If Not For 1 Fatal Mistake Jim Benning May Still Be Our GM

[BureBurrito]

Benning was in short a disaster during this tenure and should have been fired years ago, however, his one save was the Canucks making the bubble playoffs (they were likely not making it that season if not for the pandemic)... now it's coming out of the damage done the next 2-3 years...

[Guest]

I actually agree with OP. 

 

Loyalty to Green has been JBs biggest fault. 

 

Our next GM is coming into a team where if he wanted to, he could flip all our young players and get 5-6 1st round picks in return. 

Benning came into a team that didn't have any young players other then Bo and had to deal with a lot of NTCs / NMCs. 

[NewbieCanuckFan]

If Mike Gillis offered Willie Mitchell a multi year deal instead of only one year deal , there would be a statue of him in front of Rogers today.

Edited December 6, 2021 by NewbieCanuckFan

[timberz21]

20 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

Wasn’t that pick Virtannen over Tuttlechuck?

It was Juolevi, just saying nobody is perfect.  Might have Tkachuk right but EP or QH wrong.

[philtbc829]

In my eyes he made more than one mistake...cya JB thanks for playing ....

[rekker]

Was thinking of JB today. He did lots of good things. But the bad, was just too bad. I think of Jake, OJ, re-hiring Green and Baumer, Loui, some other debatable signings. If he even batted 500 on those mistakes he'd still be GM. Tough business but he absolutely had his chance and it absolutely didn't end well. 

[fanfor42]

His terrible offseason after the bubble was the beginning of the end. Gutted the team just when they were on the rise.  Then needlessly rehiring Green after a terrible covid season was the last straw.

 

C'est fini mon ami.

 

 

[Hairy Kneel]

46 minutes ago, rekker said:

Was thinking of JB today. He did lots of good things. But the bad, was just too bad. I think of Jake, OJ, re-hiring Green and Baumer, Loui, some other debatable signings. If he even batted 500 on those mistakes he'd still be GM. Tough business but he absolutely had his chance and it absolutely didn't end well. 

Yeah the mistakes weren't really quantity but holy hell quality of them, 

the big mistakes were huge. 

[UFCanuck]

3 hours ago, Chris12345 said:

I think he made a lot of mistakes but hindsight is easy.....PK for one was amateur hour.

He had a thing for guys on the downside of their careers. He was after Lucic and Subban too. 

[D-Money]

2 hours ago, Down by the River said:

The problem with Benning is that even some of his good moves were bad moves. Getting JT Miller for a 1st round pick was a steal... except getting JT Miller when you're miles away from competing is not as useful as a 1st round pick. Miller will likely be better than the vast majority of guys picked after 20th overall. However, a guy at 20th overall will be far more useful to this team five years from now than Miller will be (not to mention cap control). 

 

This is not meant as a slight to Miller. He's been everything the Canucks could ask for (save some sometimes poor body language). It is a slight against a GM that was so patient in his belief that he could be impatient and try to speed up the rebuild. 

 

That said, it is hopefully a new era. I'm not against a rebuild. I just hope that whomever comes in as Pres/GM has a vision that isn't based on instant gratification. 

The one thing that will salvage the Miller trade would be trading him for even more than we gave up to get him. I suspect that will be the case if we move him prior to this deadline.

[CanucksJay]

4 hours ago, Chris12345 said:

I think he made a lot of mistakes but hindsight is easy.....PK for one was amateur hour.

Was it though? 

What if green decided to give guys like Lockwood a chance and hired a different pk guy rather than Baumer. 

 

 

[wallstreetamigo]

1 hour ago, CanucksJay said:

Was it though? 

What if green decided to give guys like Lockwood a chance and hired a different pk guy rather than Baumer. 

 

 

What if they used aggressive/good skaters like Garland and Hoglander on the pk? 
 

I just really hope we have seen the end of the Chiasson Chronicles on the pp and in the lineup.

[Chris12345]

1 hour ago, CanucksJay said:

Was it though? 

What if green decided to give guys like Lockwood a chance and hired a different pk guy rather than Baumer. 

 

 

Yes. You are speaking a different language.

 

Pernell-Karl Sylvester Subban aka PK. $50,000 fine. Amateur hour.

 

And Lockwood on the pk.....don't care  who that is on but hoping a rookie saves the pk is bad. Missing Motte and Sutter key there combined with a terrible defense.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Chris12345

[Chris12345]

2 hours ago, rekker said:

Was thinking of JB today. He did lots of good things. But the bad, was just too bad. I think of Jake, OJ, re-hiring Green and Baumer, Loui, some other debatable signings. If he even batted 500 on those mistakes he'd still be GM. Tough business but he absolutely had his chance and it absolutely didn't end well. 

Man there were grand slams and full on strike outs. Just needed to get to first a few times.

[Lil B From The Pack]

5 hours ago, CanuckFan1123 said:

Go ahead, Rip me apart, but I don’t think Benning was all that bad. 

You know, some people have said that Trump wasn't all that bad. Doesn't mean they are right.

[DSVII]

He should have had that moneyball Billy Beane conversation with Green last season.

 

"This isn't how the team is designed to play."

 

"You can't start Chiasson on the powerplay. Because I traded him to Ottawa."

[Lil B From The Pack]

5 hours ago, CanuckFan1123 said:

I think the hate towards Benning is pathetic.

If fans are unhappy they will show their displeasure. If ownership acted on time it wouldn't have gotten this bad.

 

5 hours ago, CanuckFan1123 said:

First of all, he drafted a lot of great talent.

Sure. But he shouldn't have traded them away. Some of them are now regular NHLers. (Dahlen, Forsling, McCann for example)

 

5 hours ago, CanuckFan1123 said:

No one could have predicted a 30 goal scorer in Player Name would become awful.

I'll give you that one but it is pretty idiotic to give a 31 year old a long term contract like that.

 

5 hours ago, CanuckFan1123 said:

He brought in veterans like Beagle and Roussel to play with the young guns and try to field a competitive team. He traded for Toffoli and weeks later ended up having to deal with a global pandemic that ended up causing the cap not to go up which ultimately left us in a more difficult position of trying to salvage our free agent class. I think Benning has made a lot of good moves and has been the beneficiary of some unlucky events. Maybe Green should have been gone sooner but after the bubble playoffs, can you really blame Benning for having a sense of optimism that Green was the guy? 

Honestly the only real unlucky event Benning had in the last two years was the cap recapture penalty. I'd argue that Benning's job was saved by a global pandemic given how the team was about to implode right before it.

[morrissex95]

So I'm hearing a lot of stuff that I agree with and a lot of stuff I don't, so here's my take: 

 

1. Trading Miller wasn't a good use of a first. Yes, that's right. Someone said it isn't about whose available at 20OV and they're right, because we would've picked higher. We could've had one of a 20-year-old Schneider, Jarvis, Lundell, Perfetti, Rossi or even a Raymond instead of a 28-year-old JT Miller. This same person also said it wasn't a time for a player like Miller to be acquired. Sure, he insulated Pettersson but now we're going to have to let the young guys play and cut some guys loose and I don't think having Miller age out faster than they can compete is the right move. 
2. At the start of the thread someone said the return for Ryan Kesler was good, with Bonino, Sbisa and a 1st coming the other way. That first turned into Jared McCann, who is one of Seattle's leading scorers. Right now, McCann could probably play wing or center with Pettersson. He was also drafted by Benning. Also, the return for McCann, which was a 2nd (Rasmus Asplund), McCann and a 4th (Jonathan Ang) for Erik Gudbranson. Gudbranson was supposed to be acquired to be partnered with Quinn Hughes. I get the logic, but McCann should've been part of the plan when he came in he was more promising than Cody Hodgson. Than we'll talk about Sbisa, who was a good third pairing guy that we lost to Vegas. Not a big loss and you don't flip players hours or even months after you acquire them unless it's a three-way trade, so we wouldn't have gotten anything for Sbisa and we could've lost something else to Vegas. Now let's talk about Bonino. We traded him to Pittsburgh with Clendening for Sutter, along with a few picks exchanged (ANA 2nd 2016 acquired for Kevin Bieksa was traded with Bonino in exchange for Sutter and VAN 3rd 2016). So, what am I getting at here? Bonino played on the HBK line and helped the Penguins win a championship. In my opinion, we could've flipped Bonino at the deadline in 2016 or 2017 for a first, second or good prospect. I just thought it was bad asset management and worth noting. 
3. Juolevi over Tkachuk? In excusable. Virtanen over Ehlers, W. Nylander, Fiala, Larkin, etc.? Terrible. Two blown top 10 picks. Just curious, has anyone heard of Carolina or Tampa or Anaheim or Ottawa blowing any of these picks? Because, they don't. Well, every team does but our team does it the most. It's improved under Benning after those dark years with Gillis, but it just hasn't been enough. He's gotten some guys in the later rounds, most notably Rathbone but who really knows if he'll stick. I hope he's good or if not we can move him for something that'll improve the team, but right now we're in the dark ages. 
4. I wanted to circle back to the McCann/Gudbranson/Asplund deal and explain part of the reason why it was so bad. If we have McCann, we don't need Miller. If we don't need Miller, we have our first in 2020. We don't have Pearson either, but if don't trade for Gudbranson than we can draft Rasmus Asplund instead of having Pearson. With our first in 2020, we select Anton Lundell. Voila: 

Lundell Pettersson Boeser

Hoglander Horvat Garland

Podkolzin McCann Dickinson/Asplund

 

5, Letting Markstrom, Toffoli and Tanev go, than signing Schmidt and Holtby for more money and than getting gutted by Calgary. All we would've had to do was keep Tanev, saved the pick we used to acquire Schmidt and signed Toffoli for the same amount of money he got in Montreal. Tanev could play with Hughes, maybe we let Edler walk maybe we don't. With Toffoli and Tanev, I'm confident we would've made the playoffs this year. We would've fallen off a cliff this year without the additions of Garland and OEL but the team still would've had a better season last year. 

 

That's what I have to say. Hope everyone stays safe. Let's hope the new GM really hits the ground running. 

 

 

 

 

[MaxVerstappen33]

The OP posted this before the game. Genius post.

[IBatch]

Personally i don't mind that JB went down with the ship.  It showed character.  Time to stop whining about the past, and looking forward to the future.   Really hope that he's this era's Nonis.