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Lack of AHL Player Development - Skaters


canucklehead44

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On 12/6/2021 at 7:19 AM, canucklehead44 said:

Not everything he did was bad, but it always felt he had no plan it was one step forward two steps back. 

He had two chances to hire a head coach for the Canucks.  He failed BADLY on both attempts.  The "third strike" was extending Green this past off-season.  It means nothing to draft "home run type" of picks in the 1st round if those guys don't develop under the head coach.  OK, Hughes *IS* better this season than last.  But that isn't enough.  Especially when guys like Horvat, EP and Boeser were regressing (forgot developing).

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On 12/5/2021 at 8:38 AM, DeNiro said:

This is the result of trading so many 2nd and 3rd round picks. It’s finally caught up to Benning.

 

Our 1st rounders have been able to step right into the NHL from other leagues. Hoglander as a 2nd rounder was able to do it too. And Demko a 2nd rounder was able to do it after a bit of time in the minors.

 

But this is the time that all of those lost 2nd and 3rd rounders should be developing on the farm. That is where your depth comes from and now we don’t have any. Hence overpaying for role players like Dickinson, Pearson, Poolman, and Hamonic.
 

And then you look at guys like Lind, Gadjovich, Madden, Tryamkin who all represent wasted talent that were lost for nothing. I think Bennings time will be remembered for all the talent that was squandered as much as it was for the good picks he made.

Another factor here is that we no longer draft much from junior hockey, even a brief look will show that in the Benning era we draft from US colleges and Europe. Junior hockey players used to feed our farm teams, and we used to ‘finish’ our European and College players with a year in the AHL. Look at how few junior players have been drafted by JB.

 

Now look at our NHL roster and how few junior players are on it that came through the Canuck’s system: Horvat (pre JB), ...? Any others were acquired by trade or free agency. 
 

If you want to see our prospects, buy a ticket to Europe or visit US colleges. Now look at successful teams. If our new management wants to build for long term success, this issue has to be solved.

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On 12/5/2021 at 2:01 PM, kanucks25 said:

Magic bean trades, wasted resources on filling the "age-gap", rushing players and/or giving up on them too early.

 

If he just stuck to mostly drafting & developing he probably wouldn't have been too bad of a GM.

 

Benning cut his own legs off. Unfortunately, due to arrogance and/or ignorance, the shortcuts he's taken has crippled this team.

JB has been entirely been over-rated for his draft prowess: look at his first two picks: both number five overall: Virtanen and Juolevi - both abysmal failures. Putting them in the hands of Green for their development sure didn’t help, either. But ownership putting massive pressure on these guys for immediate success, rather than for the careful accumulation of valuable assets, would bias management and coaching in their drafting/player development strategies. The ONLY position where player development has followed a rational path is in goal.

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1 hour ago, Ray_Cathode said:

JB has been entirely been over-rated for his draft prowess: look at his first two picks: both number five overall: Virtanen and Juolevi - both abysmal failures. Putting them in the hands of Green for their development sure didn’t help, either. But ownership putting massive pressure on these guys for immediate success, rather than for the careful accumulation of valuable assets, would bias management and coaching in their drafting/player development strategies. The ONLY position where player development has followed a rational path is in goal.

Funny how you ignored Demko, Hoglander and so forth. Every team will have their abysmal failures, but if you're excluding information to push a certain narrative, that's dishonest. Benning did pretty well with drafting/developing in the big leagues. As for the AHL, there hasn't been much to show for it.

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On 12/11/2021 at 5:09 PM, Dazzle said:

Funny how you ignored Demko, Hoglander and so forth. Every team will have their abysmal failures, but if you're excluding information to push a certain narrative, that's dishonest. Benning did pretty well with drafting/developing in the big leagues. As for the AHL, there hasn't been much to show for it.

Dishonest is ignoring what I said in order to push your narrative. My last line above was this: “The ONLY position where player development has followed a rational path is in goal.” That would be Demko, DiPietro, etc. So, it looks like you did exactly what you accused me of, and that I did not.

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1 minute ago, Ray_Cathode said:

Dishonest is ignoring what I said in order to push your narrative. My last line above was this: “The ONLY position where player development has followed a rational path is in goal.” That would be Demko, DiPietro, etc. So, it looks like you did exactly what you accused me of, and that I did not.

Actually, your thesis was that drafting was bad. I gave you two examples why he couldn't be considered bad. Then you just weakened your own position by mentioning DiPietro.

 

Thanks for coming out.

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1 hour ago, Dazzle said:

Actually, your thesis was that drafting was bad. I gave you two examples why he couldn't be considered bad. Then you just weakened your own position by mentioning DiPietro.

 

Thanks for coming out.

There you go, gaslighting again, I said Benning’s drafting prowess was over-rated. After seven or eight years of Benning, and finishing lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut, the hockey writers rated our prospect pool as twentieth. When a team finishes as low as us and has such a thin prospect pool, that would qualify as over-rated - especially in light of his high first round pick abysmal failures - Juolevi and Virtanen. That a couple of second rounders work out when they are selected at the top of the second round hardly gets him off the hook. 

 

In addition, you again ignored the fact that I made an exception for goalie development. Ignoring that and then doubling down on your fallacious claim after that was pointed out to you is just dishonest. I sure hope nobody trusts you with their money.

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Just now, Ray_Cathode said:

There you go, gaslighting again, I said Benning’s drafting prowess was over-rated. After seven or eight years of Benning, and finishing lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut, the hockey writers rated our prospect pool as twentieth. When a team finishes as low as us and has such a thin prospect pool, that would qualify as over-rated - especially in light of his high first round pick abysmal failures - Juolevi and Virtanen. That a couple of second rounders work out when they are selected at the top of the second round hardly gets him off the hook. 

 

In addition, you again ignored the fact that I made an exception for goalie development. Ignoring that and then doubling down on your fallacious claim after that was pointed out to you is just dishonest. I sure hope nobody trusts you with their money.

Nah. You said it was overrated. That is garbage.

 

You have Höglander, Demko, Podkolzin, Pettersson, Hughes on your main roster. That's pretty much what you can dream up for a GM. Look at Gillis, lmfao.

 

Then you have Rathbone and Lockwood who are up and comers and DiPietro which you listed as a win.

 

Lmfao. Ok bud. Drafting was overrated.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/5/2021 at 8:38 AM, DeNiro said:

This is the result of trading so many 2nd and 3rd round picks. It’s finally caught up to Benning.

 

Our 1st rounders have been able to step right into the NHL from other leagues. Hoglander as a 2nd rounder was able to do it too. And Demko a 2nd rounder was able to do it after a bit of time in the minors.

 

But this is the time that all of those lost 2nd and 3rd rounders should be developing on the farm. That is where your depth comes from and now we don’t have any. Hence overpaying for role players like Dickinson, Pearson, Poolman, and Hamonic.
 

And then you look at guys like Lind, Gadjovich, Madden, Tryamkin who all represent wasted talent that were lost for nothing. I think Bennings time will be remembered for all the talent that was squandered as much as it was for the good picks he made.

I have a hard time believing that Lind Madden Gadjovich MacEwan would be able to fill the roles of the guys you listed and Tryamkin decided not to play for canucks the first time for more ice time and the second time because of cap restraints caused by the pandemic. We would also likely still have toffoli if not for the same pandemic

 

of course though, the team needs to fill out its AHL prospect depth and continue to keep players developing in other leagues around the world 

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On 12/13/2021 at 6:22 AM, Dazzle said:

Nah. You said it was overrated. That is garbage.

 

You have Höglander, Demko, Podkolzin, Pettersson, Hughes on your main roster. That's pretty much what you can dream up for a GM. Look at Gillis, lmfao.

 

Then you have Rathbone and Lockwood who are up and comers and DiPietro which you listed as a win.

 

Lmfao. Ok bud. Drafting was overrated.

You can’t count on Rathbone and Lockwood etc because prospects from Utica hasn’t managed to take the step up to NHL level. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
11 hours ago, ShawnAntoski said:

Abby needs a new mandate, from Allvin and if they can't deliver - then hire a new crew

Agreed 100% @ShawnAntoski.  Utica/Abbotsford was hell bent on winning vs. developing players.  Cart before the horse, which baffles me because the previous regime was supposed to be made of "hockey" men.

 

I hope the focus will be on developing players which should help build the foundation for a winning organization from top to bottom/bottom to top. 

 

Benning, Johnson, Conacher, Green, Cull, Esche, Aquilini, et. al. were never willing to take the medicine for the organization to get better.  Hopeful that Rutherford, Allvin and the new management are willing to take the lumps to become a top tier organization vs. being a has been organization that thinks spending money like a drunken sailor on garbage is the only way to go.

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1 hour ago, bigbadcanucks said:

Agreed 100% @ShawnAntoski.  Utica/Abbotsford was hell bent on winning vs. developing players.  Cart before the horse, which baffles me because the previous regime was supposed to be made of "hockey" men.

 

I hope the focus will be on developing players which should help build the foundation for a winning organization from top to bottom/bottom to top. 

 

Benning, Johnson, Conacher, Green, Cull, Esche, Aquilini, et. al. were never willing to take the medicine for the organization to get better.  Hopeful that Rutherford, Allvin and the new management are willing to take the lumps to become a top tier organization vs. being a has been organization that thinks spending money like a drunken sailor on garbage is the only way to go.

Ditto; and if you look at, most of the cup champs during the cap era - they all went, through a 3-5yr rebuild through the draft and a not a retool.  Imo, it has been quite naive or pompous of Aquaman & the past front office, to think & even attempt to circumvent, the rebuilding cycle to a "retool" - hopefully, Aquaman has learned some important lesson ?  A re tool, has a place in the cycle: when the young core - is ready; and it worked for Tampa & Pitsburgh but at the cost of futures cause the Stamkos core has been really close and the Crosby core was still competitive, just a few years ago.  But I am giving, kudos to JB for atleast, hitting on some draft gems and giving Allvin a young core.   Only downside, from JB are the cap mistakes and the young core - are all/almost done with there ELC's; but the Demko contract is a lasting gift from JB.   Off the ice, is where JBs' mistake happened - imo: his poor choice of coaches that didn't fit the roster make up.  He hired rigid and unproven coaches, that has had success in the minors; and I wonder how far along, the roster would be if he had hired coaches that had winning records, in the NHL and understands how to manage NHL millionaires, into playing a team game ?

 

I heard in the latest, JR interview and it confirms that another, retool is on the way with the new crew.  I am cautiously optimistic, that this retool will lead to a cup cause the Canucks, have no cap and there is no transition plan, due to the dry prospect pipeline and the shortsighted, decision to turn Abby from a development club to a team focusing, on winning instead.  If you look at Sakic as an example of someone, that is running an organization with a legit NHL roster & farm club - he never/hardly trades his first round picks, unless it is really neccessary - the very opposite, of JR.  Anyways, still excited but cautiously optimistic cause JR seems to be a GM, that is well suited, for a young core built  through the draft - that is ready or a re tool.   Is the Canucks [mostly young] core ready ?   Exciting time to be a fan and pressure is on Allvin to deliver; so far, the Boudreau decision was a homerun - so a good start for JR.

 

Finally in the interview, another concern are some of the players' hesitance to playing in Canada, due to the mandates. A topic, which JR, quickly addressed as potentially, a future concern for Canadian teams.

 

 

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On 12/6/2021 at 12:25 PM, Warhippy said:

Have been considering this myself.  it almost seems that the baby nucks are an afterthought more than anything.  instead of developing players they're taking cast offs  and trying to win secondary trophies.

 

Every prospect we put in the AHL seems to have the same struggles we saw kids have under green.  Minimal ice time, minimal development.

 

I truly wonder what it will take to see this organization properly develop players as a whole instead of constantly taking 24-28 year old cast offs and hoping for the best.

 

Maybe the Twins could cut their teeth in Abby with a full mandate towards development and the like.  Because every prospect we had under benning was either traded, released or effectively ignored and the ONLY prospect we can say we successfully developed under the system was MacEwen and where is he now?

Couldn't agree more. My son and I are Abby Canucks season ticket holders.  We paid quite good money and made a 5 year commitment. We watch other teams come into to town and it is quite a stark difference in their players ages (younger) and skill/quality level.  Having said that we understand it will take some time as the cupboards are beyond bare.  Hopefully they take this seriously moving forward.  Some nights are very difficult to watch and see the value from a season ticket holder's perspective let alone what the Big Club has in the pipeline.

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On 12/5/2021 at 5:27 PM, canucklehead44 said:

One thing I noticed on our current squad is the lack of skaters developed in the AHL. Other than Demko we don't have anyone in the lineup who played significant games for a minor league affiliate. As point of comparison Toronto has six players - I only use that comparison because I would usually attend Marlies - Comets games when Utica visited Toronto. Guys that we have developed for a long time - Juolevi, Mac, Gadjovich were essentially tossed when ready to make the lineup. 

I decided to dig into the Canucks seasons and see what the numbers looked like in previous years. Using 40 games in our AHL system I felt was at least a decent amount (half a season) to gauge the impact of AHL development on the lineup. And out of players who played 40 games in our minor league system, to play at least 40 games for the Canucks (in a season, prorated for lockout) and 150 games in their NHL.

Interesting tidbit: the 2011 cup finals team had 11 players suit up during our playoff run who played a minimum of 40 games in our minor league system. 

Here are some of the players we have developed
 

 

We can see the Burke era developed a tonne of talent, largely thanks to the great relationship with the Manitoba Moose. We can see a massive drop off in the Gillis era, where there was a strained relationship with the Chicago Wolves plus having to share with the St. Louis Blues so our players weren't being prioritized. Gillis saw this as a major issue and the Canucks purchased a farm team to have control. 

 

Given Benning has had a losing team it is shocking how few players have developed out of our farm system. Jake Virtanen is more of an example of what when wrong than right (he should have stayed much longer in the AHL) and the only real success story is Biega who was already 26 when we acquired him and was a 7th dman who we gave away for nothing. Overall there has been a lack of developing players in the AHL (aforementioned Virtanen, McCann), giving developed players a good look in the NHL (Dahlen, Gadjovich, Lind, Juolevi), or properly developing players, perhaps to bottom 6 roles (Gaunce, Jensen).

 

The Abbotsford Canucks currently sit with a losing record, are ranked 26th out of 31 teams, and our top performing prospect is 7th in team scoring. 

 

 



 

This is something that is proof of my critics against Utica/Cull/coaches/Benning when the Dahlenstory hit the fan and Palmu lurking in the background.

Benning actually defended the $&!#ty coaching by Cull and players like Reid Boucher got most out of playing in Utica. Sad…

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/12/2021 at 9:22 PM, Dazzle said:

Nah. You said it was overrated. That is garbage.

 

You have Höglander, Demko, Podkolzin, Pettersson, Hughes on your main roster. That's pretty much what you can dream up for a GM. Look at Gillis, lmfao.

 

Then you have Rathbone and Lockwood who are up and comers and DiPietro which you listed as a win.

 

Lmfao. Ok bud. Drafting was overrated.

When you are picking top five year after year, you should have those kind of results, plus you should have had something worthwhile out of two other fifth overall picks - Virtanen and Juolevi - both abysmal failures. Now had he kept all of our draft slots, we may have had some depth - instead, he trades a top prospect, Madden, for a rental plus a second, then is so dumb he doesn’t get around to offering Tofolli a contract, he loses him for nothing - a guy a Montreal just got a first and a prospect for. 
 

But that wasn’t even his biggest issue, the biggest issue is that he mismanaged the cap so badly we will be paying the consequences for years. Benning was an unmitigated disaster in his primary role as a gm - managing the cap.

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2 hours ago, Ray_Cathode said:

When you are picking top five year after year, you should have those kind of results, plus you should have had something worthwhile out of two other fifth overall picks - Virtanen and Juolevi - both abysmal failures. Now had he kept all of our draft slots, we may have had some depth - instead, he trades a top prospect, Madden, for a rental plus a second, then is so dumb he doesn’t get around to offering Tofolli a contract, he loses him for nothing - a guy a Montreal just got a first and a prospect for. 
 

But that wasn’t even his biggest issue, the biggest issue is that he mismanaged the cap so badly we will be paying the consequences for years. Benning was an unmitigated disaster in his primary role as a gm - managing the cap.

Madden was never a top prospect. :lol: Get real.

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On 12/12/2021 at 7:50 PM, Ray_Cathode said:

Dishonest is ignoring what I said in order to push your narrative. My last line above was this: “The ONLY position where player development has followed a rational path is in goal.” That would be Demko, DiPietro, etc. So, it looks like you did exactly what you accused me of, and that I did not.

Its a waste of time debating with Dazzle. The guy is a massive Benning fanboy. Just look at his posts, the guy gets massively offended when people dare diss his precious Jimbo.

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