if they play shorter careers. This is a league wide thing, as to fill league manning, teams must all do this. The question is not whether Benning drafted enough, because generally, I think he has, but outside of 1st round picks, how has he actually done in developing his later round prospects? Admittedly, there are more than a few scattered around the league, but how many have we developed and kept? This has certainly been a point of discussion this year, with Lind, Gadjovich and Juolevi leaving. Should they all have been let go? Well, none at this point have developed into anything more than fringe NHL players at this point. The question is should they have been more by now? I think that can be applied in general to all our 2nd round picks and beyond, over the past 7 years.

 

There should absolutely be no question over Benning's 1st round picks, as even McCann and Virtanen (who's off ice antics  finally caught up to him) have been NHL calibre. In my POV, it has not been his quality of pick, but lack of picks that has been his Achilles heel. (But we addressed that already)

 

Benning's asset management, which is really all of the above, has been addressed at nauseum as per above, and it is really a mixed bag, but generally, he has moved us forward, where some of our earlier managers, did not. (see our early history for great examples of bad management)

 

Jim's loyalty, is his strength and his weakness. he sends out a great message to the NHL players, but had stopped from some moves, when they should have been considered earlier. Benning certainly demands a great deal of conversation, because his decisions are all over the place, some being great, some not so great, but in the end, I think this is make or break season, or at least it should be.

 

Now, Green is a whole different kettle of fish, which I have such a problem understanding. I am not sure whether he is a good coach with bad assistants or just bad? I am not sure whether his offensive and defensive schemes are acceptable or whether he is over his head. I love his demeanor, but that is not what he gets paid for, so again, I believe this is a make or break season for him.

 

He is still missing his one RHD, that pairs well with Hughes, and that is not on him, but he has enough offensive players to win games, if given the right system to play in. This is a make or break season for him as well, which might explain his player choices for his 4th line.

 

 

So, this is kind of what I see and feel, and I am very mixed over the whole thing. This is a very make or break season for me, in terms of Benning and Green, and I wonder if it is for you too.  More importantly, is it for Aqualini?

 

I apologize for the long winded summary. Some agree and some may not, but I wonder how it will all play out. I do think it will be a better season, will it be enough?

Edited October 11, 2021 by J.I.A.H.N

[JM_]

fair assessment @J.I.A.H.N

 

I do think this is the make or break season for both Jim and Green. It would have been too hard to replace Jim anyway last year, and he's done a good job of fielding what should be a competitive team.

 

I don't know if Green can take the next step or not. I did like how he coached in the playoff bubble, used what he had pretty well. Shaw is an interesting wild card.

 

We have players that should be able to push the pace of games, and maybe we get some defensive help from our new look bottom 6.

 

I'm not so worried about the #3 RHD situation, lots of teams have borderline guys filling roles in their 6/7, even Tampa.

[Crabcakes]

It's useful to look back over these 7 years with Benning because we need to remember that team goals and strategies have changed.  It hasn't been a rebuild for the whole time so we have to be fair to Benning in measuring his performance. 

 

Ownership.  It is proper for ownership to be in on the highest level of decision making.  What I mean is that they hire top management.  President (Linden) and they were in on approving the Benning hire.  They also approve the strategy recommended by management.  Now, they wanted a re-tool of the Sedin core when Gillis was still here and they insisted on doing that with the new management group.  My opinion is that the Linden/Benning group were still trying to re-tool up until the Player Name signing in July 2016.  Player Name was supposed to be a partner to the Sedins.  It wasn't until Burrows and Hanson were moved leading up to the trade deadline in early 2017 that the re-build was on.  Ownership had finally agreed that it was the right thing to do.

 

Management.  I think that Linden wasn't clear that a President is an executive and not a doer of things and that effectively while he was with the team, he and Benning were co-GM's.  Too many cooks spoil the soup.  Now, they eventually had disagreements on the best way to re-build and Benning had a great deal more knowledge on how teams really operate which left Linden at a disadvantage and eventually he bowed out on July 25, 2018.  This was for the good of the team and was possibly a sacrifice that Linden made.  I'm not sure it's completely fair to measure Bennings performance before this point because he wasn't free to execute a plan that was completely his own.  

 

I think that Benning has drafted well despite a few mistakes.  You could argue that Juolevi would have been a player had he not been injured 3 times (back (surgery), knee (surgery), and hip during key development years.  But things like this happen.  Also, I think in this market, the media and fans have been frustrated because Benning, despite being a good drafter, doesn't get hung up on keeping his picks.  He has been unafraid to use draft picks to acquire players.  The use of 2nd rounders has been mixed but the return on 1st round picks has been pretty good (Miller and OEL looks like a good pick up so far)

 

Bennings trades and signings have been mixed.  On July 1, 2018, just before Linden resigned, Benning signed Beagle and also brought in Roussel in an effort to bolster the bottom 6 which was ill conceived because it resulted in cap issues down the road.  I have to think that this was one of the things that Benning and Linden had disagreed on and was a contributing factor in his resignation later that month.  I also didn't like the Ferland signing in 2019.  It was a risky move given his concussion history and was a bit of overkill since he had already added Miller and Pearson that year.

 

But as things go in a rebuild, as drafted players mature and start to produce, Benning has been reasonably successful at finding players to support the core group.  He has done a lot in the past year but I think that it's unreasonable to expect that he can do all things in one year.  Moving out Player Name, Beagle, Roussel and a 1st and bringing in OEL and Garland was a masterful trade imo.  There are still holes on defense to work on.

 

So overall, I think that Benning has done a decent job.  There have been bad moves but there have also been some very good ones.  I think that we need to measure his performances based on what the team strategy was at the time that certain decisions were made.   If you consider that the rebuild didn't really begin until 2017 (4 years ago) and they've had top 10 draft picks from 2013 to 2019 (except 2015 #23 Boeser) he's been pretty good.

[DSVII]

Mixed is the right word. Benning went from his worst offseason since his tenure started (Tanev/Toff/Stetcher) to navigating out of his own mess as well as any management group could have. Maybe it's the Sedin effect but it certainly feels like the management group has shown to be on the same page rather than the perceived inner conflicts that had us lose guys like Brackett or Gilman. 

 

The criticism with the Miller trade wasn't about value but timing. And I think that's a legitimate criticism. Do you see Miller's career arc timing well with that of the core? Are we confident he can maintain his level of play into his 30s while Petey and Hughes hit their mid-late 20s? It has a potential to narrow the window down, as we saw only that brief 1-2 year windows when Kesler and the Sedins had that elite overlap with their age gap. I was on the opinion that the 2020 draft pick in a deep draft would contribute more to the timing of our competitive window with a cost controlled elite player than JT. 

 

 

And to the point that we've seen so much of our drafted players leave either via trade or waivers, the answer is no, we haven't drafted enough. I really feel that Benning undercut perhaps his most competitive advantage by continually trading away picks for that immediate help which was undercut by our pro-scouting. All the while we've seen teams like LA, NYR, Arizona stockpile multiple picks. Imagine what Benning would have done with two or three first rounders in that Petey or Hughes draft. 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if teams like LA and NYR return to relevance while we are still looking to plug our holes at RHD and the farm. 

 

There is some rope for Benning this year, but you gotta show some results by year 8. Extremely few GMs have that long a tenure and last without consistent playoffs. 

 

--------------------------

 

Green, I'm on the same page as you. He's gone through who knows how many assistant coaches now and although I value his skills as a communicator, his inflexibility on his system and just the fact we seem to always be hemmed in our zone giving up chances is not gonna help us long term. Can only watch dump and chase so many times haha.

 

I think Brad Shaw is a shrewd hire, as a defensive systems coach he can work out the kinks in the roster, and he's also a coach in Benning's back pocket he had replace Green with if the results don't come. Green's seat is definitely the hottest one for me.

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by DSVII

[AK_19]

We can go through the ins and outs of all of Benning's moves but ultimately this is a results driven business. Benning has somehow both lead the largest stretch of futility in Canucks history (in terms of missing the playoffs) since we were an expansion team and somehow simultaneously completely emptied out our prospect cupboard to something worse than when he first came on board. 

Edited October 11, 2021 by AK_19

[Got the Babych]

I think Jimbo has improved the team every year. My ire has been with the decision to go the retool route over committing to a rebuild. I do believe that was the cause of the riff between Jimbo and Big Trev. So, in the context of a retool, which Jim may not have had much choice in, he's done pretty well putting together an above average team. The disappointing part is that we've sacrificed the future (trading away picks and prospects, never leveraging pending UFA's), while still sucking horribly.

 

In a retool, I'd say he's done his job, and the team has underachieved consistently. The last 3-4 years the players have been good enough, and improved every year. 

 

Edit: not sure if I made it clear that our coaching is horrible and the main reason our beloved team has been one of the worst in the league.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Got the Babych

[smithers joe]

good!

 

[Alflives]

Our management group is very good.  

[Coconuts]

I agree with most of your assessment tbh.

 

At the end of the day I don't have much to complain about regarding management, and while I've disagreed with some of Benning's moves I've been encouraged by what I've seen the last three years or so. We've lost some players lately and I haven't been thrilled by that, but while I'd rather have retained Gadjovich he probably wasn't going to move the needle much as he is. I'd have preferred to have seen Juolevi, but what we got in return should help us (PK, 4c). I don't blame Hamonic on management, I strongly feel that's very much a Hamonic thing that came up after having signed. 

 

Where I'm skeptical, and trending towards wanting a replacement, is Green. I understand that our team has gotten progressively better over the last four years, but he still only has one playoff appearance throughout his tenure, and arguably only because Hughes and Markstrom played out of their minds. Context or not, a coach only gets so much rope. I wasn't on the "fire Green" wagon last season, but I was on the fire Baumgartner and Brown wagon; I was neutral about his being retained so long as it was with new assistants, and that kind of happened but Baumgartner is somehow still here and that pisses me off. I don't feel Green's the guy to take us to the next level, and I think talent like Hughes, Boeser, and Pettersson would have thrived under another coach as well, they're just that talented. I questioned his playing plugs and waiver tweeners over prospects once the playoffs were out of sight last season, I question his personnel decisions, and I question his ability to adapt in game. 

 

If we tread water to begin the season and look like we're in trouble to start November, he should be gone. Preferably for a veteran coach, I don't want a third rookie guy in a row. I'm not interested in wasting the youth and prime years of our stars and vets for a head coach who can't get what's needed out of the talent we've got. 

Edited October 11, 2021 by Coconuts

[combover]

I feel that maybe and maybe I’m wrong but my opinion on this management group is well known. 

I don’t think green or Jb will survive a long losing skid or missing the post season. 

Regardless of the endless excuses. 

[RogersTowell]

This is definitely a "show me" season.  There's been plenty of time to turn things around since taking over.  I'm mostly happy with Aquilini other than the possibility of interference with the rebuild early on.

[Alflives]

1 hour ago, combover said:

I feel that maybe and maybe I’m wrong but my opinion on this management group is well known. 

I don’t think green or Jb will survive a long losing skid or missing the post season. 

Regardless of the endless excuses. 

Totally agree.  

[Chris12345]

Regardless of how the management group has done, we are not on the same page. That doesn't mean they are wrong but I would have done things very differently.

[wallstreetamigo]

The reality is that Benning would never have been hired as GM without at the very least agreeing to a re-tool strategy over a rebuild or, which really is more likely, presenting his vision as being a re-tool over a rebuild to ownership when interviewing.

 

Zero chance Aquilini would have agreed to or hired any GM who wanted a rebuild at that point IMO.

[wallstreetamigo]

There is no real middle ground with Benning which I suspect is part of the reason there are such polarizing opinions on him from fans. He either hits a home run with a move or he completely strikes out. Not much he does ends up just being a solid single or double.

[GB5]

4 hours ago, J.I.A.H.N said:

Now drafting is a different matter. Teams in general must draft approx. 2 players a year, that will play long careers, more if they play shorter careers. This is a league wide thing, as to fill league manning, teams must all do this. The question is not whether Benning drafted enough, because generally, I think he has, but outside of 1st round picks, how has he actually done in developing his later round prospects? Admittedly, there are more than a few scattered around the league, but how many have we developed and kept? This has certainly been a point of discussion this year, with Lind, Gadjovich and Juolevi leaving. Should they all have been let go? Well, none at this point have developed into anything more than fringe NHL players at this point. The question is should they have been more by now? I think that can be applied in general to all our 2nd round picks and beyond, over the past 7 years.

Bennings drafting as a whole has been second to none of any other time in Canucks history. The fact that this team has the luxery for players to leave is in its self unprecedented, not that I like seeing Gadj go but there are still at least 5 other NHL ready prospects in Abbotsford that were drafted and many others waiting in the wings. The core of this team is built around the draft as well of which Brian Burke may be the only other Canuck GM to come close to doing but not to the same success that Benning has had.

 

I do agree with your other assessments, especially coach Green. I question whether he plays favorites with some players based on past loyalties which can become a polarizing factor in the locker room. He seems a bit too prone to keep going back to the same well timne over time and reusing the same tactics that are ineffective which can be very frustrating as a fan.

Edited October 11, 2021 by GarthButcher5

[wallstreetamigo]

13 minutes ago, GarthButcher5 said:

Bennings drafting as a whole has been second to none of any other time in Canucks history. The fact that this team has the luxery for players to leave is in its self unprecedented, not that I like seeing Gadj go but there are still at least 5 other NHL ready prospects in Abbotsford that were drafted and many others waiting in the wings. The core of this team is built around the draft as well of which Brian Burke may be the only other Canuck GM to come close to doing but not to the same success that Benning has had.

 

I do agree with your other assessments, especially coach Green. I question whether he plays favorites with some players based on past loyalties which can become a polarizing factor in the locker room. He seems a bit too prone to keep going back to the same well timne over time and reusing the same tactics that are ineffective which can be very frustrating as a fan.

Sorry to tell you but you should look up Jake Milford’s drafting record. Benning may end up one of the best but no one touches Milford in terms of both early and later picks panning out as quality NHL players.

[SilentSam]

@J.I.A.H.N let’s not forget we’ve had 2 past seasons affected by Covid..  last Season the entire team was upset by this .

Im not going to scrutinize too much,.

but I do think Benning has been working in something bigger than what we see in front of us.  Abbotsford holding our Farm is part of that.

This team will perform well this season, I have no doubts,  but it’s what Management is doing for the future is bigger.

We will have players we will trade in the future that are “for sure” fan Favourites,  but it’s that attrition that will keep this team in the upper 15 placements for hopefully a decade.

Management’s decision to let Edler go, and the ability to make that trade with Arizona was unbelievable.

and part of the greater good.

[wallstreetamigo]

17 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

@J.I.A.H.N let’s not forget we’ve had 2 past seasons affected by Covid..  last Season the entire team was upset by this .

Im not going to scrutinize too much,.

but I do think Benning has been working in something bigger than what we see in front of us.  Abbotsford holding our Farm is part of that.

This team will perform well this season, I have no doubts,  but it’s what Management is doing for the future is bigger.

We will have players we will trade in the future that are “for sure” fan Favourites,  but it’s that attrition that will keep this team in the upper 15 placements for hopefully a decade.

Management’s decision to let Edler go, and the ability to make that trade with Arizona was unbelievable.

and part of the greater good.

Outside of those players already on the NHL roster, how much do we really have in the AHL pipeline? Not much really.

[wallstreetamigo]

Losing players for nothing isn’t really the hallmark of a great system. It means it’s taken you too long to develop them into useful nhl players or valuable trade pieces.

 

The best drafting in the world means very little if you can’t develop players.