Jim Bennings legacy without the OEL trade. Grade him out of 10.

[Timråfan]

5 minutes ago, IBatch said:

You're making a lot of assumptions.   JB was a meat and potatoes type GM.  Didn't seem like a snob, or have a gigantic ego like Trump ... other GMs didn't dislike him like his predecessor.    

I saw him save face in almost every interview I saw or read. Not many but those were regarding OEL trade, Dahlen, Loui, drafting Petey, Tanev and Toffoli and probably a lot more that I haven’t read.

A lot of assumptions and a lot of human knowledge.

 

You might remember who started talking about a GM isn’t a scout only as many here argued when talking shat about Gillis.

Or who said how bad Benning was as a GM?

Was it 93 percent that thought he did a good job in 2020!

Now the numbers are almost the opposite only because Benning managed to show how bad he was in Qubic.

I said that the coach at Utica isn’t any good and that the prospects isn’t handled the right way there.

The success in Abby with the change of coach and handling of the prospects(Sedins, Samuelsson) shows how right I was

 

Almost three homeruns by me, full of myself as I am , so some knowledge of the human mind have I.

[DrJockitch]

18 hours ago, Fred65 said:

Yeah a tad early for PA considering his hands are tied by the Cap disaster. How do you judge  GM's what are the parameters ? Team success should be one of the benchmarks surely. BB brought in the Sedins ( and Kesler, Ibelieve, and then blew off Umberger ) which was incredible but of success on the ice was limited. But he did apeal to fans because of his high profile and bluster, fans for some reason like the tough talk but rarely judge on success Nonis sadly was really a non event, Gillis was scorned by fans because of his aloofness, which IMO is silly. He did have the most success of any GM for the franchise. I suspect he showed up FA and dented his ego, so you' your fired. He did bring us ourown AHL team which was good considering how much our farm system was trashed in Chicago and Frederickton.

Unfortunately I think a lot of the judgement on PA has to be based on what the owner and JR have set as the guideline, playoffs now no matter the future cost.

I think he has made some good moves especially in the bringing in of players outside the draft, trades have been a mixed bag, nothing disastrous yet but usually a little overpayment and some nonsensical timing.  Concerned that again a non-playoff team is trading away high draft pics at an alarmingly high rate and still not finding any cap despite this (though this is likely to do with the pressure from the top).

I would have liked to take a chance to break the cycle of bad cap management but looks like that we chose the opposite direction as that would have taken some patience.

I think PA came in and had zero prospects on a non-playoff team that is capped out.  He did a very good job at adding young players in places outside the draft, made a very questionable draft pick in Lekk and has made some good and some poor trades.  Our prospect pool looks better but not good, we have depleted draft capital, have a worse cap situation for the next couple of years than when Benning left and are still lacking size and speed, and in fact may be even smaller in the players that matter.

This could be a big offseason but who knows.  We have too many players on undesirable contracts to even expect a healthy degree of turnover for a good team much less a mediocre one.

[Alflives]

Benning our worse GM ever. Gillis was our most successful. Allvin is a lot more like Gillis in his direction of our club than Benning. 
Fabulous trade of Bo. Pick used to get Hronek, a 25 year old elite right shot D, was brilliant. Some here worry about Lekkerimaki who was picked at 15. Yet they think it would be better to use 17 this draft instead of having Hronek. Allvin is making us a great team again. He’s doing like Gillis did. I know it’s hard, the Benning stain is not easily washed out, but we need to get past our PBSD. 

[canucklehead44]

12 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Benning our worse GM ever. Gillis was our most successful. Allvin is a lot more like Gillis in his direction of our club than Benning. 
Fabulous trade of Bo. Pick used to get Hronek, a 25 year old elite right shot D, was brilliant. Some here worry about Lekkerimaki who was picked at 15. Yet they think it would be better to use 17 this draft instead of having Hronek. Allvin is making us a great team again. He’s doing like Gillis did. I know it’s hard, the Benning stain is not easily washed out, but we need to get past our PBSD. 

Whenever there was a player available and the narrative was “some GM is going to overpay for this guy” that GM was always Benning.
 

Caps fans were like “Beagle is a warrior but some GM will way over pay him at like 3 years x 2 million and he isn’t worth that” then Benning gives him 4 x 3. Jets fans saying Myers is a 3rd pairing, his underlying stats were horrible, Benning is on it.

 

Yet Hronek - nobody even really knows who he is. At first glance I thought we paid a lot for a smallish offensive defenseman yet when I dug in a little more he is likely the most underrated defenseman in the league. His defensive and PK metrics are more impressive than his offensive output and overall he was one of the top in the league. Bear is also hugely underrated - for some reason even Canucks fans can’t appreciate how good he is for the price.

 

Allvin also did the difficult thing and sold our captain at a high. Horvat is a vastly overrated player who is making about 2 million per year too much on his next contract. Hronek >>> Horvat.

 

This seems to be the proper way to retool. Allvin found a way to fill a bigger need, get a younger & cheaper player, acquire a very good near NHL ready prospect and a top 6 winger with a year remaining who can be moved at the deadline if we are out of the picture. 

[AnthonyG]

22 hours ago, Fred65 said:

Yeah a tad early for PA considering his hands are tied by the Cap disaster. How do you judge  GM's what are the parameters ? Team success should be one of the benchmarks surely. BB brought in the Sedins ( and Kesler, Ibelieve, and then blew off Umberger ) which was incredible but of success on the ice was limited. But he did apeal to fans because of his high profile and bluster, fans for some reason like the tough talk but rarely judge on success Nonis sadly was really a non event, Gillis was scorned by fans because of his aloofness, which IMO is silly. He did have the most success of any GM for the franchise. I suspect he showed up FA and dented his ego, so you' your fired. He did bring us ourown AHL team which was good considering how much our farm system was trashed in Chicago and Frederickton.

Yea but the success Gillis had was all thanks to Burke and Nonis’s work earlier. Take away their contributions to that roster and you lose.

Daniel

Henrik

Burrows

Salo

Kesler

Bieksa

Hansen

Schneider

Luongo

Raymond

Vigneault

Edler

 

Like really what did Gillis ACTUALLY do? He added some bottom 6 depth and Samuelsson

then he landed Hamhuis which was a freebee and took no convincing as he WANTED to be in Vancouver.

 

Gillis was given the keys to the Ferrari and crashed it quickly.

Between him and Nonis, their drafting failures and more importantly the complete and total failure to DEVELOP any NHL talent, is what set us sooooooo far back. We are seeing teams all around the league transition smoothly into the next era of that club because of the development in the minors or sheltered NHL development.

Look back at how we almost seamlessly transitioned from one era to the next to the next to the next and so on and so forth until the twins retired. Then there was a serious struggle. Because not enough talent and not enough players ready to take over. That is due to 2005-2013. Imagine if Horvat didnt pan out. That would be frightening and hes only a 2C. There goes a trade chip, wouldnt have landed Hronek and Raty. 

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by AnthonyG

[jyu]

4 hours ago, Alflives said:

Benning our worse GM ever. Gillis was our most successful. Allvin is a lot more like Gillis in his direction of our club than Benning. 
Fabulous trade of Bo. Pick used to get Hronek, a 25 year old elite right shot D, was brilliant. Some here worry about Lekkerimaki who was picked at 15. Yet they think it would be better to use 17 this draft instead of having Hronek. Allvin is making us a great team again. He’s doing like Gillis did. I know it’s hard, the Benning stain is not easily washed out, but we need to get past our PBSD. 

True. But we need to take the context into consideration.

 

Benning walked into the most challenging situation out of Burke, Nonis, Gillis, and even Allvin.

 

Gillis walked into the most favorable situation and yes, he did succeed. We won two prez trophies and a Western conference.

 

Benning literally had no prospect and not many tradeable assets. If not for COVID and minus OEL trade, I think he may have been able to complete the rebuild. 

 

Gillis was focussed on winning now that he paid very little attention to winning later. 

 

IMO, the best GM was Burke. He achieved quite a lot with very little; 40-45 million internal salary expenditure while other contenders were spending 70, 80 million dollars.

 

That WCE team makes at least one cup final appearance with a star goalie. Even 2004, with Bertuzzi in the lineup, I think we could have beaten the Flames. Burke just couldn't get the owner to approve signing a bonafide #1 goalie.

 

[Miss Korea Bob.Loblaw]

On 6/8/2023 at 2:58 PM, Bob.Loblaw said:

Drafting: 5/10.  It's a pretty short list when you think about it.  He had a lot of good picks and he traded most of them away.  When you look at a full database of our picks, the list of NHL talent is extremely small.

Signing: 3/10.  Good signings few and far between.  Hughes, Schenn, Tanev, Markstrom, Horvat, and Demko.  That's a very short list for seven years.  There's a long list of depth players who got retirement money from Benning.  And it also forced Benning not to sign players who walked for free (Tanev & Toffoli).

Trading: 3/10.  The Miller and OEL trades stand out.  But there is a long list of picks needlessly given away.  If you were another team's GM, it was guaranteed that you could get a 3/4/5th round pick packaged for free.  Just look at this list and ask, why did he throw in those picks?  https://www.nhltradetracker.com/user/trade_list_by_GM/Jim_Benning/280/

Personnel: 2/10.  Of all the people fans wanted gone,  Benning was one of the last to go.  Linden gone.  Brackett gone.  Gilman gone.  Green and Desjardins are out of the league.  Some blame probably goes to Aquaman of course, but Dim Jim was the man in charge.

 

Overall score: 3.2/10.  It's bad.   Probably good enough to be the worst GM in recent Canucks memory.  And to be honest, I think I'm giving him a pretty favourable score. The general consensus among the wider hockey community is that Benning was one of the worst GMs in history.  The fact that a failing GM held onto office for seven years really damaged the franchise.  

I stand by my drafting score - bump it up to a 6 if you must.  But signing and trading go down to 2/10.  Doesn't matter how much good he did - Benning orchestrated arguably the worst NHL trade in recent memory.  Our team is now handicapped for the next decade.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

2 minutes ago, Bob.Loblaw said:

I stand by my drafting score - bump it up to a 6 if you must.  But signing and trading go down to 2/10.  Doesn't matter how much good he did - Benning orchestrated arguably the worst NHL trade in recent memory.  Our team is now handicapped for the next decade.

Only because LE wasn't a trade but a free agent signing.

[Alflives]

8 hours ago, jyu said:

True. But we need to take the context into consideration.

 

Benning walked into the most challenging situation out of Burke, Nonis, Gillis, and even Allvin.

 

Gillis walked into the most favorable situation and yes, he did succeed. We won two prez trophies and a Western conference.

 

Benning literally had no prospect and not many tradeable assets. If not for COVID and minus OEL trade, I think he may have been able to complete the rebuild. 

 

Gillis was focussed on winning now that he paid very little attention to winning later. 

 

IMO, the best GM was Burke. He achieved quite a lot with very little; 40-45 million internal salary expenditure while other contenders were spending 70, 80 million dollars.

 

That WCE team makes at least one cup final appearance with a star goalie. Even 2004, with Bertuzzi in the lineup, I think we could have beaten the Flames. Burke just couldn't get the owner to approve signing a bonafide #1 goalie.

 

The best GM is the guy who built the best clubs. Quinn was good. Burke did good things. Nonis did good too. But Gillis built two president trophy winning clubs. His peers, who clearly hated the guy’s arrogance, voted him GM of the year. Our owner was foolish to not allow Gillis to rebuild when it was suggested. 

[Miss Korea Bob.Loblaw]

3 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

Only because LE wasn't a trade but a free agent signing.

We had suffered the consequences of Luongo until he was 43 years old.  We are set to suffer the consequences of Loui Eriksson until he is 46 years old.  We are now dealing with 15 years of backlash from signing Eriksson, compounded by Benning's effort to undo his mistake.

 

I'm going to say it - Benning should now be the most hated Canuck in franchise history.  He has ruined this team in such a way that Messier couldn't even imagine.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

40 minutes ago, Bob.Loblaw said:

We had suffered the consequences of Luongo until he was 43 years old. 

https://canucksarmy.com/news/report-canucks-rejected-opportunity-reacquire-roberto-luongo-ltir-purposes-panthers-before-retired-2019

 

 

 

[Kevin Biestra]

1 hour ago, Bob.Loblaw said:

I stand by my drafting score - bump it up to a 6 if you must.  But signing and trading go down to 2/10.  Doesn't matter how much good he did - Benning orchestrated arguably the worst NHL trade in recent memory.  Our team is now handicapped for the next decade.

 

At least we don't have that pesky draft pick.

[Kevin Biestra]

58 minutes ago, Bob.Loblaw said:

We had suffered the consequences of Luongo until he was 43 years old.  We are set to suffer the consequences of Loui Eriksson until he is 46 years old.  We are now dealing with 15 years of backlash from signing Eriksson, compounded by Benning's effort to undo his mistake.

 

I'm going to say it - Benning should now be the most hated Canuck in franchise history.  He has ruined this team in such a way that Messier couldn't even imagine.

 

He had to kill Bob Morton because he made a mistake.  Now it's time to erase that mistake.

[guntrix]

I say this - and without exaggeration - Benning is the worst GM in Canucks history. 
 

If you thought we’d be seeing Vancouver win the Stanley Cup in this decade, you can forget about it. But maybe in 2030, once this core gets old and we have to start rebuilding again (assuming we don’t have to worry about dead cap and anchor contracts), maybe (just maybe) we’ll have a GM that’s worth his salary who’ll rebuild the right way.
 

I just hope that new core wins the cup because if not, I’ll start having doubts about seeing this franchise win the cup in my lifetime. 
 

Thank you, GMJB. 

[bigbadcanucks]

1 hour ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

Only because LE wasn't a trade but a free agent signing.

Benning gaffed with the LE signing and further exacerbated the matter by trading a package that included one deadbeat Swede for a package that included another deadbeat Swede.  Leave it to Benning to throw someone else's money at Swedes whose best before date is long passed. At the very least, Allvin has shown the ability to keep his money clip in his suit jacket when it comes to chasing useless/washed up Swedes, and is only doling out ELCs and modest ELC+1 contracts at young prospects from his homeland.

[bigbadcanucks]

11 minutes ago, guntrix said:

I say this - and without exaggeration - Benning is the worst GM in Canucks history. 
 

If you thought we’d be seeing Vancouver win the Stanley Cup in this decade, you can forget about it. But maybe in 2030, once this core gets old and we have to start rebuilding again (assuming we don’t have to worry about dead cap and anchor contracts), maybe (just maybe) we’ll have a GM that’s worth his salary who’ll rebuild the right way.
 

I just hope that new core wins the cup because if not, I’ll start having doubts about seeing this franchise win the cup in my lifetime. 
 

Thank you, GMJB. 

Would have to agree with you @guntrix.  Revisionist history being what it is, I can't believe I thought Benning was going to do something worthwhile when he was hired.  His stupidity was on full display anytime he spoke in public.  I can't believe I drank the Benning kool-aid for the first few years he was here.  Drafting Fat Jake and Ollie Juolevi ahead of you-know-who should have tipped me off.  Drafting genius...my ass.  Funny how he hasn't found a meaningful gig since his firing from the Canucks.

[Notwhereitsat]

On 6/8/2023 at 3:33 PM, Strawbone said:

I can't judge Benning while ignoring the Eriksson and OEL signings. He did those things, and it's all way too hypothetical to imagine a world where he did not, as surely other deals would have happened instead.

 

It's a bit like evaluating someone on a driving test, where they followed all the rules of the road and did just fine, except that they ran over a pedestrian and crashed in to a school bus. Benning fails his driving test!

Is he not the guy who passed on Tkachuk? I was done with him at that point. Done!!!

[Timråfan]

On 6/16/2023 at 6:58 PM, AnthonyG said:

Yea but the success Gillis had was all thanks to Burke and Nonis’s work earlier. Take away their contributions to that roster and you lose.

Daniel

Henrik

Burrows

Salo

Kesler

Bieksa

Hansen

Schneider

Luongo

Raymond

Vigneault

Edler

 

Like really what did Gillis ACTUALLY do? He added some bottom 6 depth and Samuelsson

then he landed Hamhuis which was a freebee and took no convincing as he WANTED to be in Vancouver.

 

Gillis was given the keys to the Ferrari and crashed it quickly.

Between him and Nonis, their drafting failures and more importantly the complete and total failure to DEVELOP any NHL talent, is what set us sooooooo far back. We are seeing teams all around the league transition smoothly into the next era of that club because of the development in the minors or sheltered NHL development.

Look back at how we almost seamlessly transitioned from one era to the next to the next to the next and so on and so forth until the twins retired. Then there was a serious struggle. Because not enough talent and not enough players ready to take over. That is due to 2005-2013. Imagine if Horvat didnt pan out. That would be frightening and hes only a 2C. There goes a trade chip, wouldnt have landed Hronek and Raty. 

 

Was Gradin scout before Sedin got drafted? 

[NewbieCanuckFan]

3 hours ago, Timråfan said:

Was Gradin scout before Sedin got drafted? 

 

 

 

Gradin was also involved the scouting of Mattias Öhlund & Alexander Edler.

Edited June 19, 2023 by NewbieCanuckFan

[NewbieCanuckFan]

On 6/16/2023 at 5:45 AM, IBatch said:

You're making a lot of assumptions.   JB was a meat and potatoes type GM.  Didn't seem like a snob, or have a gigantic ego like Trump ... other GMs didn't dislike him like his predecessor.    

That was the biggest problem with Gillis.  Arrogance to the max.  Was a smart guy but he liked to tell you he was smart.  JB was /is part of the 'old boys network'.