Jim Rutherford on the Canucks season, Elias Pettersson's contract, his future and more

[DSVII]

On 12/14/2023 at 4:15 PM, conquestofbaguettes said:

OEL - good player but hampered them from making moves they wanted to do due to the continued flat cap. Rutherford stated it himself recently. Hell, they originally could have and would have kept him if the cap kept going up like it was supposed to.

 

Poolman- the fact you even list him here is joke.  Benning was supposed to foresee all those concussions? Get real. Plus he's on LTIR now anyway. Doesn't count towards the cap. More low hanging fruit.

 

Dickinson  - the cost to move money during a flat cap. Once again low hanging fruit and failure to account for context of the situation.

 

Halak - which would have been an Ian Clark selection too btw. He "handled all things goalies" afterall. You gonna rag on him for picking Halak? They wanted a vet to help carry the load with Demmers. He sucked ass and they moved on. Shit happens.

 

And what do you mean "after the squeeze." The squeeze STILL hasn't completely lifted even now. Which once again is mostly a product of circumstance rather than "they just bad at job."

 

 

OEL was an avoidable mistake, heck, even after losing out on 2020, he still went back to him in 2021 after posting 17 pts on a failing Coyotes team. 

 

The fact you are writing off Poolman really speaks to the bias towards Benning. Him being on LTIR is a blessing in disguise yes, but the fact about Poolman isn't his injury, but overpaying $2.5M for a RHD that did absolutely nothing up to that point on Winnipeg. If we want to talk injury and inability to have foresight, then Ferland is exhibit A.

 

I'm ragging on him for the structure of Halak's contract. Again Benning put himself in these cap squeeze situations. Even if you give him the benefit of not foreseeing Covid (which seriously ignores the fact that all his pre-covid contracts failed to provide surplus value after 2014), he still put himself in those situations with his pro-scouting failures. Jumping on the OEL contract landmine without waiting a year for his own contracts to expire ended up being costly.

 

The Squeeze i'm referring to is the culmination of his mistakes in the 2020 offseason losing all of Toffoli, Tanev, Stetcher, Marky

 

I mean, the fact that there's so much low hanging fruit with Benning just really shows how many elementary level errors he's made. And he wasn't forced to make them.

 

 

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Toffoli was absolutely a matter of cap space. He wasn't originally supposed to be a rental but that's what he ended up becoming due to flat cap. A luxury winger they could no longer afford.

 

Tanev - He confirmed on 32 thoughts he was offered a two deal by the Canucks. But he turned it down for more term in Calgary. He did not disclose the amount offered.  He could have chosen to stay in Van. He did not.

 

Toffoli was a matter of cap space because Benning chose to qualify Jake, and had Jake take him to the cleaners. A big misread on his part.

 

On the same 32 thoughts, Tanev stated he was perfectly willing to sign. Benning pissed him off by not speaking to him until his original OEL trade fell apart. It's really the human element, contact and delegation of duties, where Benning also fell short in his role as a GM. Tanev and Toffoli were not the only players who've had that feedback. It's basic professional courtesy really. 

 

 

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Virtanen- if the rumors are true he was pretty buddy buddy with Francesco? Virtanen didn't cost much in terms of cap space but there was a fair bit of sunk cost on that one.  Even I thought he would be gone after his lack luster playoff performance.

 

First time i'm hearing of this, and yes, in a flat cap world every cent is valuable. The fact that he didn't foresee virtanen rejecting the qualifying offer and ended up paying double what he originally offered ($1.25M over) is a huge loss considering it likely did cost us Tanev/Toffoli.

 

And also the order of operations here too for Benning, having his peripheral contracts done first which then squeeze his leverage on his core players (i.e offering Poolman that $2.5M deal while Petey was still in his talks, taking any Long term contract extension off the table)

 

 

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You can spin it to be all the GMs fault all you want.  Doesn't make it true though. Context matters. And circumstances, especially during a pandemic with a flat cap, dictated a great deal of what we saw. There's simply no way around it.

Context definitely matters. 

 

For instance, yes a flat cap dictated a great deal of what we saw with contract squeeze and losing UFAs. But it also meanthat contracts for UFAs were then naturally depressed during that time because teams were less willing to spend. 

 

There's lots of ways around it, if you're patient and are willing to wait for that opportunity. As Allvin is showing how to navigate that.

 

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What?  Of course they rebuilt. I never said they didn't. The question is HOW they decided to do it.

 

There is more than one way to rebuild a team. Just because "they no tank" doesn't mean they didn't rebuild. They absolutely did.

And that's exactly what I said in the other thread.  in THEORY that would be the correct takeaway, but there are no guarantees. Yes, the pain was prolonged. But not all because of the big bad Benning but because of the type of rebuild ownership decided to go with in the first place.

 

They didn't stock up picks. They didn't leverage the farm system to develop players. Rutherford himself stated that the previous regime rushed players unnecssarily and was too impatient.

 

There's no guarantees of course and we are tremendously lucky that Petey was selected and Montreal reached for Kotkeniemi which made detroit go for zadina instead of Hughes. 

 

There is more than one way to rebuild a team outside of the draft, making shrewd trades and being opportunistic with other teams prospect and UFA situations. But Benning had far more Ls than Ws in this area.

 

Blind luck disguised as a plan to prop up an atrocious front office is what is being championed here.

 

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Just because they didn't take this intentional tank approach to rebuild doesn't mean they didn't rebuild. Of course they did.   This is 100% different team than when Benning took over. The last remnants of the Gillis regime is finally gone as well.

 

The stated goal to make the playoffs, yes. But that does not mean it was ever some "make the playoffs or else" mandate. Former Canucks AGM Chris Gear stated exactly that. Capping out to ice a competitive product to keep asses in seats while slowly rebuilding over time was the plan. And that's exactly what they did.

 

You can interpret it this way, but I see it as Benning's team being exposed for what it was the second the last of Gillis' team was gone (Hamhuis, Edler, Markstrom, Tanev). 

 

Rutherford and Allvin had to completely rebuild the Defense and revamp the coaching staff in Abbotsford, and bring in their own depth pieces. 

 

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But what does "be competitive" here really mean. I'm saying it's to ice a product to keep more asses in seats than it would in a hard tank situation.  NHL hockey is a business, afterall. To quote Gear once again:

 

"...[in 2018]... the organization want[ed] to be competitive. And competitive doesn't mean you have to get into the playoffs or else, but it means we want a winning environment. We want fans to see competitive hockey; We don't want to get shelled 6-1 every night. So that's the environment you're trying to navigate."

 

Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

 

Again, 6-1 games, even for rebuilding teams, are very rare, under 5% of games played.

 

And again, if you count the losses and compare vs rebuilding teams during that era, the Canucks weren't that much better off in the number of 1 goal games.

 

It's not really cut and dry. There's a lot of definitions on competitive hockey. It's just that the one you're saying the Canucks chased, they didn't chase it successfully. Rebuilding teams during that time span had more closer games than the Canucks.

 

And look what Gear says may be true, but it's night and day from his boss' (jim) execution. There wasn't a winning environment and the club overpaid for a lot of passengers that didn't build that culture or maintain the one the Sedins left.

 

 

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And that's the rub. Partially a product of the type of rebuild ownership chose and partially a product of the unforeseeable pandemic flat cap.

 

Circumstance dictates. Some things you have control over, and others not so much.  As again Gear stated,

 

"...there were those of us that didn't agree with a lot of those decisions that fans didn't like either; some of them I supported some of them I didn't but regardless when a decision was made, whether it was the guy above me or two or three above me I supported it."

 

I ask who sits two or three above the AGM in the organizational chart?

Gear continues...

 

"I've always been a supporter of trying to accumulate picks and young players, but you're also limited by what instructions you're given and the dynamics you have to work with."

 

Benning and Aquilini both bear that responsibility. I do agree the competitive mandate could have still worked, but having a rookie GM to execute is not ideal. And Benning was atrocious at managing the cap, with and without hindsight.

 

Allvin at least, is showing that Aquilini is willing to learn by letting Rutherford as that layer of insulation, that neither Benning or Gillis had.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by DSVII

[conquestofbaguettes]

2 hours ago, DSVII said:

 

OEL was an avoidable mistake, heck, even after losing out on 2020, he still went back to him in 2021 after posting 17 pts on a failing Coyotes team. 

 

Yet even this management squad would preferred to keep him than buy him out. This is not say anyone (myself included) thought he was ever going to live up to that fat ugly contract, but only that they bought him out because they couldn't trade other guys to make the changes they wanted. Rutherford stated it himself in an interview like 3 days ago, including stating "OEL is a good player.

 

And even with his bad performance last year, stated exit interviews were good. They expected him back. Allvin stated they did not intend to use buyouts and even Tocchet said he thought OEL could bounce back... (which he very much has in Florida i might add sitting around 0.5 point per game pace.)

 

Secondly, OEL was good his first year in Van.  And last year he was playing on a broken foot which he suffered at the worlds that summer. Ergo looked like total shit out there.

 

Thirdly, even talking about Arizona and his production with that shit roster doesn't mean much. This is similar to when people were saying how bad of a coach Tocchet is and what a bad choice it was. 

 

OEL was a "mistake?" That's obviously a matter of opinion. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but I reckon those always quick to judge said the same thing about Miller not being worth a 1st.

2 hours ago, DSVII said:

The fact you are writing off Poolman really speaks to just how hard you're trying to be biased towards Benning. Him being on LTIR is a blessing in disguise yes, but the fact about Poolman isn't his injury, but overpaying $2.5M for a RHD that did absolutely nothing up to that point on Winnipeg

 

Hindsight being 20/20 yet again. Poolman was deserving a raise. The injuries were an unforeseeable outcome. Secondly, since you're so apt to appeal to hindsight I'll join you. 2.5 for a RD ain't bad at all... especially given what we're seeing around the league for RD. Even Ethan Bear just landed himself a 2 year deal coming back from injury with zero evidence he can play to the level required. Poolman at that price and term is like a nothing issue. As I state again, even referring to Poolman as some slight against Benning to be low hanging fruit.

 

2 hours ago, DSVII said:

If we want to talk injury and inability to have foresight, then Ferland is exhibit A.

 

Even I didn't like the Ferland signing. Way too high risk for my liking.

 

Like... let's get this straight here. It's not like I'm saying the previous regime was comprised of infallible humans that could do no wrong.  The only thing I'm saying here is that we can't paint it all with the same shit covered brush acting like they did no good at all. This stuff is shades of grey.  But deciphering it all takes setting aside preconceived judgment... especially judgment formed when we don't have all the information available to make such a judgment in the first place.

 

2 hours ago, DSVII said:

I'm ragging on him for the structure of Halak's contract

 

Which was the price to get him to Van. Market dictates. Who else was in the running for his services? Give his agent credit.

 

Bottomline is they wanted to give Demmers some help to carry the load. Halak was sold as that guy when he really wasn't and if wasn't Van it would have been someone else.  This is similar to the Loui Eriksson signing tbh. Loui had many suitors. But Loui picked Vancouver.  In hindsight it obviously failed miserably, but shit happens.  And no GM bats 1.000.  Rutherford stated that the other day as well I might add.

2 hours ago, DSVII said:

 

The Squeeze i'm referring to is the culmination of his mistakes in the 2020 offseason losing all of Toffoli, Tanev, Stetcher, Marky

 

Which is reductionist. You simply cannot package them all as one thing. Different dynamics with each and moved on for different reasons. Not just because "he no do cap right." That's simply the wrong conclusion to draw here and frankly an unfair proclamation.

 

3 hours ago, DSVII said:

I mean, the fact that there's so much low hanging fruit with Benning just really shows how many elementary level errors he's made. And he wasn't forced to make them.

No. That's not what that means. Low hanging fruit here refers to things like Forsling... a player that went through 4 teams and even cleared waivers and put on waivers a second time before being claimed and finding his stride in Florida.  Most prospects never turn out. So we can't act like this one case that did finally turn out is some major slight... all the while ignoring the vast majority of prospects that go through the same process and never make it. But of course we don't talk about all those ones. Just the ones that succeed... much much later on.

 

That's what I mean when I say low hanging fruit.

 

And this can be applied in many different facets when it comes to the so-called "sins" of Jim Benning.

 

3 hours ago, DSVII said:

Toffoli was a matter of cap space because Benning chose to qualify Jake, and had Jake take him to the cleaners. A big misread on his part.

 

Even I thought Jake should've been shipped after his lack luster performance in the playoffs... so I suspect a bit of sunk cost going on with him. All that time, energy and money dumped into his development.  Didn't end up working out... which happens sometimes. And it happens around the league with players all the time.

 

 

And apparently Aqua was buddy buddy with Virtanen if the rumors from Rachel Dorrie are true? So maybe that could be part. Not every player becomes and every day NHLer.

 

Also, no. It wasn't just because money went to this one player therefore...

 

What kind of deal did Toffoli get in Calgary. What did Jake get. More to the story than just one guy here.  As for misreads, you sure about that?  And since we're doing the hindsight,

how many teams has Toffoli been though now?  That's sure a core player Vancouver definitely should have signed long term right there.  Nope. Expendable supplemental piece is what he is. 

 

3 hours ago, DSVII said:

 

On the same 32 thoughts, Tanev stated he was perfectly willing to sign. Benning pissed him off by not speaking to him until his original OEL trade fell apart.

 

That's a reach.  They reached out when Free Agency opened as Tanev stated. You don't know why the offered the 2 year deal on that day and not before.

 

Secondly, Tanev was indeed offered a 2 year deal.  He CHOSE to go to Calgary for more term (we don't know the dollar amount offered by Van.)

 

 

You speak of lack of "professional courtesy" yet Tanevs own statement here "..I was on the back burner, which was fine."

 

Tanev understood that business is business... and then apparently not if he couldn't set his damn ego aside because the offer didn't come before some certain expected date??  "Its coming its coming." And it did. Tanev simply left for more term and likely more money. End of story. That's the business.

 

Lack of professionalism? I might point the finger at Tanev on that one if he can't understand that there was a lot of shit to deal with and that he might have to wait a little bit. Grow up.

 

Secondly, I always found the outrage around Tanev pretty funny.  Not sure if you fall into this camp, but the usual suspects so angry the org didn't intentionally tank rebuild and know they need to get younger to build for the future also get mad about older aging veterans (injury prone vets at that) moving on. Lol.

 

Like pick one. Christ

 

3 hours ago, DSVII said:

The fact that he didn't foresee virtanen rejecting the qualifying offer and ended up paying double what he originally offered ($1.25M over) is a huge loss considering it likely did cost us Tanev/Toffoli.

 

Well they made Tanev an offer. He turned it down. Toffoli camp got impatient and he signed elsewhere. Yes, many pans in many fires at that time but again I'll stand by my statements above.   He's not some crucial core piece to put on the forefront. The flat cap forced hard decisions. Some worked out in the end and some didn't. So be it.

 

3 hours ago, DSVII said:

And also the order of operations here too for Benning, having his peripheral contracts done first which then squeeze his leverage on his core players (i.e offering Poolman that $2.5M deal while Petey was still in his talks, taking any Long term contract extension off the table)

 

According to you maybe. And its another reductionist claim anyway. Do you have inside information as to what any of those things actually looked like or why? Don't act like you know. You don't know. And neither do I.  Unless you do and I'd love if you could share your inside info with the class.

 

3 hours ago, DSVII said:

Context definitely matters. 

 

For instance, yes a flat cap dictated a great deal of what we saw with contract squeeze and losing UFAs. But it also meanthat contracts for UFAs were then naturally depressed during that time because teams were less willing to spend. 

 

There's lots of ways around it, if you're patient and are willing to wait for that opportunity. As Allvin is showing how to navigate that.

 

 

But Benning and Allvin time periods are not equivalent situations at all. As time went on the cap crunch lessened. Contracts expired. Allvin et al. were granted more freedom than what the previous regime (and every other regime around the league at that time) experienced previously.  It's almost apples and oranges. 

 

And saying "there's lots of ways around it" meaning you think you know what other opportunities actually existed. You don't know what was available.  You don't know what was or wasn't possible out there. Don't act like you do.

 

Secondly, of course some of moves and cap crunches were self-inflicted. Of course they were.  That was never in contention. The question is how much we can actually attribute to what, or who, and why. People want to say "it's all just Bennngs fault" and that's simply not true...  unless we expected him to be some all-seeing, all-knowing seer that never gets anything wrong. That's certainly how people act when they hand wave the pandemic flat cap being a legitimate variable for why things played out the way they did. "He should have known." Total bs.

3 hours ago, DSVII said:

They didn't stock up picks. They didn't leverage the farm system to develop players. Rutherford himself stated that the previous regime rushed players unnecssarily and was too impatient.

Agreed. But they still rebuilt the team.. just did it in a way that people fail to identify as a  "rebuild" because it didn't follow this A B C path people generally recognize as a "proper" "rebuild."  Like I said before there are lots of ways to rebuild a team. Some better than others? In theory, absolutely. Even I would agree with that. And even I would have preferred a rebuild that took advantage of the exact things you're saying! But... circumstance dictates. And not all organizations deal with exactly the same circumstances or for exactly the same reasons. And we need to get into the dirty details to understand that part of it.

 

4 hours ago, DSVII said:

There's no guarantees of course and we are tremendously lucky that Petey was selected and Montreal reached for Kotkeniemi which made detroit go for zadina instead of Hughes. 

 

Yep. Just as it was extremely unlucky for Buffalo to miss on McDavid and Anaheim to miss on Bedard. There are no guarantees that the "proper" way will get you the horses needed to build around. And afterall drafting is little more than educated guessing... especially picks after the top 5 or so.

 

We definitely got lucky with Pettersson and Hughes... just as other teams get lucky on their picks and teams often  passing over their star players. It happens in every draft.

 

4 hours ago, DSVII said:

Blind luck disguised as a plan to prop up an atrocious front office is what is being championed here.

Which is a bullshit statement.

 

You can apply this process to most any organization at any draft, regardless of whether they chose the intentional tank rebuild or a different approach to rebuilding.

 

Picks are magic beans.

 

Some sprout. Most don't.

 

4 hours ago, DSVII said:

You can interpret it this way, but I see it as Benning's team being exposed for what it was the second the last of Gillis' team was gone (Hamhuis, Edler, Markstrom, Tanev). 

 

Again which goes back to my point above about people getting up in arms about "not rebuilding properly" yet still want to get mad with the fundamental out with the old in with the new process of a rebuild.  Like you can't have your cake and eat it too, dude.   Pick one.

 

Do you want a new team or not. He's the process. Old guy out. New guy in. Piece by piece by piece.

 

As ol Frankie boy once stated on Twitter "A rebuild is a long, slow, gradual process."  And that's exactly what we saw. 

 

Was it janky, and at times a meandering mess? Absolutely. But the overall goal of aquiring a new core worth building around never stopped. That's the takeaway from it all. Whether we think it that process followed some exact (made up) definition of how a rebuild is "supposed" to be.

 

4 hours ago, DSVII said:

Rutherford and Allvin had to completely rebuild the Defense and revamp the coaching staff in Abbotsford, and bring in their own depth pieces. 

 

They sure did. And for a number of different reasons. Not just because "Benning do bad."   There's simply more to this stuff than that.

 

4 hours ago, DSVII said:

Again, 6-1 games, even for rebuilding teams, are very rare, under 5% of games played.

 

And again, if you count the losses and compare vs rebuilding teams during that era, the Canucks weren't that much better off in the number of 1 goal games.

 

Comparables don't mean anything there. A team worthy of paying money to actually see is the takeaway. Honing in on this specific 6-1 example is missing what's being said.   It's about having no chance of winning. a team like that has a very different outcome than a team that might actually be able to stay in a game, lose or not. Half assed competitive product vs.  A known absolute dog shit product. Not the same thing when it comes to drawing power.

 

4 hours ago, DSVII said:

It's not really cut and dry. There's a lot of definitions on competitive hockey. It's just that the one you're saying the Canucks chased, they didn't chase it successfully. Rebuilding teams during that time span had more closer games than the Canucks.

 

And look what Gear says may be true, but it's night and day from his boss' (jim) execution. There wasn't a winning environment and the club overpaid for a lot of passengers that didn't build that culture or maintain the one the Sedins left.

 

It is that cut and dry. The chased it "successfully" just fine. Weren't you the one posting all the attendance charts and all that?  That's what that shows. Attendence stayed up with that competitive (but still shitty) product.

 

Competive in these terms doesn't  mean make playoffs and succeed on the ice specifically.  But competitive enough team to still draw consumers on a nightly basis. Whether the product was actually shit and by what standard didn't really matter... along with all those contracts at that time I might add.  "Successful" here refers to much more than the just the team and their win loss ratio.

 

Overpaying for stop gap fillers on a rebuilder comes with territory. Even Kyle Burroughs, a 7th/ 8th dman on a good team, landed himself a 3 year deal. Most the deals signed at that time were meaningless. They served a purpose. See above.

 

And who's to say they didn't build a culture. I would argue they very much did. Say what you want about Bo Horvat but he carried a hell of a lot of weight at that time. So did others.

Granted, even my opinion is debatable considering discussing something as ominous as "culture" isn't exactly a quantifiable thing... for us on the outside at least. We'd have to ask the players for that. I know Smyl said at the end the culture was bad, but that certainly doesn't mean it was like that all along. And I bet even Steamer would agree with that statement.

 

4 hours ago, DSVII said:

Benning and Aquilini both bear that responsibility. I do agree the competitive mandate could have still worked, but having a rookie GM to execute is not ideal. And Benning was atrocious at managing the cap, with and without hindsight.

 

Allvin at least, is showing that Aquilini is willing to learn by letting Rutherford as that layer of insulation, that neither Benning or Gillis had.

 

But what "responsibility" for what is the question. Criticisms are fine... when they are based on actual truth and that we know for a fact we can speak to. Problem is there is so much bullshit, pre conceived judgments without having the actual knowledge to speak about a thing. Of course the GM bears the weight of the bad, but also gets the praises for the good. But we don't often see a whole lot of the later. Its always someone else for the good. And no matter how the bad things happened, whether a pandemic flat cap or not affecting an outcome, its all still somehow Bennings fault.  Which is ridiculous. But... everyone loves a good scapegoat, afterall.

 

Truth is there was a lot of good and there was a lot of bad.  We can just it there.

 

Having said that, I agree Aqua is letting Rutherford do his thing.  He knows better than to fuck with a man like that, storied career who's done it all and knows what to do and how to do it. If he tried Jim would bail at the drop of a hat. Of that I have no doubt.

[GrammaInTheTub]

Damn, chill 

[DSVII]

On 12/16/2023 at 9:57 PM, conquestofbaguettes said:

Yet even this management squad would preferred to keep him than buy him out. This is not say anyone (myself included) thought he was ever going to live up to that fat ugly contract, but only that they bought him out because they couldn't trade other guys to make the changes they wanted. Rutherford stated it himself in an interview like 3 days ago, including stating "OEL is a good player.

 

And even with his bad performance last year, stated exit interviews were good. They expected him back. Allvin stated they did not intend to use buyouts and even Tocchet said he thought OEL could bounce back... (which he very much has in Florida i might add sitting around 0.5 point per game pace.)

Secondly, OEL was good his first year in Van.  And last year he was playing on a broken foot which he suffered at the worlds that summer. Ergo looked like total shit out there.
 

Thirdly, even talking about Arizona and his production with that shit roster doesn't mean much. This is similar to when people were saying how bad of a coach Tocchet is and what a bad choice it was. 

 

Funny enough, I actually preferred to keep OEL mainly because of the buyout.

 

In the salary cap era, it isn't enough to say that the person is a good player, they have to add surplus value relative to their contract. 

 

And yes, OEL was good 1 year in Van, which would have been 16% of his tenure with that cap hit with us. That isn't a strong case 1 year was elite, the rest be damned?

Again, there is such a thing as GMs using the media to posture and prop up value. You'll never find a GM admit to the media that their players are bad (and depress their value) or that their path isn't the correct one (see Chris Gear). Deft GMs use that to their advantage.

 

0.5 point per game pace on Florida is fine for a $2 mil player, incomparable to the situation he was in with Van, in terms of the cost to the team to bring him in, the fit (offensive D on a team that didn't have a Hughes type) and the production expected of his contract.

 

You keep preaching 'context' and you ignore it here.

 

His time with Arizona means just as much as you citing his 0.5 point pace with Florida. He simply isn't good enough to justify that contract. With the Canucks, he was 0.37 points per game (ranked ~82nd among dmen) and 0.4 points per game (ranked 64th among dmen). That simply isn't good enough.

 

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OEL was a "mistake?" That's obviously a matter of opinion. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but I reckon those always quick to judge said the same thing about Miller not being worth a 1st.

 

 

Even I didn't like the Ferland signing. Way too high risk for my liking.

Like... let's get this straight here. It's not like I'm saying the previous regime was comprised of infallible humans that could do no wrong.  The only thing I'm saying here is that we can't paint it all with the same shit covered brush acting like they did no good at all. This stuff is shades of grey.  But deciphering it all takes setting aside preconceived judgment... especially judgment formed when we don't have all the information available to make such a judgment in the first place.

Which was the price to get him to Van. Market dictates. Who else was in the running for his services? Give his agent credit.

 

 

OEL definitely was at time of signing, I was willing to let it hopefully work out (because the alternative would mean it would become one of the worst deals in the salary cap era.) It didn't, and Benning should wear the mud on his face for this one. 

 

Miller ended up working out, but the full consequences of the trade will be whether he ages well (i believe he will)

 

Poolman, as a RHD that got 1 point in 39 games the last season before we signed him certainly deserved something, but not 3x his old contract. It's not really hindsight there, this was his attempted mulligan to make up for the hole on the RD side that he made by letting Tanev go. 

 

Ethan Bear is an interesting example let's see what he signs at. He's also 2 years younger than Poolman when he made that deal, though I doubt it'll be at $2.5M x 4 years. Again, it's fine to give Benning his laurels, but his UFA deals are not the hill to die on when it comes to his record.

 

Again, I'm not expecting infallibility, but adding two extra years onto this one is really on Benning considering how other comparable Dmen to Poolman were going at the time in term and cap. Timing the market and planning cap space ahead for his acquisitions was not his strong suit either. This contract got in the way of us extending Petey. 

 

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Hindsight being 20/20 yet again. Poolman was deserving a raise. The injuries were an unforeseeable outcome. Secondly, since you're so apt to appeal to hindsight I'll join you. 2.5 for a RD ain't bad at all... especially given what we're seeing around the league for RD. Even Ethan Bear just landed himself a 2 year deal coming back from injury with zero evidence he can play to the level required. Poolman at that price and term is like a nothing issue. As I state again, even referring to Poolman as some slight against Benning to be low hanging fruit.

 

You cite OEL being a 0.5 point per game pace as a metric for determining OEL's bounce back.

 

And you are advocating a raise for a RHD that produced at a clip of 0.03 points per game the season before to get a 150% raise for 4 years? I think that is a stretch. 

 

And yes, let's look at Ethan Bear's s deal once it's signed, because I doubt it'll be a 4 year one. And he's two years younger than Poolman at the time he signed his bloated contract with  us.

 

Paying a replacement level RHD $2.5M for 4 years is a big deal especially when you're pricing yourself out of future flexibility and your competing GMs are signing 1-2 year deals to maintain said flexibility. 

 

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Bottomline is they wanted to give Demmers some help to carry the load. Halak was sold as that guy when he really wasn't and if wasn't Van it would have been someone else.  This is similar to the Loui Eriksson signing tbh. Loui had many suitors. But Loui picked Vancouver.  In hindsight it obviously failed miserably, but shit happens.  And no GM bats 1.000.  Rutherford stated that the other day as well I might add.

Which is reductionist. You simply cannot package them all as one thing. Different dynamics with each and moved on for different reasons. Not just because "he no do cap right." That's simply the wrong conclusion to draw here and frankly an unfair proclamation.

 

Nah it isn't reductionist because we're taking into account his entire body of work. What about it is unfair? The fact that Benning put himself into that cap squeeze of his own making? Different dynamics do play into it and other GMs around the league also dealt with Covid in mixed results, it doesn't change the fact that Benning got the worst outcome both cap and roster wise.

 

Even if we ignore the fact that pre-covid moves (I won't when it comes to Benning), like signing Myers which eventually forced Tanev out, and creating a squeeze that also made Edler go to a divisional rival.

• Jake was an unforced error in a crucial 2020 offseason that added $1.25M to the cap
• Chasing OEL and not even bothering with Toffoli at all, or giving Tanev anything until the 11th hour (which then made the Poolman deal necessary)
• Giving Poolman that extension before Petey, thereby getting rid of any possibility of a long term extension. 
• Trading three of his own contracts out 1 year before expiry at the cost of OEL and a top 10 pick.

The nuance with Benning is that he just kept making those 5% loss moves that kept cascading one onto another (failure to develop/draft a Dman pre-2018, walking away from Tanev, doubling down on OEL) that make his errors stand out.

 

Blaming circumstances can only go so far, especially when 20+ of his peers operated just fine in the same flat cap and covid world dynamic. you have to assign personal responsibility and accountability for his actions at some point. It can't just all be only for the positives. Otherwise 31 other GMs should have had guaranteed jobs during the pandemic the last 3 years and be given a pass, because all their actions were 'tainted' by that dynamic. It doesn't work like that.

 

 

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No. That's not what that means. Low hanging fruit here refers to things like Forsling... a player that went through 4 teams and even cleared waivers and put on waivers a second time before being claimed and finding his stride in Florida.  Most prospects never turn out. So we can't act like this one case that did finally turn out is some major slight... all the while ignoring the vast majority of prospects that go through the same process and never make it. But of course we don't talk about all those ones. Just the ones that succeed... much much later on.

 

That's what I mean when I say low hanging fruit.

 

 

Forsling is a loss, but he's not the top things that come to my mind on the last regime's missteps. Again, the process is fine, just that the pro-scouting on Clendenning should have been better. I think the more egregious trade was McCann honestly, even he said that he was rushed too quickly into the team.

 

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And this can be applied in many different facets when it comes to the so-called "sins" of Jim Benning.

 

Even I thought Jake should've been shipped after his lack luster performance in the playoffs... so I suspect a bit of sunk cost going on with him. All that time, energy and money dumped into his development.  Didn't end up working out... which happens sometimes. And it happens around the league with players all the time.

 

And apparently Aqua was buddy buddy with Virtanen if the rumors from Rachel Dorrie are true? So maybe that could be part. Not every player becomes and every day NHLer.

 

Also, no. It wasn't just because money went to this one player therefore...

 

 

I agree with the sunk cost. And I think it's a reach really with the buddy buddy thing, unless you're implying that Benning didn't have autonomy down to the level of deciding who to give qualifying offers or not? In which case then it really is an ownership issue. Again, I'm sure Benning could have thrived under a different ownership group (or at least not produce a generationally bad result) he was just the wrong person at the wrong time for our team.

 

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That's a reach.  They reached out when Free Agency opened as Tanev stated. You don't know why the offered the 2 year deal on that day and not before.

 

Secondly, Tanev was indeed offered a 2 year deal.  He CHOSE to go to Calgary for more term (we don't know the dollar amount offered by Van.)

 

 

Tanev and Toffoli both expressed their expectation that their agents would talk with the teams before UFA period opens, which is standard for teams that want to retain their players. He chose to go to Calgary when it became clear that he was an afterthought to OEL and not a piece Benning valued as part of the team going forward. Same with Toffoli.

 

We actually do know the value of the deal offered by Van, 2 years, roughly $4 mil (from Dhaliwal), which is a decent starting point, but a starting point for negotiation that should have been broached weeks before not day 1 of UFA. Actions signal intent, and to Tanev this just shows him the team didn't value him so he moved on to an offer he already had on the table negotiated in advance.

 

Benning dropped the ball here.

 

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You speak of lack of "professional courtesy" yet Tanevs own statement here "..I was on the back burner, which was fine."

 

Tanev understood that business is business... and then apparently not if he couldn't set his damn ego aside because the offer didn't come before some certain expected date??  "Its coming its coming." And it did. Tanev simply left for more term and likely more money. End of story. That's the business.

 

Lack of professionalism? I might point the finger at Tanev on that one if he can't understand that there was a lot of shit to deal with and that he might have to wait a little bit. Grow up.

 

Secondly, I always found the outrage around Tanev pretty funny.  Not sure if you fall into this camp, but the usual suspects so angry the org didn't intentionally tank rebuild and know they need to get younger to build for the future also get mad about older aging veterans (injury prone vets at that) moving on. Lol.

 

Like pick one. Christ

Well they made Tanev an offer. He turned it down. Toffoli camp got impatient and he signed elsewhere. Yes, many pans in many fires at that time but again I'll stand by my statements above.   He's not some crucial core piece to put on the forefront. The flat cap forced hard decisions. Some worked out in the end and some didn't. So be it.

 

I think Tanev's own statement is professional courtesy in itself. How often do you see players in any interview say a negative thing about management? And yes business is business, and Benning was not a good businessman. Tanev at the end of the day is still human and even a courtesy opening of negotiations while pursuing OEL would have made a huge difference (again, what was Weisbrod doing with this team?)

 

And look, whether you're rebuilding or retooling, the important thing is asset management. Tanev, even at 60 games was providing much more value than Myers and at a premium position of RHD, which you yourself were willing to pay a 5d like Poolman for. In either scenario, you can't let assets walk for nothing when you can either a.) trade them, b.) retain them to mentor the young guns. And by all accounts from the Dmen (Hughes saying they called Tanev 'dad'), a rebuilding team could use that, unless the offer on the table for a trade was so good you can't say now.

 

It is consistent. You're just basing everything on your biased view of what a rebuild actually entails. Which is very flawed and skewed (6-1 losses are rare in today's NHL, rebuilding teams can be competitive in games)

 

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According to you maybe. And its another reductionist claim anyway. Do you have inside information as to what any of those things actually looked like or why? Don't act like you know. You don't know. And neither do I.  Unless you do and I'd love if you could share your inside info with the class.

 

Extending your 1C especially in a flat cap environment is more important than prioritizing signing a replacement level defenseman, I don't think there's anything controversial about it. That's standard course of business. 

 

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But Benning and Allvin time periods are not equivalent situations at all. As time went on the cap crunch lessened. Contracts expired. Allvin et al. were granted more freedom than what the previous regime (and every other regime around the league at that time) experienced previously.  It's almost apples and oranges. 

 

And saying "there's lots of ways around it" meaning you think you know what other opportunities actually existed. You don't know what was available.  You don't know what was or wasn't possible out there. Don't act like you do.

 

I mean we know what is possible out there because we saw the trades other teams made to leverage and weaponize their cap space in the pandemic. Sure I don't know everything, but don't act like your worldview is absolute. Expect disagreement here.

 

Err... Allvin landed straight into Jim Benning's situation, literally mid season. The crunch was still here when Allvin took over and he adjusted to it but instead had to make moves to get rid out of that cap crunch to compete, gifting away 2nds and 3rds to even just make $1 mil or room (Dickinson, OEL) . Making small moves that may not seem like a win to facilitate others (Beauvillier -> Zadaorov). Something Benning hasn't shown a knack for in his 8 year body of work.

 

 

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Secondly, of course some of moves and cap crunches were self-inflicted. Of course they were.  That was never in contention. The question is how much we can actually attribute to what, or who, and why. People want to say "it's all just Bennngs fault" and that's simply not true...  unless we expected him to be some all-seeing, all-knowing seer that never gets anything wrong. That's certainly how people act when they hand wave the pandemic flat cap being a legitimate variable for why things played out the way they did. "He should have known." Total bs.

 

That's not the bar required to operate during the pandemic, nor the bar I'm looking for in a GM. Really just a hyperbolic statement to deflect him from responsibility.

That's why I don't blame Gillis for the Luongo contract, when the league specifically zero'ed in on him after the fact and retro-actively punished him for something that was ok'ed when we gave it to him for that competitive edge.

 

But the Pandemic is different from that in that it affected ALL GMs, so how Benning operated in that environment vs his 31 other competitors, he should still be gauged on that. I'm not saying there wasn't an effect, but it doesn't hold as much weight for me. 

 

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Agreed. But they still rebuilt the team.. just did it in a way that people fail to identify as a  "rebuild" because it didn't follow this A B C path people generally recognize as a "proper" "rebuild."  Like I said before there are lots of ways to rebuild a team. Some better than others? In theory, absolutely. Even I would agree with that. And even I would have preferred a rebuild that took advantage of the exact things you're saying! But... circumstance dictates. And not all organizations deal with exactly the same circumstances or for exactly the same reasons. And we need to get into the dirty details to understand that part of it.

 

They did it in a way that didn't maximize their expected value, nor did they set up the development system to set up their prospects for success. 

 

Am i grateful that we have Petey, Hughes, Demko, Boeser? Absolutely. 

 

I think we are in agreement here, we just disagree on that circumstance. You're attributing it to the nature of business, but I'm thinking that it was an irrational dictate given the context of the Owner's own words and just being human. Billion dollar companies can have their whole destinies determined by ego, look no further than Twitter.

 

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Yep. Just as it was extremely unlucky for Buffalo to miss on McDavid and Anaheim to miss on Bedard. There are no guarantees that the "proper" way will get you the horses needed to build around. And afterall drafting is little more than educated guessing... especially picks after the top 5 or so.

 

We definitely got lucky with Pettersson and Hughes... just as other teams get lucky on their picks and teams often  passing over their star players. It happens in every draft.

 

Oh there absolutely isn't. Feel free to disagree here, but when you purposely accumulate as many of those magic beans as possible (as you say), your expected value does go up and has a bigger chance of limiting the time you spend bottoming out. We've seen it before with all the recent cup contenders more often than not.

 

St Louis and Boston are the only exceptions to that rule IMO, and St Louis has some of the best draft hit rates in the last two decades when it comes to finding late round hits.

 

I don't think Buffalo was unlucky to get Eichel either, Eichel as we saw is a franchise center and now a cup winner, it's just they dismantled their organizational culture, trading away anyone that contributed to any winning in an attempt to lose more for McDavid, something I don't advocate.

 

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Which is a bullshit statement.

 

You can apply this process to most any organization at any draft, regardless of whether they chose the intentional tank rebuild or a different approach to rebuilding.

 

Picks are magic beans.

 

Some sprout. Most don't.

 

The plan of the front office was to make the playoffs, had they succeeded in their original plan, the chance of getting that Petey/Hughes magic bean is essentially zero.

 

I'm glad we made the pick, but I'm not going to pretend Benning's plan was to be in a position to draft Pettersson finishing 3rd last in the league, especially when taking into account the context of their actions (full capping out, trading away picks)

 

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Again which goes back to my point above about people getting up in arms about "not rebuilding properly" yet still want to get mad with the fundamental out with the old in with the new process of a rebuild.  Like you can't have your cake and eat it too, dude.   Pick one.

 

Do you want a new team or not. He's the process. Old guy out. New guy in. Piece by piece by piece.

 

As ol Frankie boy once stated on Twitter "A rebuild is a long, slow, gradual process."  And that's exactly what we saw. 

 

Was it janky, and at times a meandering mess? Absolutely. But the overall goal of aquiring a new core worth building around never stopped. That's the takeaway from it all. Whether we think it that process followed some exact (made up) definition of how a rebuild is "supposed" to be.

 

I am picking one, all that point meant was even when it comes to the goal/context of fielding the competitive product for your scenario, Benning's moves weren't supporting it by failing to replace the old D core. 

 

Trying to engage with you from your standpoint here on this one, even if the goal was to be competitive, Benning didn't know how to put that competitive team together.

 

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Was it janky, and at times a meandering mess? Absolutely. But the overall goal of aquiring a new core worth building around never stopped. That's the takeaway from it all. Whether we think it that process followed some exact (made up) definition of how a rebuild is "supposed" to be.

 

I'm open to the thinking that was the overall goal, since the 1st rounders were kept until 2020. 

 

nothing made up about what a rebuild is supposed to be to maximize the chances of hitting the magic beans, you've seen it across all teams in this league and in other sports too. 

 

What's rarer is the serving two masters type of competitive rebuild/retool. I think that's a harder target to hit. Can it be done? Absolutely, but the Canucks were taking a bigger risk of longer mediocrity going that way. Imagine if we didn't hit on Petey and Hughes and we are stuck another 5+ years on top of the Benning years to properly rebuild? That's what we managed to dodge here.

 

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They sure did. And for a number of different reasons. Not just because "Benning do bad."   There's simply more to this stuff than that.

 

List the reasons? Really, i'm fine with being enlightened here. 

 

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Comparables don't mean anything there. A team worthy of paying money to actually see is the takeaway. Honing in on this specific 6-1 example is missing what's being said.   It's about having no chance of winning. a team like that has a very different outcome than a team that might actually be able to stay in a game, lose or not. Half assed competitive product vs.  A known absolute dog shit product. Not the same thing when it comes to drawing power.

 

Then it's subjective, which is really what it comes down to. Because 6-1 games are rare, and even the Canucks fielding a half assed product still resulted in fans not being engaged as per your own articles.

 

If we're talking about perception of whether the team has a chance or not, then it just comes down to how you market it. A rebuilding product can be exciting, competitive and match up with the best in the league given the right circumstances.

 

That's the allure of I think a lot of people can say the Chicago Blackhawks are worth watching now with Bedard on the roster, he's single handedly raising regional ratings. 

 

Also, fans love a good underdog story, it's really how management sells it. Watching the young guns take the next step and develop while seeing how they match up against the rest of the league.

 

Again, I simply don't agree with every line you had for what a rebuild constitutes. 

 

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It is that cut and dry. The chased it "successfully" just fine. Weren't you the one posting all the attendance charts and all that?  That's what that shows. Attendence stayed up with that competitive (but still shitty) product.

 

Competive in these terms doesn't  mean make playoffs and succeed on the ice specifically.  But competitive enough team to still draw consumers on a nightly basis. Whether the product was actually shit and by what standard didn't really matter... along with all those contracts at that time I might add.  "Successful" here refers to much more than the just the team and their win loss ratio.

 

Overpaying for stop gap fillers on a rebuilder comes with territory. Even Kyle Burroughs, a 7th/ 8th dman on a good team, landed himself a 3 year deal. Most the deals signed at that time were meaningless. They served a purpose. See above.

 

Playoffs was the goal of the team, and it showed in how they managed the cap and contracts.

 

You're attributing the attendance to the performance of management, and I'm attributing it to the loyalty of the market to the brand despite being presented with bottom 10 finishes.

 

There was no perception that our team stood a chance in any match up or was even competitive when we were at 30 points after 31 games played and out of the playoff picture by November. I think the fact that the market still stuck with the team despite having a <10% playoff chance shows just how loyal they would have been during a rebuild.

 

And yes, that's my opinion, just as you think that management succeed in their own mandate, which the hockey stats of the product on the ice don't really back in any measure.

 

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And who's to say they didn't build a culture. I would argue they very much did. Say what you want about Bo Horvat but he carried a hell of a lot of weight at that time. So did others.

Granted, even my opinion is debatable considering discussing something as ominous as "culture" isn't exactly a quantifiable thing... for us on the outside at least. We'd have to ask the players for that. I know Smyl said at the end the culture was bad, but that certainly doesn't mean it was like that all along. And I bet even Steamer would agree with that statement.

 

Yep, subjective issue here. So i'm fine if we don't see eye to eye here.

 

Can we agree that letting Tanev and Edler walk from our Dcore was detrimental to the culture of that component of the team? To the point where Benning reportedly signed Tanner Pearson because if he lost one more member of that 2020 run the locker room would have revolted?

 

The complete neglect of the development pipeline in Utica/Abbotsford, how many prospects outside of Demko successfully made the jump in his tenure?

 

I loved Bo too, but I don't think he did much besides bear the captaincy (not a small thing i admit) but he wasn't the type to back up his team mates, at least not often. I mean, Petey just saying how refreshing it was to have Zadorov back him up after that hit in Chicago told me volumes of how he felt before Allvin came in.

 

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But what "responsibility" for what is the question. Criticisms are fine... when they are based on actual truth and that we know for a fact we can speak to. Problem is there is so much bullshit, pre conceived judgments without having the actual knowledge to speak about a thing. Of course the GM bears the weight of the bad, but also gets the praises for the good. But we don't often see a whole lot of the later. Its always someone else for the good. And no matter how the bad things happened, whether a pandemic flat cap or not affecting an outcome, its all still somehow Bennings fault.  Which is ridiculous. But... everyone loves a good scapegoat, afterall.

 

Truth is there was a lot of good and there was a lot of bad.  We can just it there.

 

Having said that, I agree Aqua is letting Rutherford do his thing.  He knows better than to fuck with a man like that, storied career who's done it all and knows what to do and how to do it. If he tried Jim would bail at the drop of a hat. Of that I have no doubt.

 

Benning should get praise for the good, but the bad outweighs it, that's why he's no longer here. It's just that his good is a bit murky as well, like I'm glad he chose Petey, but that was after Linden specifically called out a flaw in the drafting process that resulted in Juolevi, and changes were made subsequent that gave us Petey/Hughes. Who gets credit there? Benning still does, but I think to have needed linden to call it out just doesn't speak well for Benning's managerial acumen, not to mention Weisbrod, I really think Benning would have been better served here with a better AGM.

 

Personally, I think Benning's best move that I can really isolate to him independently is drafting Demko (followed by Petey/Boeser). And even that came at the heels of a draft where we missed two first rounders in a first round where franchise players ended up going later like Pastranak (i don't blame him for missing Pasta, but for failing to develop McCann)

 

I mean, I see your scapegoat and raise you the victim complex. Everything when it comes to his defense either seems to take away Benning's agency in all this (Ownership/Pandemic/Flat cap) or weren't his fault (Gillis). 

 

Then Gillis becomes your scapegoat, dragged through the mud with not even the same standard you're setting up for Benning, and the cycle continues on and on.

 

 

 

 

[conquestofbaguettes]

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Funny enough, I actually preferred to keep OEL mainly because of the buyout.

 

In the salary cap era, it isn't enough to say that the person is a good player, they have to add surplus value relative to their contract.

 

And yes, OEL was good 1 year in Van, which would have been 16% of his tenure with that cap hit with us. That isn't a strong case 1 year was elite, the rest be damned?

 

And I disagree with the idea of "surplus" value when those values are almost exclusively determined by "stats." eg. You make X dollars means X points.

 

Truth is that value can come in all different forms; It really depends how we define "value" within a given role, within a given context of a team, stages of team development-- all sorts of different things that don't directly relate to the score sheet. Am I saying he was ever going to play up the full "value" of 7+ million? No. But would I say his value was really as bad as people say? Also no. Truth is it was somewhere in the middle. And lest we forget, tons of teams have these kinds of contracts (as well as dead cap) so it's not like the phenomenon itself is all that out of the ordinary.  Many top players that sign fat deals never live up to them, and I neither condone nor condemn but rather see them as a product of the business itself. As Lou Lamoriello once stated "it's too long and it's too much money."

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Again, there is such a thing as GMs using the media to posture and prop up value. You'll never find a GM admit to the media that their players are bad (and depress their value) or that their path isn't the correct one (see Chris Gear). Deft GMs use that to their advantage.

 

Media interviews are not what GMs and pro-scouts are using to determine ability, contributions, values of a player.  They can speak well of their players for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with propping up their perceived value. So, I'm not sure how much "advantage" is actually being garnered there with other clubs. Doesn't even seem like all that relevant aspect to focus on tbh. A coach, GM, etc. can pump players tires in the media all they want. Scouts watch game tape, look at the numbers, and understand context of their play. They don't base it on GMs doing PR. You're giving far far too much weight to that variable.

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

0.5 point per game pace on Florida is fine for a $2 mil player, incomparable to the situation he was in with Van, in terms of the cost to the team to bring him in, the fit (offensive D on a team that didn't have a Hughes type) and the production expected of his contract.

 

You keep preaching 'context' and you ignore it here.

 

His time with Arizona means just as much as you citing his 0.5 point pace with Florida. He simply isn't good enough to justify that contract. With the Canucks, he was 0.37 points per game (ranked ~82nd among dmen) and 0.4 points per game (ranked 64th among dmen). That simply isn't good enough.

 

Stats alone do not determine "value" as a player. Also points above about contracts.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

You cite OEL being a 0.5 point per game pace as a metric for determining OEL's bounce back.

 

And you are advocating a raise for a RHD that produced at a clip of 0.03 points per game the season before to get a 150% raise for 4 years? I think that is a stretch. 

 

And yes, let's look at Ethan Bear's s deal once it's signed, because I doubt it'll be a 4 year one. And he's two years younger than Poolman at the time he signed his bloated contract with  us.

 

Paying a replacement level RHD $2.5M for 4 years is a big deal especially when you're pricing yourself out of future flexibility and your competing GMs are signing 1-2 year deals to maintain said flexibility. 

 

There are way too many assumptions here. These things you're saying are not facts. They lack context for players and especially their contracts signed at a given time.  You simply can't boil it all down to what it says on paper nor can you legitimately know what future outcome would have transpired in other circumstances.

 

For example Tucker Poolman. Rutherford stated that he felt Poolman could play in their top 4... if he was healthy. That isn't a replacement level player. And nobody knew he would suffer all these concussions and likely never play another game. Who even knows if he would be able to get all that "surplus" value you're talking about. 

 

Secondly, teams often pay more for players on rebuilding teams.   Even Kyle Burroughs got a 3 year contract in San Jose. Would have that happen with a contender? Absolutely not. Context matters here. You can't just look at this or that trade this or that dollar amount and ignore the context for those deals and act like we have a full picture of the situation. Or worse, place false judgment on them by doing so. It's simply an unfair, untruthful approach. There's simply more this stuff than that.

 

Hell, even Mike Milbury gets a bit of a bad rap when you understand the situation he was dealing with on Long Island all those years. But of course on paper he looks like the worst GM to ever walk the earth. Doesn't make it neccesarily true though.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Nah it isn't reductionist because we're taking into account his entire body of work. What about it is unfair?

Because largely ignoring the context of said work is an unfair approach. And that is as true for you as it is for me of anyone else.

 

For example, if you have a broken leg, wearing a cast, and I tell you to run a mile in 10 minutes. But you can't do it. Do I get to then call you a bad runner? Do I get to overlook the fact you have a broken leg and wearing a cast limiting your ability to do it?  Of course not. Context matters here. But for some reason people think it's okay to ignore the context with Benning's "body of work" when it's no more fair to do with you and your broken leg either.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Different dynamics do play into it and other GMs around the league also dealt with Covid in mixed results, it doesn't change the fact that Benning got the worst outcome both cap and roster wise.

In which we must discuss the underlying context to really understand and analyze accordingly. But until we actually do that, these judgements will be incomplete. Everything from giving Jay Beagle too much money and too much term, to trading away a guy like Forsling, (a player multiple teams felt was going nowhere and traded away a put on waivers i might add.) This is not to say that every single move or signing is justifiable and absolves any one person any "wrongdoing" but just to say if we want an accurate account of the facts we need to account for EVERYTHING, especially the underlying premise for a decision at a given space and place in time and the conditions surrounding them. That's as clear I can make this.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

 

Even if we ignore the fact that pre-covid moves (I won't when it comes to Benning), like signing Myers which eventually forced Tanev out, and creating a squeeze that also made Edler go to a divisional rival.

Why do you apply that strictly to Tanev? Money is money. Cap crunch is a cap crunch. Using specific names isn't a good approach to this. Especially Myers who wouldn't have landed that 6x6 in the first place had they known a flat cap was coming all those years.  So because he didn't rub that crystal ball hard enough he is "at fault" for what happened? That's not a fair criticism.

 

And regardless of what players remained, a rebuilding team typically wants to move away from their aging vets. Yes? Out with the old, in with the new is the goal so this whole Edler thing is funny to me. We get all butt hurt because it wasn't this full tear down tank rebuild, and then get butt hurt when they move those aging vets on? Like pick a side.  Can't have it both ways here.

 

And as Tanev stated they offered him a 2 year deal on free agency.  His camp rejected it and he left for more term. That's the bottomline.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

• Jake was an unforced error in a crucial 2020 offseason that added $1.25M to the cap
• Chasing OEL and not even bothering with Toffoli at all, or giving Tanev anything until the 11th hour (which then made the Poolman deal necessary)
• Giving Poolman that extension before Petey, thereby getting rid of any possibility of a long term extension. 
• Trading three of his own contracts out 1 year before expiry at the cost of OEL and a top 10 pick.

The nuance with Benning is that he just kept making those 5% loss moves that kept cascading one onto another (failure to develop/draft a Dman pre-2018, walking away from Tanev, doubling down on OEL) that make his errors stand out.

The Tanev - Poolman thing is a reach. We don't know what pans they had in what fires and what their plans were. Let's not act like we do. Either way they didn't have the money to do it.  They wanted to improve the team best they could. Some worked out. Some didn't.  Some assets they got decent value for. Some they didn't. As I stated before, as Rutherford stated recently, no GM bats 1.000. And these so called "errors" being amplified is mostly bullshit.

 

There's just way too much low hanging fruit, unfair expectation, incomplete and/or false accounts of facts and ignoring context in it all making the "bad" look bad in the first place. All I mostly see is a whole lot of fundamentally biased criticism built on a foundation of sand. Not all mind you, but most.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Blaming circumstances can only go so far, especially when 20+ of his peers operated just fine in the same flat cap and covid world dynamic

 

20+ teams that were not dealing with the same things the same way. Just as in life we don't all start at the same starting positions. I never said it was all circumstantial and outside of their contol, but for Vancouver there was a hell of a lot more for them than other teams at that time given the situation.  Some self inflicted, but mostly not... at not least not to the extent people want to claim.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

you have to assign personal responsibility and accountability for his actions at some point.

 

And that's the contentious point. 

 

How much of what happened, and why things happened the way they did, is really on the management team? You know my position. The foundational decision was where the stage was set. Everything that follows is largely a byproduct of that. Eg. It wasn't Bennings decision to keep a half assed competitive product on the ice for the rebuild years. 

It was not the responsibility to know an unforeseeable pandemic and flat cap was coming and something ofwhich would have changed countless previous decisions before it happened had they known. And if things like that hold little weight in our criticisms, any subsequent claims of "personal responsibility" are basically worthless. Of course there is some responsibility.  but how much. And how did we come to those conclusions? That's the stuff I'm looking at here.

 

Everything I'm saying is essentially a meta level analysis of the critique itself. There are things here, as well as in life itself, people should talk about more than they do. But of course these are things not easily referenced or categorized so they go largely unspoken or ignored.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Otherwise 31 other GMs should have had guaranteed jobs during the pandemic the last 3 years and be given a pass, because all their actions were 'tainted' by that dynamic. It doesn't work like that.

 

But it absolutely does work like that to a certain degree. Not everything obviously but I would apply what I'm saying to them as well.  That's the thing. It's inescapable. Just as people lost their ability to pay their bills, or had other bad shit happen to them during the pandemic largely out of their control.  It may have hit some people  harder than others, but in order to understand why we need to look at the details of their situations. We can't neccesarily paint them all with the same brush stating "oh XYZ made it work just fine so it was your own fault" as you are attempting above.  It's simply an unfair approach to it all.

 

Plus I find the blame game kinda silly anyway. Why must someone always be "at fault" for undesirable situations or outcomes. Not a big fan of that.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Forsling is a loss, but he's not the top things that come to my mind on the last regime's missteps. Again, the process is fine, just that the pro-scouting on Clendenning should have been better. I think the more egregious trade was McCann honestly, even he said that he was rushed too quickly into the team.

 

Yeah. Forsling is footnote barely worth mentioning. Doesnt even register as legitimate criticism tbh... even though I see people use it as proverbial main course to slag. That goes for the pro scouting on Clendenning btw.

 

McCann is an interesting one. Rushed too fast indeed. Virtanen too. But org wanted shiny new toys to give fans something to be excited for. And rumor has it McCann wasn't much of a team player and an asshole? Bartkowski's mom certainly had no love. Like I said, we need to account for circumstance in these things. On paper, and with future results  obviously we can say bad, but in reality who knows what the story was. So be careful when using terms like "egregious."  Maybe his overall behavior with the team is what was egregious and the org paid the price for it? But of course that context, whether true or not, isn't listed on the trade tree is it.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

I agree with the sunk cost [on Virtanen.] And I think it's a reach really with the buddy buddy thing, unless you're implying that Benning didn't have autonomy down to the level of deciding who to give qualifying offers or not? In which case then it really is an ownership issue.

Oh I'm just parroting what I heard Rachel Dorrie hinting at between Jake and Frankie.  Could be complete bullshit... or not.  And given we have a pretty good idea of past ownership overreach, i don't find it hard to believe tbh.  Apparently Aqua used to sit in on scouting meetings as well? I can't remember which interview I heard that on. I believe it was with a friend of Frankies. Either way there have been many questions around his involvement in hockey ops over the years.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Again, I'm sure Benning could have thrived under a different ownership group (or at least not produce a generationally bad result) he was just the wrong person at the wrong time for our team.

For starters, Benning did not "produce a generationally bad result" in his time here if that's what you're insinuating.  I disagree.

 

Secondly, as I stated before, I don't think it mattered all that much who the GM was at that time given the underlying mandates and dynamics the job came with. Either way that GM would be making similar moves with free agents and trades with who was available in the market to stay competitive with.  Not to say there weren't specific things that would be different with someone else, but in terms of fundamental approach to team building? Not so much. That wasn't his decision. And those terms, judgments surrounding right man or wrong man for the job don't really appeal to me, tbh.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Tanev and Toffoli both expressed their expectation that their agents would talk with the teams before UFA period opens, which is standard for teams that want to retain their players. He chose to go to Calgary when it became clear that he was an afterthought to OEL

After thought to OEL? That's a reach. You don't know specifically why it wasn't until opening day to offer it. They had a lot going on.

 

Expectation? Talk about having zero empathy for people or patience in a hard situation.

 

"Give me my steak right now!!!"

 

"Sir, were extremely busy. If you just wait a little bit, it will be here soo...

 

No! Now!!!"

 

That's exactly how that sounds to me.

 

Bottomline is they said the offer was coming and it eventually did. But Tanev was ready to leave the restaurant before it even got there. He was offered more term in Calgary and took it. So be it.

 

Secondly, they were trying to move money to keep Toffoli and "ran out of time" as Benning so eloquently stated at his presser.  Flat cap. No teams taking money. C'est la vie. And I like i said before, Tofolli is a luxury winger. He's was not a perceived core guy and not exactly top of the priority list given the circumstances. And even in hindsight he's been thru 4 teams since he left here. Seems those teams don't think so either.. so really. Who cares. This isn't the big slight it's been made out to be imo.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

....not a piece Benning valued as part of the team going forward. Same with Toffoli.

 

I agree on Toffi to certain degree. Tried to move money to keep him but no takers. As for Tanev, that's not true.  They did in fact offer him a contract.  They wouldn't have done that if they didn't want him. You think they spent all that time working on terms for a guy if they didn't want him? Cmon now.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

We actually do know the value of the deal offered by Van, 2 years, roughly $4 mil (from Dhaliwal), which is a decent starting point, but a starting point for negotiation that should have been broached weeks before not day 1 of UFA. Actions signal intent, and to Tanev this just shows him the team didn't value him so he moved on to an offer he already had on the table negotiated in advance.

 

Benning dropped the ball here.

Nah.  "Should have"... expectations...  Tanev himself said he understood he was on the back burner and that it was fine. Talk about being logically inconsistent. So... Was he lying when he said it was fine then? Sure sounds like it.  And I will renew my responses above. They offered him a deal. They did want him. He chose not to stay.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

And look, whether you're rebuilding or retooling, the important thing is asset management. Tanev, even at 60 games was providing much more value than Myers and at a premium position of RHD, which you yourself were willing to pay a 5d like Poolman for. In either scenario, you can't let assets walk for nothing when you can either a.) trade them, b.) retain them to mentor the young guns. And by all accounts from the Dmen (Hughes saying they called Tanev 'dad'), a rebuilding team could use that, unless the offer on the table for a trade was so good you can't say now.

 

Which is all debatable. Circumstance dictates.  And as they say, change the conditions of the experiment and it changes the results. No different here

 

All these general rules and general assumptions of what should happen or should be. I do not subscribe.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

It is consistent. You're just basing everything on your biased view of what a rebuild actually entails. Which is very flawed and skewed (6-1 losses are rare in today's NHL, rebuilding teams can be competitive in games)

 

Actually that's what YOU are doing. General rules, general assumptions and making judgments based on those presuppositions?  I've done no such thing. We can discuss these things, but we cannot really judge.... at least to the extent you are trying to do... especially so while ignoring the context to those specific situations. And if we want to judge accurately, we need to look at that stuff. It's a non sequitur.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Extending your 1C especially in a flat cap environment is more important than prioritizing signing a replacement level defenseman, I don't think there's anything controversial about it. That's standard course of business. 

 

What's in contention there is whether that actually happened in the way you are claiming. I don't care if it's true or not. But you haven't provided sufficient evidence that is in fact the case as of yet... but claiming as if you know?

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

I mean we know what is possible out there because we saw the trades other teams made to leverage and weaponize their cap space in the pandemic.

 

Which is not evidence of much. Mostly just generalizations and assumptions used to judge.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

but don't act like your worldview is absolute.

 

Never said it was! But I can still identify an incomplete argument when I see it. To borrow Horkheimer’s plaintive confession: "I pledge allegiance to critical theory; that means that I can tell what is false, but cannot define what is correct."

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Err... Allvin landed straight into Jim Benning's situation, literally mid season. The crunch was still here when Allvin took over and he adjusted to it but instead had to make moves to get rid out of that cap crunch to compete, gifting away 2nds and 3rds to even just make $1 mil or room (Dickinson, OEL) . Making small moves that may not seem like a win to facilitate others (Beauvillier -> Zadaorov). Something Benning hasn't shown a knack for in his 8 year body of work.

 

Which is essentially a comparison of apples and oranges given the time periods and stages of team development in their prospective eras.

 

Like i said, XYZ things are easy to point to... on paper... but lacking any kind of real context to understand a good deal, bad deal or otherwise.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

That's not the bar required to operate during the pandemic, nor the bar I'm looking for in a GM. Really just a hyperbolic statement to deflect him from responsibility.

 

See points above about circumstances dictating. And needless to say it appears to me you're the one deflecting the context to put the responsibility on him than we logically can.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

But the Pandemic is different from that in that it affected ALL GMs, so how Benning operated in that environment vs his 31 other competitors, he should still be gauged on that. I'm not saying there wasn't an effect, but it doesn't hold as much weight for me. 

 

 As I stated above, while all GMs had to deal, not all were affected equally. Not all start at the same starting positions. Not in this and certainly not in life in general.

For exmple a person that gets an unexpected bill of 1500.00. Not a big deal for someone with a lot of money.  But we can't say the same for someone already struggling to pay the bills.

 

Difference here is you put the blame on the person struggling almost entirely, stating "its their own fault." When in reality we need to do a hell of a lot more digging before making any kind judgment like that.

 

Nor can we make any assumptions about what the solutions were (mostly hindsight) or what the solutions could or should be (having preknowledge).  Just because a thing is an option for someone does not mean it was an option for another. There can be, and often are, barriers to access. And these things require a much more indepth look before we can really judge.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

I think we are in agreement here, we just disagree on that circumstance. You're attributing it to the nature of business, but I'm thinking that it was an irrational dictate given the context of the Owner's own words and just being human. Billion dollar companies can have their whole destinies determined by ego, look no further than Twitter.

 

Owners own words of what exactly? What direct quotes are you referring to.

 

Also, that's your opinion on Musk. Just as people see Trump as a mere maniacal fascist idiot... which he also is. But just like these two elitist ghouls, there is more to the story than that.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Oh there absolutely isn't. Feel free to disagree here, but when you purposely accumulate as many of those magic beans as possible (as you say), your expected value does go up and has a bigger chance of limiting the time you spend bottoming out. We've seen it before with all the recent cup contenders more often than not.

 

St Louis and Boston are the only exceptions to that rule IMO, and St Louis has some of the best draft hit rates in the last two decades when it comes to finding late round hits.

But all teams win cups with a combination of drafted, traded, and free agents. That's the thing. The imporant part is that as you get them at all. Obviously the draft is preferred for a plethora of reasons, but that also doesn't really mean your odds of getting those players with more picks, let alone IMPACT players, really goes up all that much in reality... especially for picks past the top 15 or so?

 

https://dobberprospects.com/2020/05/16/nhl-draft-pick-probabilities/

 

Like buying multiple lottery tickets in the 6/49. On paper you just increased your mathematical odds but really...

 

And that becomes doubly questionable when we're dealing with humans trying to predict future outcomes of kids and all that comes with human development.

 

Of course it's okay to put some level of importance on the draft. But how much "expected value" actually increases with those picks is extremely debatable. We both know it's not an exact science here. It's more like playing the lotto, or putting on a blindfold, throwing darts at a dartboard hoping for a bullseye. Of course the veteran dart players should have an easier time getting it with fewer blind throws, but a probability model like that is still theoretical. And if were using the theoretical as a basis for judgment, we don't have much of an argument.  Mathematical does not neccessarily mean actual.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

I don't think Buffalo was unlucky to get Eichel either, Eichel as we saw is a franchise center and now a cup winner, it's just they dismantled their organizational culture, trading away anyone that contributed to any winning in an attempt to lose more for McDavid, something I don't advocate.

 

It was unlucky for Buffalo to finish last place and not get first overall is what I'm saying. Same goes for Anaheim last year. Mathematical odds in your favour but still missing. That was the point I was making as per my paragraph above.  There are no guarantees and it's not an exact science even though we may be tempted to treat it as such.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

The plan of the front office was to make the playoffs, had they succeeded in their original plan, the chance of getting that Petey/Hughes magic bean is essentially zero.

 

I'm glad we made the pick, but I'm not going to pretend Benning's plan was to be in a position to draft Pettersson finishing 3rd last in the league, especially when taking into account the context of their actions (full capping out, trading away picks)

The stated goal was to make the playoffs, yes. But that doesn't mean developing the picks they got along the way wasn't also a goal and the whole "plan" revolved around making the playoffs. That would be a gross misreading of the situation.

 

Build the best team you can with the resources available (within reason) and go play. The draft order falls how it falls. You pick where you pick.

 

Secondly, they didn't say make the playoffs early on in the 'rebuild.' That came later. They used the words play competitive hockey. They didn't have any delusions of grandeur with those Goldobin, Granlund teams making Cinderella runs and winning cups.

 

And of course we can do the butterfly affect in all things. Much like that 6x6 Myers contract wouldn't have happened if they knew the cap would be stagnant for 3/4 years, we can also agree X star players likely wouldn't be drafted if Y didn't happen. But don't mistake a stated goal with a wholly focused, myopic plan to do that and only that.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

 

Playoffs was the goal of the team, and it showed in how they managed the cap and contracts.

 

You're attributing the attendance to the performance of management, and I'm attributing it to the loyalty of the market to the brand despite being presented with bottom 10 finishes.

 

Loyalty of a market with a "competitive" product they were watching, sure. You're essentially giving me the chicken or egg routine here. The loss column, the standings themselves, weren't so much important as the fact they could survive on a game by game basis and put on a show worth paying for.

 

If they were getting shit kicked every single night you may find very different results with those 'loyal' fans and

 

But since they didn't take that kind of approach, you can't say fans would come out to watch or tune in every night at the same rate. Either way it was a risk ownership was not willing to take. And I don't blame them...  from a business standpoint.

 

And again yes, playoffs was a stated "goal" but not a mandate. It was not some wholly focused myopic "plan" to do that and only that. Being able to stay in games, put on a show on a nightly basis

was a big part of the puzzle.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

all that point meant was even when it comes to the goal/context of fielding the competitive product for your scenario, Benning's moves weren't supporting it by failing to replace the old D core. 

 

Trying to engage with you from your standpoint here on this one, even if the goal was to be competitive, Benning didn't know how to put that competitive team together.

 

We all know "competitive" was mostly a bullshit term here. What do you think word meant in this context.  I'm saying it means ice a team to keep more asses in seats than otherwise would. They didn't "fail" at that according to you and those attendance records? (Even though that does not mean they were getting fair or even high market value for those tickets.)

 

And like many of the claims above, the judgment they "failed" to replace the old dcore" requires a great deal of unpacking. On paper, sure. But as to why and what the constraints were? It's not nearly that cut and dry.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

nothing made up about what a rebuild is supposed to be to maximize the chances of hitting the magic beans, you've seen it across all teams in this league and in other sports too. 

 

But there are still in fact different ways to rebuild a team. We can point to the most ideal, most optimal ways to do it, but that doesn't mean a team isn't rebuilding because they aren't doing exactly like this in exactly that way nor that it's explicitly "bad" and can never achieve X goal because they didnt do it that way. That's the contentious point here.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

 

What's rarer is the serving two masters type of competitive rebuild/retool. I think that's a harder target to hit. Can it be done? Absolutely, but the Canucks were taking a bigger risk of longer mediocrity going that way.

 

ABSOLUTELY AGREE. And it's fine line between serving the needs of the now and the future product being sought. Not an easy job or easy place to be at all.

 

And the question is why. Why would any club choose that riskier path for the long play?

 

 All just ego and chasing pipe dreams with a dogshit product they know is dogshit? Or is there more to it than just that. All I know is "they just dumb" was never a convincing argument.

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

If we're talking about perception of whether the team has a chance or not, then it just comes down to how you market it. A rebuilding product can be exciting, competitive and match up with the best in the league given the right circumstances.

 

And what exactly do you have to market with zero blue chips to get excited about. We wonder why they shoved young guys in there before they were ready. Well, there it is.

 

They didn't have the benefit of a McDavid or Bedard.

 

They had to hire mostly free agents and make trades fill those holes for the "competitive" product they were trying to ice in the interim.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Even the Canucks fielding a half assed product still resulted in fans not being engaged as per your own articles.

 

Correct. And lower fan interest was inevitable is what I'm saying. And more were interested than otherwise might be in even WORSE circumstances... the circumstances of which people advocated for. (Myself included!)

 

Half assed product = low fan interest

 

Absolute terrible product = dead

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Yep, subjective issue here. So i'm fine if we don't see eye to eye here.

 

Can we agree that letting Tanev and Edler walk from our Dcore was detrimental to the culture of that component of the team? To the point where Benning reportedly signed Tanner Pearson because if he lost one more member of that 2020 run the locker room would have revolted?

 

Revolted? According to who? Have any direct quotes from guys in the org? Or is this Rachel Dorrie level conjecture like the Virtanen Aqua buddy buddy stuff?

 

Of course it was detrimental. Moving on from key culture guys will always be tough. But given the circumstances in which those players left it's hard to "blame" any one specifically for it happening though. Mostly just a shitty situation... like the pandemic itself.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

the complete neglect of the development pipeline in Utica/Abbotsford, how many prospects outside of Demko successfully made the jump in his tenure?

And how much did the last regime provide us with there.  Let's not pretend like it was all on Benning here.

 

No prospects in the cupboards. Few assets that would command top dollar. A team retooling for Danny and Hank. Then trying to build something new with very little to build around... while being told to stay competitive.

 

What do you do.

 

End up rushing new kids in before they are ready, trying to build both an NHL team and AHL at the same time literally from the bottom up.

 

Again of course we can look at what they did on paper, but we need to account the actual reality of the situation.

 

Secondly, they didn't have much in Utica because they players they did hit on made it to the NHL bypassing Utica after their d+1.  Boeser, Petey, Hughes.

 

For example if the NHL club didn't have what they have now they'd have more young guys here playing right now.    We even saw it last year with the dcore. McWard. Hirose, etc.

 

The difference here is time. It takes time to build up those assets. I takes time to build up a team, or in this case two teams.  And Aqua is spending a lot to bring guys to Abby now too. They had virtually nothing before. That's not the case now.

 

Different circumstances. different stage of team and organizational development. Once again, fundamentally apples and oranges when you look under the hood.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

Benning should get praise for the good, but the bad outweighs it, that's why he's no longer here. It's just that his good is a bit murky as well,

 

And the proclaimed "bad" is just as, if not moreso, murky given the variables.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

I'm glad he chose Petey, but that was after Linden specifically called out a flaw in the drafting process that resulted in Juolevi, and changes were made subsequent that gave us Petey/Hughes. Who gets credit there? Benning still does, but I think to have needed linden to call it out just doesn't speak well for Benning's managerial acumen, not to mention Weisbrod, I really think Benning would have been better served here with a better AGM.

A mess to be sure. How much credence we give to who or what, especially considering Benning himself coming out of the woodworks to refute Lindens claims about petey,

 

"Spoke with former Canucks GM Jim Benning. Doesn’t seem happy about Linden’s comments on @Sportsnet650

“We were always going to draft Pettersson. The whole group liked Petey” He mentions he felt they didn’t have enough viewings on other players and needed to do due diligence.

https://twitter.com/Sher_Raja/status/1722453229005681141

Asked former #Canucks GM Jim Benning if he wanted to tell his side of ‘17 draft story:

 “There is no my side of the story. It was a collaborative effort from the GM, Assistant GM, Head Scout, Crossover and European scouts to make that pick. I'm happy the team is playing well.”

https://twitter.com/mattsekeres/status/1722710394098339874

 

.....it's hard to say what the truth really is. Especially coming from a still salty ex President of the club like Linden.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:37 AM, DSVII said:

I mean, I see your scapegoat and raise you the victim complex. Everything when it comes to his defense either seems to take away Benning's agency in all this (Ownership/Pandemic/Flat cap) or weren't his fault (Gillis). 

 

Then Gillis becomes your scapegoat, dragged through the mud with not even the same standard you're setting up for Benning, and the cycle continues on and on.

Nah. No "victims."  Mostly a  product of circumstance for all parties. Even ol Frankie trying to run a business. Some self-inflicted damage? Of course! You said it yourself above talking about long term damage with rebuild approach such as it was.

 

But deciphering which is really which is the interesting part.

 

I'm not scapegoating Gillis? I do think people give him unearned  credit for a bulk of the work done before him by Burke and Nonis, much like Rutherford and Allvin get to do with the work before them by Benning, but not scapegoating? Gillis went all on in trying to win a cup and I don't blame him for it for it one bit.  Doesnt mean there wasn't falllout from it though. We know there is.  Not a matter of blame, but a matter of what is and dealing with cards you've been dealt. Nothing more than that really.

Edited December 21, 2023 by conquestofbaguettes
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