Benning ~ Not all bad (Discussion)

[J.I.A.H.N]

I really feel it was time for a change. Both at the Coaching level and at the GM level, but as we go further into our season, it is becoming abundantly clear to me, that Benning had finally put together a decent club, who can compete at competitive level. Where will we end up? Well in the playoffs, I hope. The team has given us solid confidence, in their ability to compete. We have the tools! Great Goaltending, an all star Dman, and very strong down the middle.

 

Let us remember who got us here. Let's remember that the Canucks have not added one player to the team in the last 8 games. They have always been here. That is the doing of Jim Benning. That is very applaudable. We owe a great of appreciation to JB for that. This is the good! Personnel wise, he had a plan, he drafted well, and his moves in the last several years, were to his credit.

 

Now, to his determent, he fumble with his own UFA's loosing valuable asset for nothing, he made moves that were good, yet, still gave a bad taste, because they had future ramifications....an example would be the removal of Ericksson, Roussel and Beagel, and the acquisition of OEL and Garland.........visually, it look like a big win, but there are cap ramification on OEL and the loss of our first hurts the future. Still in the big picture Garland alone makes it look like a big win. 

 

But the single biggest mistake Jim Benning made, the one that cost him his job, was the re-signing of Green. Coaches all come up through the ranks, and those that stay in the fraternity, find where their skill level is, some make it to the NHL, and succeed, other do not succeed, and disappear. others find that they are not head coach matterial, for various reasons, including a failure to adapt to different opposing systems, while others can not lead, others can not make hard decisions, while others can not build lines, and defensive pairings that compliment each other, and some do not have the ability to recognize talent and contributions (past/present or future) Green pretty much falls into all the above. And Benning could not or would not admit to his failure in hiring Green.

 

People should understand that both the 1sts traded have increased in value, and a good GM, one with the ability to identify good moves, and one who has a extremely respected resume, can navigate those offers, and in the case of Miller and Garland, Rutherford "could" move them for assets, IMO, better than the picks moved for them. So IMO, there was no loss of asset there.

 

And it will be a issue that Rutherford will have to deal with, one way or another. 

 

Again, Benning built a decent team, but crumbled when having to make the tough decisions on Green..........

 

Benning appeared to be an honest, and loyal man, and in the end, that took him down..........................but as Rutherford said, it will take another 2 years to fill in the holes

 

Ahhhhhh......................another promise!

 

But, People! Benning was not all bad!

 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by J.I.A.H.N

[King Heffy]

He added some nice pieces to work with, but he had enough failures to the point where change was needed. He also turned around our amateur scouting, which I'm grateful for.  Ultimately, continuing to employ Green was simply inexcusable when he was disgracing the franchise with his gross incompetence.

Edited December 15, 2021 by King Heffy

[Warhippy]

Benning rightfully gets heat.

 

He let some assets walk.

He traded out a number of picks.

He traded prospects allowing them to find homes in other organizations, even as depth players.

 

But the ONLY thing that has changed is the coach and look at the team benning built go.

 

So while he is absolutely guilty of a number of things, we're watching HIS team play and lauding HIS team's efforts.

[JM_]

I think the one main downside of his time here outside of Green and the cap issues mentioned is the d group is just not deep enough for the number of times we had high picks.

 

But having said that, under Boudreau, Myers looks full value. Which is why Bennings decision to keep Green is so confusing, he saw what we saw, what did he think Green was doing? 

 

I think becoming more insular and likely listening more and more to Weisbrod is what led to Jim's bad decisions. Or he just didn't have the full range of capabilities a GM needs.

 

Even with all that, you can see there's a heck of a core left here thanks to him.

Edited December 15, 2021 by JM_

[FijianCanuck]

The man can draft I'll give him that. Took jimbo time to adjust to being a gm. His pro scouting improved for sure from when he was hired.

[Maddogy]

Franchise goalie, franchise defenceman, a potential franchise centre, a potential franchise winger, One of the most versatile forward in J.T. Miller, Hoglander and Podkolzin, Jack rathbone........ Highest draft pick was 5th overall. Now the pressure is on the next generation of management team. 

 

I hope J.B. learns from this failure and get another shot in the NHL. 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Maddogy

[VegasCanuck]

Good analysis, Benning did a lot of good things, just for whatever reason, the culture of the team kind of fell apart over the last 2 years.

 

Last year, was willing to give everyone a pass due to the schedule and Covid etc, but at some point, everything needs a fresh set of eyes and approach.

 

Benning did a generally really good job, assembling a mixture of young talent here and prospects in the pipeline. He left behind a lot to build upon for someone who is a proven winner and has a track record of fine tuning talented teams and getting them ready for Cup runs.

 

Ultimately, Benning was undone here by not swapping out coaches. I think Green is a good coach, but for whatever reason, that coach shelf life, hit it's expiry date.

 

Looking forward to seeing how this team is going to grow and change under JR and BB.

 

 

[fanfor42]

I guess the question is in time, how will history judge the JB era?

 

I think it will be seen as partially a success due to the players that were added.  The failure is that it took 8 years and at the end the team was still not complete. The individual deals will become lost over time.  Hanging on to Green will be seen as his final and biggest mistake. Self inflicted and needless.

 

But it allowed for the team to bring in new leadership and coaching and hopefully complete the rebuild that JB started so many years ago.

 

 

[VegasCanuck]

2 minutes ago, FijianCanuck said:

The man can draft I'll give him that. Took jimbo time to adjust to being a gm. His pro scouting improved for sure from when he was hired.

It could be said, that a big part of the failing of Benning and the outgoing team, was not keeping an experienced President in to oversee operations and team direction / changes.  

[Crimson]

9 minutes ago, FijianCanuck said:

The man can draft I'll give him that. Took jimbo time to adjust to being a gm. His pro scouting improved for sure from when he was hired.

Can he though?  Sure, we have Pettersson/Hughes/Podkolzin but those are top 10 picks that you expect to hit.  

 

Outside of them there is Boeser, Demko, Hoglander and Rathbone is looking like something.  Otherwise there isn't really much there.

[ken kaniff]

I hated Benning for years. I thought he was an awful GM and I’m still pretty confident I could have done better. But now that he has gone and I have calmed down a bit, looking back… He was still not very good, but maybe not as bad as I thought. Yes the team is now competitive but teams often get a bump when a coach is fired mid season, let’s see how long this last for. And there is still some glaring issues with this team.

 

The defence is still not very good. OEL, Hughes and Myers are the only NHL level dmen on the team. The rest are fringe NHL players.
 

The forward group is above average but the depth is still lacking imo.

 

Prospects are almost non existent. Yes the noteworthy prospects have graduated to the NHL club but considering we were supposed to be rebuilding and Benning being a “great drafter” it’s still disappointing how many picks he traded away, or let prospects with potential walk.

 

Looking back I thought his 8 years were one step forward, 2 steps back. Draft a great prospect, signs some bad contracts. Make a good trade, have a bad draft and sign some bad contracts. Sign a good contract, make a bad trade. For every positive he had there were 2 negatives. I would give him a pass for some negatives but when average fans were saying his moves were bad and then they turn out as bad or worse then expected, that’s unforgivable. 
 

I think Benning made some good moves for sure, but I think this team is more of a result of sucking for 8 years and drafting high than Benning actually putting together a good team. I think without all the painfully obvious screw ups by Benning this team could have been competitive 2-3 years ago.

 

I will give him credit for building a good foundation. Good young players. The best D-man in franchise history. A #1 G. Made some good trades to bring in supplementary talent. It took him a long time, longer than it needed to but there is the making of a great team here and that’s something a good GM and Rutherford can use to take this team to a Cup

Edited December 15, 2021 by ken kaniff

[Jester13]

If Benning didn't isolate himself from the rest of his staff/team and think he could just call all the shots, as well as fire Green when he needed to and bring in an experienced coach, then he would still be here. But the fact of the matter is that he did both of these things, so it was time to bring in a collaborative executive/management team and experienced coaching staff. 

 

He built a great team from scratch, though, and for that I give him huge kudos and will still consider him one of our best GMs in franchise history.

[Devron]

He did pretty good in a lot of areas. Players walk all the time. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a July.1st.
 

Quite happy with what he’s done but at the same time happy he’s gone. I don’t think he would be taking us to the next step. Would just be more contract in and contract out. 
 

Should have gotten your coaching figured out Jimmy. Ya might still be here.

 

He ran his course though. Not many GMs get to start from scratch and see their team win a Stanley Cup. He put a lot of the work in to this point though and does deserve credit for the good things he did here.

 

Before he left he got us OEL and Garland. Most GMs leave douce before they are officially fired. We are in pretty good shape and a new GM should in theory get us to the next level 

[StanleyCupOneDay]

Another question to ponder: Would Rutherford have accepted the job if he wasn’t confident in the team Benning created? He could live happily in retirement with no responsibilities, but he instead chose to join our team. If he thought we were a tire fire cluster&^@# why in the hell would he do that? I can’t imagine a guy with his track record coming out of retirement for anything, but wanting another Cup. If he thinks we’re close (which by his interviews seems he does indeed believe that) to competing in the playoffs then Benning definitely deserves credit for the roster he assembled.

[Dazzle]

12 minutes ago, ken kaniff said:

I hated Benning for years. I thought he was an awful GM and I’m still pretty confident I could have done better. But now that he has gone and I have calmed down a bit, looking back… He was still not very good, but maybe not as bad as I thought. Yes the team is now competitive but teams often get a bump when a coach is fired mid season, let’s see how long this last for. And there is still some glaring issues with this team.

 

The defence is still not very good. OEL, Hughes and Myers are the only NHL level dmen on the team. The rest are fringe NHL players.
 

The forward group is above average but the depth is still lacking imo.

 

Prospects are almost non existent. Yes the noteworthy prospects have graduated to the NHL club but considering we were supposed to be rebuilding and Benning being a “great drafter” it’s still disappointing how many picks he traded away, or let prospects with potential walk.

 

Looking back I thought his 8 years were one step forward, 2 steps back. Draft a great prospect, signs some bad contracts. Make a good trade, have a bad draft and sign some bad contracts. Sign a good contract, make a bad trade. For every positive he had there were 2 negatives. I would give him a pass for some negatives but when average fans were saying his moves were bad and then they turn out as bad or worse then expected, that’s unforgivable. 
 

I think Benning made some good moves for sure, but I think this team is more of a result of sucking for 8 years and drafting high than Benning actually putting together a good team. I think without all the painfully obvious screw ups by Benning this team could have been competitive 2-3 years ago.

 

I will give him credit for building a good foundation. Good young players. The best D-man in franchise history. A #1 G. Made some good trades to bring in supplementary talent. It took him a long time, longer than it needed to but there is the making of a great team here and that’s something a good GM and Rutherford can use to take this team to a Cup

Welp, I'm not surprised with the takes you've had bashing Benning, and sparing Green of the same treatment.

 

At the same time, claiming that his team has bad defence is not wrong, but also a point of repetition. Before Benning, there was no succession plan for Tanev/Edler. Draft/development is still ultimately costing the Canucks, with or without Benning. That goes back to the Gillis time period.

 

I'm sorry, but using the excuse "But it's been 10 years" doesn't explain why we never had a replacement for Edler UNDER Gillis. That was a defenseman drafted in the 3rd round by the Nonis period. Yikes.

[Baggins]

13 minutes ago, Crimson said:

Can he though?  Sure, we have Pettersson/Hughes/Podkolzin but those are top 10 picks that you expect to hit.  

 

Outside of them there is Boeser, Demko, Hoglander and Rathbone is looking like something.  Otherwise there isn't really much there.

You should add Tryamkin. McCann, and Forsling. Even when used as a trade asset they were still good picks. In Try's case he could easily be an NHL d-man but prefers to be home in Russia. Then there's promising prospects in DiPietro, Lockwood, Woo and Rathbone. Compare all those players drafted outside top 20 to what Gillis did in six drafts. 

[Gally]

59 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

Benning rightfully gets heat.

 

He let some assets walk.

He traded out a number of picks.

He traded prospects allowing them to find homes in other organizations, even as depth players.

 

But the ONLY thing that has changed is the coach and look at the team benning built go.

 

So while he is absolutely guilty of a number of things, we're watching HIS team play and lauding HIS team's efforts.

"Some"

 

Was there one time he did cash in on an asset instead of letting them walk or re-signing them to a deal that ended up being an overpayment? 

 

The guy was here 8 years and we had almost no success, saying that 5 wins in a row with the league's best goaltending means it was Green's fault is ludicrous. This team still has many flaws but should be better than we were at the start.

[-AJ-]

I'll reiterate what I said on Dec 5 when Benning and Weisbrod were fired:

 

Quote

This roster is fine, but they're massively underperforming, hence why I believe coaching changes were what was needed. 

 

That said, I also don't think Benning was a particularly great GM either. I'll move on, but if we see success instantly this year after these moves, don't come to me saying it's because we hired a new GM unless that GM makes big changes.

I felt Benning actually had a strong summer, but others are right to point out that Green was his responsibility and it was his job to fire Green earlier in the season (IMO) and he failed in that regard. It unfortunately cost him his job.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

49 minutes ago, VegasCanuck said:

It could be said, that a big part of the failing of Benning and the outgoing team, was not keeping an experienced President in to oversee operations and team direction / changes.  

Well we did have a President, albeit an inexperienced one in Linden.  He was forced out though & never replaced.

Edited December 15, 2021 by NewbieCanuckFan

[Zhukini]

I'm not sure I'd give him another chance at GM. In an assistant Gm role sure, he did more than adequate at the draft and handling RFA's and was substandard everywhere else.