[Speculation] Flames Have Paused Contract Talks With Pending UFAs

[Coconuts]

11 minutes ago, Rekker said:

I really want either of them, particularly Zadorov. That said, I think we are better off waiting till summer free agency where I bet both of these players will take a serious look at a Canucks contract offer. What we would need to offer up at the deadline, we just aren't thick on. If a third pick could land one of them than sure, but its going to take more me thinks. 

 

Almost certainly, particularly if the Flames are willing to retain and they likely will be if they're out of it. Which seems likely. 

 

Getting any of Hanifin, Lindhom, Zadorov, or Tanev at 50% would be huge for any team with cup aspirations. But it'd cost a lot. Four pending very interesting UFA's, Flames could retain on three of them and they'd be smart to because I'll be surprised if any of the aforementioned players are Flames next season. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Coconuts

[Rekker]

2 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

 

Almost certainly, particularly if the Flames are willing to retain and they likely will be if they're out of it. Which seems likely. 

 

Getting any of Hanifin, Lindhom, Zadorov, or Tanev at 50% would be huge for any team with cup aspirations. But it'd cost a lot. Four pending very interesting UFA's, Flames could retain on three of them and they'd be smart to because I'll be surprised if any of the aforementioned players are Flames next season. 

No kidding. Retained? An argument can be made a first would be invloved in any trade with any of those players. I've seen less go for more. Just not where and when I think we can invest one of the few trade chips we have. I'd sooner see a Hronek type deal, a hockey deal, over a rental at this point. 

[Coconuts]

2 minutes ago, Rekker said:

No kidding. Retained? An argument can be made a first would be invloved in any trade with any of those players. I've seen less go for more. Just not where and when I think we can invest one of the few trade chips we have. I'd sooner see a Hronek type deal, a hockey deal, over a rental at this point. 

 

Aye, Flames would be dumb not to retain, it's not as if ownership couldn't afford to pay for retainment on expiring contracts.

 

I think you're right though, if the Canucks are interested in Tanev or Zadorov they're probably better off inquiring in July. But I'm also bullish on not moving out high picks. 

 

I'd rather see us use our first rounder for the third year in a row. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Coconuts

[aGENT]

1 hour ago, Rekker said:

No kidding. Retained? An argument can be made a first would be invloved in any trade with any of those players. I've seen less go for more. Just not where and when I think we can invest one of the few trade chips we have. I'd sooner see a Hronek type deal, a hockey deal, over a rental at this point. 

Yup, save the 2025 first for another +/- 25 year old RHD ala Hronek. Sign Zad in the summer.

 

Hughes, Hronek/trade

Zadorov, Hronek/trade

Soucy, Friedman

 

Hirose, Willander

[I.Am.Ironman]

[Speculation] Pending UFAs have paused contract talks with Flames

[Rekker]

37 minutes ago, aGENT said:

Yup, save the 2025 first for another +/- 25 year old RHD ala Hronek. Sign Zad in the summer.

 

Hughes, Hronek/trade

Zadorov, Hronek/trade

Soucy, Friedman

 

Hirose, Willander

I like the way you think Agent.

[The Duke]

If we’re trying to contend, finding a #3 behind Hughes and Hronek is key.  Not a lot of names out there.  

From the Flames, Hanifin or Weegar would fit the bill.
 

I easily start with a 1st for either of those pieces. I’d consider moving Bruz as well for Hanifin if he’s willing to sign long term. 
 

Tanev or Zadorov would work as #4s if we can’t land the big fish. 
 

edit:  chances of us making a deal like this with the hated Flames?  Next to zero 

Edited November 7, 2023 by The Duke

[AnthonyG]

On 11/5/2023 at 12:22 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

 

From what I remember, Benning didn't scout Petey, he relied exclusively on our scouts, specifically Ron Delorme...

 

In picking Pettersson, Canucks prove you can't lose them all at draft | The Province

 

Things began to change for Pettersson in the 2015-16 season. Now 18, the slender Swede split time between Timra’s U-20 team and the parent club in the Allsvenskan, Sweden’s second division. That summer, he also played for Sweden at the Ivan Hlinka tournament in Slovakia where he caught the eye of veteran Canucks’ scout Ron Delorme.

“Ronny loved him,” says Benning.

 

Also, Benning supposedly preferred Cody Glass, while Judd Brackett wanted Petey...

 

A narrative has since emerged that suggests the hockey department was divided on Pettersson. Brackett was in favour of taking the Swede. Benning was leaning toward Glass.

 

 

 

So I’m just curious, what exactly are you trying to get at? He sent Delorme AND Brackett over to scout Pettersson as a GM should. Inge Hammarstrom was the first to discover Petey and shed light on his potential. Actually sorry Naslund was, which I believe then Hammarstrom relayed that info and that is when Benning sent them overseas. He was serious enough about Pettersson to listen to what was being said to him and invested his scouting department in watching Pettersson closely. As a wise GM he listened to what his scouts reported. He ultimately chose Pettersson over Glass which if you read that article, JB tried moving down a few spots to gain more picks but was fearful of the Rangers taking Pettersson. So clearly Pettersson was the guy he wanted. There is more proof that he wanted Petey than he wanted Glass. Ultimately we wound up with Pettersson? So like whats the issue?

 

On 11/5/2023 at 12:22 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

As for Demko, he was a solid pick in the 2nd round where lots of goalies get drafted.  The biggest thing with Demko was that he was able to develop in the AHL unlike most of Benning's other picks, so that helped him to come into the NHL better prepared.

 

Benning supposedly was the one who wanted Olli Juolevi, which was a complete disaster, same with Jake Virtanen.  Hitting on Petey and Hughes was fantastic, but completely butchering the other picks whereby those players aren't even in the league anymore is unfathomable and very poor drafting.

 

Well as we all know, or should... Our prospect pool was atrocious when JB took over and within a few years we had lost our #1 and #2 scorers. We had so many holes to fill at the NHL level to replace the existing core from '99-05. Hard to build an NHL team AND a farm team all in the same draft or first few drafts. That takes a very, very long time.

 

Okay so I've had this debate many times on the forums... At what point do you stop going BPA and start going for organizational needs? We had Horvat, Boeser, Virtanen, Baertschi, Etem, Sutter.... Not that all these guys were much to write home about, but they were all 1st round talent and all very young.... We needed to start addressing the blueline. OJ was consistently the highest ranked dman. If you want to call OJ a disaster, you may as well say Bourdon was a disaster. One tragically passed away, the other had multiple knee and back injuries/surgeries AND was hit the hardest by COVID. For all we know OJ could be a long COVID case. His conditioning was way down. OJ was derailed by health related circumstances that were unforeseeable, as was Bourdons tragic death. I think we can both agree, its unfair to pass judgement on a player that didnt work out because of purely health related issues. 

So lets look back and see when the last time we drafted a dman was.... 1998, Brian Allen 4th overall.... thats 18 years between dmen being selected. How do you expect to get a top 4 dman, if you aren't drafting and developing them when you have such little talent in your system to begin with that you cant exactly afford to trade a 1st round pick to get one and trading a young potentially up and coming player from your roster is just a lateral step. 

 

Jake Virtanen...... My god..... Who do you really think had the influence on that pick? Benning was hired 5 weeks prior to the 2014 draft. Our scouting department had been scouting and looking at top 10 picks, Benning came from Boston where he was looking at bottom 10 1st round potential picks. There was rumors Aquaweenie wanted Virtanen and JB who just got here, worked with our scouts and they sold him on Virtanen. After that, he made changes to the scouting department. It's pretty evident he wasn't pleased with the work they had done. He let them express their thoughts on who we should pick, he trusted their work and it didnt go over great. However JV was mishandled and I've wrote it out 1000 times for everyone. His production increased each year, yet his ice time and ozone starts decreased. How does one expect a player to produce with sub 40% onzone starts and around 12-13mins TOI, little to no PP1 time?

 

https://theathletic.com/2347455/2021/01/29/drafting-david-pastrnak-bruins-25th-pick/

 

Benning, an eight-year Bruins employee, helped write their playbook for the 2014 draft. Not only did Benning know every player his former employer preferred, he shared many of their team-building philosophies.

 

2014 Entry
Draft	Num.	Round	Player	Pos	Drafted From	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
2014 Entry	25	1	David Pastrnak	R	Sodertalje SK [Swe-1]	605	311	326	637	257
2014 Entry	56	2	Ryan Donato	C	Dexter School (Mass H.S.)	337	68	74	142	116
2014 Entry	116	4	Danton Heinen	L	Surrey Eagles [BCHL]	418	70	107	177	72
2014 Entry	146	5	Anders Bjork	L	U.S. National Under-18 Team [USHL]	225	26	35	61	44
2014 Entry	206	7	Emil Johansson	D	HV71 (Sweden Jrs.)

 

 

http://www.mynhldraft.com/2014-nhl-draft-prospect-rankings/

Jared McCann was BPA. BPA fucked us on that one.

 

 

If you're going to call a player out for failing to become an NHLer, at least call out guys who failed purely on their abilities and IQ.

*cough* White, Schroeder, Jensen, Gaunce, Shinkaruk

 

 

On 11/5/2023 at 12:22 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

In terms of the salary cap, Benning was hired in 2014 when the cap was $69 million.  It rose all the way to $81.5 million before it was capped due to COVID.  So he had plenty of cap space available to make this team better.  He blew that money on Loui Eriksson, Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and others, trying hard to add to the core.  But most of those signings backfired on him.  Even Myers at $6 million was an overpayment.

Eriksson was here during the dark days. He wasnt here during any contending season at all. He was here to play with Sedins, in which his highest season total icetime with the twins was 31%. His "linemates" retired early, LE suffered 2 lengthy injuries in his first 2 seasons and we had no other choice to accept a "rebuild" (which was already underway in the background) His tenure here had no impact on shortening any window to win a cup. Who cares? we were drafting in the top 10. 

2 of your top scorers retire and you hire Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and Tim Schaller.... Do those sound like replacements? No. This was the start of building a strong veteran presence around the youth. Targeting guys with cup experience or seasoned vets who have been through all sorts of highs and lows. It was to help shelter the youth at the NHL level and assist in development at the NHL level, rather than minors because we had no other choice after losing our top 2 scorers. The youth were given the torch and we let the experienced guys deal with bottom 6 duties, PK and protecting leads. Meanwhile the youth focused on offence and slowly learned the defensive side of the game. Is it any coincidence our PK hit historic lows as soon as LE, Beagle and Roussel were shipped out? It had an immediate impact on our PK. Went from 79.78% to 74.89% to 71.60% and now since we have finally rebuilt the bottom 6, we are back around 80%. These arent coincidences.

Why do you think Edmonton has ruined so many high end picks? Look at the disaster right now, where is the depth of experience to guide them through this? Confidence is well out the window, its 12 games in and they are already at a loss of words.

Myers has lived up to his contract when you compare him to guys around his cap hit and above. Go do some research on naturalstattrick.com hockey-reference.com capfriendly.... He has been utilized as a shutdown dman his entire time here. His defensive plays have led directly to offence the most out of any player on the canucks roster in 2/5 seasons and this season is not over yet. He is slightly behind Hughes. Nonetheless we are scoring more when he is on the ice than we are getting scored against and its not even close right now.

 

On 11/5/2023 at 12:22 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

His trades were just as worse.  Yes, he hit a home run on the Miller trade, but the rest of his trades were pretty much a disaster.  Sven Baertschi for a second which turned into Rasmus Andersson.  Linden Vey for a 2nd round pick.  Adan Clendening for Gustav Forsling.  Andrey Pedan for a 3rd round pick.  Eric Gudbranson for Jared McCann and a 2nd and a 4th.  Jason Dickinson for a 3rd round pick.  And of course the most horrific trade in Canucks history, OEL and Garland for a top 10 pick and a 2nd round pick.

We needed youth who could actually play in a hurry. Cupboards were empty, no one was of NHL level quality and we had so many holes to fill. Benning had to retool while trying to rebuild in order to keep up with the pace of players who were approaching retirement, well past their best before date and try to establish placeholders to allow for development. 

 

Adam Clendenning was FAR greater on paper than Forsling. FAR better, go look at his stats and what the potential was. Clendenning was a HIGH 2nd round pick in 2011, Forsling was a low 5th. I'll gamble on those odds every time.

 

Pedan was a high 3rd round pick, borderline 2nd. 

 

Gudbranson was a 3rd overall, he suffered 82games worth of injuries in his first 2 seasons. McCann.... Took how many trades and years to get to where he is now? Our current POHO traded McCann for who now? McCann was paid for to be given away in the Seattle expansion draft...  What does that tell you?

 

Dickinson, sure it was not a great trade and just didnt work out. 

 

OEL and Myers were a top 5 shutdown pair LEAGUE WIDE in 2021-22. Last year OEL was playing through injury until he finally went down. Also... You wanna shit on Benning for that one?? The twins were heavily responsible for the influence on that trade. OEL is having himself a decent season so far in FLA and Garland is not costing us any games and had trade value at the end of 2021-22, this current management team bet on this team last year and doubled down on pushing for playoffs. They kept everyone around, made some additions and tried pushing for playoffs.. Unfortunately Demko struggled and went down and then Martin let in everything from everywhere. Cant do much about that, just shit goaltending that cost us the season. Imagine if Petey didnt have a hotboy summer in 2021?? and showed up to camp early like he has done the past couple seasons now. Maybe he wouldnt be held pointless in 24 of the first 40 games. Maybe we would have had 3-4 more wins and made playoffs with that last half of the season push where we were one of the top 5 teams in the league over that stretch of games. 

 

On 11/5/2023 at 12:22 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

I disagree with Myers and Garland.  Sweeteners would have need to be attached to those deals and Myers is now coming off the books this season.  We can't give Garland away, so we can hope he continues to play well as a $5 million 3rd liner for now.  The dead cap for OEL was not ideal, but it allowed us to add some UFA's this year in Cole and Soucy, Blueger and Suter without having to lose picks or prospects.

 

Benning had the Luongo recapture, but that was the least of his problems.  

Retention on the cap IS the sweetner. 

 

You're right it was the least of his problems. 2 expansion drafts, COVID and a flat cap were his biggest problems to dance around.

That flattened cap has fucked more teams than any understands right now. For example McDavid's contract... The cap never caught up to inflation, his next deal is due when there is a large increase projected in the cap, meaning he will once again be at the top for $ and term most likely and by the time the cap catches up to his next deal, hes past his prime and a few years into his decline. 

 

On 11/5/2023 at 12:22 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

The of course you had the hiring of Willie D, Travis Green and Bruce Boudreau.  Allvin went out and got his man in Tocchet plus added some great assistant coaches and with a few changes to the roster all of a sudden we are a serious playoff team.  This wasn't an accident.  

 

Benning had some good moments, but at the end of the day he did more harm than good.  He hasn't been hired since he got fired, I doubt he gets another GM position.  Maybe an assistant GM...

WD had won a championship at every level. Not a bad guy to consider and put behind the bench.

lol Boudreau wasnt his choice? If you're going to try and shit on Benning, at least get some facts right, dont just start tossing things that were after him at the board and hope it sticks.

Travis Green coached during the growing pains. Personally I couldnt stand Green, but I dont think he was a bad coach. 

 

 

Benning was never going to be here long enough to see a cup. If he was it would have been a miracle considering how far behind on talent and development we were when he took over. He was here to build, which he did successfully.

He has done far more good than he has harm for the future of this organization. 

 

He built us a lasting core that will give us a chance to win a cup. He didnt fuck it up so bad we need to start over. He wasnt in charge when we were contenders and shorten the window like Gillis did. 

 

Be thankful for what Benning has done for this roster and move on.

 

Also he hasnt been hired or had an opportunity because his contract JUST ended. IDK if he can get hired while still being on our payroll.

There will be some vacancies and I'm sure owners are going to look at the current state of Vancouvers core and think "hmmm maybe we should give Jim Benning a call"

[RWJC]

9 minutes ago, AnthonyG said:

 

 

So I’m just curious, what exactly are you trying to get at? He sent Delorme AND Brackett over to scout Pettersson as a GM should. Inge Hammarstrom was the first to discover Petey and shed light on his potential. Actually sorry Naslund was, which I believe then Hammarstrom relayed that info and that is when Benning sent them overseas. He was serious enough about Pettersson to listen to what was being said to him and invested his scouting department in watching Pettersson closely. As a wise GM he listened to what his scouts reported. He ultimately chose Pettersson over Glass which if you read that article, JB tried moving down a few spots to gain more picks but was fearful of the Rangers taking Pettersson. So clearly Pettersson was the guy he wanted. There is more proof that he wanted Petey than he wanted Glass. Ultimately we wound up with Pettersson? So like whats the issue?

 

 

Well as we all know, or should... Our prospect pool was atrocious when JB took over and within a few years we had lost our #1 and #2 scorers. We had so many holes to fill at the NHL level to replace the existing core from '99-05. Hard to build an NHL team AND a farm team all in the same draft or first few drafts. That takes a very, very long time.

 

Okay so I've had this debate many times on the forums... At what point do you stop going BPA and start going for organizational needs? We had Horvat, Boeser, Virtanen, Baertschi, Etem, Sutter.... Not that all these guys were much to write home about, but they were all 1st round talent and all very young.... We needed to start addressing the blueline. OJ was consistently the highest ranked dman. If you want to call OJ a disaster, you may as well say Bourdon was a disaster. One tragically passed away, the other had multiple knee and back injuries/surgeries AND was hit the hardest by COVID. For all we know OJ could be a long COVID case. His conditioning was way down. OJ was derailed by health related circumstances that were unforeseeable, as was Bourdons tragic death. I think we can both agree, its unfair to pass judgement on a player that didnt work out because of purely health related issues. 

So lets look back and see when the last time we drafted a dman was.... 1998, Brian Allen 4th overall.... thats 18 years between dmen being selected. How do you expect to get a top 4 dman, if you aren't drafting and developing them when you have such little talent in your system to begin with that you cant exactly afford to trade a 1st round pick to get one and trading a young potentially up and coming player from your roster is just a lateral step. 

 

Jake Virtanen...... My god..... Who do you really think had the influence on that pick? Benning was hired 5 weeks prior to the 2014 draft. Our scouting department had been scouting and looking at top 10 picks, Benning came from Boston where he was looking at bottom 10 1st round potential picks. There was rumors Aquaweenie wanted Virtanen and JB who just got here, worked with our scouts and they sold him on Virtanen. After that, he made changes to the scouting department. It's pretty evident he wasn't pleased with the work they had done. He let them express their thoughts on who we should pick, he trusted their work and it didnt go over great. However JV was mishandled and I've wrote it out 1000 times for everyone. His production increased each year, yet his ice time and ozone starts decreased. How does one expect a player to produce with sub 40% onzone starts and around 12-13mins TOI, little to no PP1 time?

 

https://theathletic.com/2347455/2021/01/29/drafting-david-pastrnak-bruins-25th-pick/

 

Benning, an eight-year Bruins employee, helped write their playbook for the 2014 draft. Not only did Benning know every player his former employer preferred, he shared many of their team-building philosophies.

 

2014 Entry
Draft	Num.	Round	Player	Pos	Drafted From	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
2014 Entry	25	1	David Pastrnak	R	Sodertalje SK [Swe-1]	605	311	326	637	257
2014 Entry	56	2	Ryan Donato	C	Dexter School (Mass H.S.)	337	68	74	142	116
2014 Entry	116	4	Danton Heinen	L	Surrey Eagles [BCHL]	418	70	107	177	72
2014 Entry	146	5	Anders Bjork	L	U.S. National Under-18 Team [USHL]	225	26	35	61	44
2014 Entry	206	7	Emil Johansson	D	HV71 (Sweden Jrs.)

 

 

http://www.mynhldraft.com/2014-nhl-draft-prospect-rankings/

Jared McCann was BPA. BPA fucked us on that one.

 

 

If you're going to call a player out for failing to become an NHLer, at least call out guys who failed purely on their abilities and IQ.

*cough* White, Schroeder, Jensen, Gaunce, Shinkaruk

 

 

Eriksson was here during the dark days. He wasnt here during any contending season at all. He was here to play with Sedins, in which his highest season total icetime with the twins was 31%. His "linemates" retired early, LE suffered 2 lengthy injuries in his first 2 seasons and we had no other choice to accept a "rebuild" (which was already underway in the background) His tenure here had no impact on shortening any window to win a cup. Who cares? we were drafting in the top 10. 

2 of your top scorers retire and you hire Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and Tim Schaller.... Do those sound like replacements? No. This was the start of building a strong veteran presence around the youth. Targeting guys with cup experience or seasoned vets who have been through all sorts of highs and lows. It was to help shelter the youth at the NHL level and assist in development at the NHL level, rather than minors because we had no other choice after losing our top 2 scorers. The youth were given the torch and we let the experienced guys deal with bottom 6 duties, PK and protecting leads. Meanwhile the youth focused on offence and slowly learned the defensive side of the game. Is it any coincidence our PK hit historic lows as soon as LE, Beagle and Roussel were shipped out? It had an immediate impact on our PK. Went from 79.78% to 74.89% to 71.60% and now since we have finally rebuilt the bottom 6, we are back around 80%. These arent coincidences.

Why do you think Edmonton has ruined so many high end picks? Look at the disaster right now, where is the depth of experience to guide them through this? Confidence is well out the window, its 12 games in and they are already at a loss of words.

Myers has lived up to his contract when you compare him to guys around his cap hit and above. Go do some research on naturalstattrick.com hockey-reference.com capfriendly.... He has been utilized as a shutdown dman his entire time here. His defensive plays have led directly to offence the most out of any player on the canucks roster in 2/5 seasons and this season is not over yet. He is slightly behind Hughes. Nonetheless we are scoring more when he is on the ice than we are getting scored against and its not even close right now.

 

We needed youth who could actually play in a hurry. Cupboards were empty, no one was of NHL level quality and we had so many holes to fill. Benning had to retool while trying to rebuild in order to keep up with the pace of players who were approaching retirement, well past their best before date and try to establish placeholders to allow for development. 

 

Adam Clendenning was FAR greater on paper than Forsling. FAR better, go look at his stats and what the potential was. Clendenning was a HIGH 2nd round pick in 2011, Forsling was a low 5th. I'll gamble on those odds every time.

 

Pedan was a high 3rd round pick, borderline 2nd. 

 

Gudbranson was a 3rd overall, he suffered 82games worth of injuries in his first 2 seasons. McCann.... Took how many trades and years to get to where he is now? Our current POHO traded McCann for who now? McCann was paid for to be given away in the Seattle expansion draft...  What does that tell you?

 

Dickinson, sure it was not a great trade and just didnt work out. 

 

OEL and Myers were a top 5 shutdown pair LEAGUE WIDE in 2021-22. Last year OEL was playing through injury until he finally went down. Also... You wanna shit on Benning for that one?? The twins were heavily responsible for the influence on that trade. OEL is having himself a decent season so far in FLA and Garland is not costing us any games and had trade value at the end of 2021-22, this current management team bet on this team last year and doubled down on pushing for playoffs. They kept everyone around, made some additions and tried pushing for playoffs.. Unfortunately Demko struggled and went down and then Martin let in everything from everywhere. Cant do much about that, just shit goaltending that cost us the season. Imagine if Petey didnt have a hotboy summer in 2021?? and showed up to camp early like he has done the past couple seasons now. Maybe he wouldnt be held pointless in 24 of the first 40 games. Maybe we would have had 3-4 more wins and made playoffs with that last half of the season push where we were one of the top 5 teams in the league over that stretch of games. 

 

Retention on the cap IS the sweetner. 

 

You're right it was the least of his problems. 2 expansion drafts, COVID and a flat cap were his biggest problems to dance around.

That flattened cap has fucked more teams than any understands right now. For example McDavid's contract... The cap never caught up to inflation, his next deal is due when there is a large increase projected in the cap, meaning he will once again be at the top for $ and term most likely and by the time the cap catches up to his next deal, hes past his prime and a few years into his decline. 

 

WD had won a championship at every level. Not a bad guy to consider and put behind the bench.

lol Boudreau wasnt his choice? If you're going to try and shit on Benning, at least get some facts right, dont just start tossing things that were after him at the board and hope it sticks.

Travis Green coached during the growing pains. Personally I couldnt stand Green, but I dont think he was a bad coach. 

 

 

Benning was never going to be here long enough to see a cup. If he was it would have been a miracle considering how far behind on talent and development we were when he took over. He was here to build, which he did successfully.

He has done far more good than he has harm for the future of this organization. 

 

He built us a lasting core that will give us a chance to win a cup. He didnt fuck it up so bad we need to start over. He wasnt in charge when we were contenders and shorten the window like Gillis did. 

 

Be thankful for what Benning has done for this roster and move on.

 

Also he hasnt been hired or had an opportunity because his contract JUST ended. IDK if he can get hired while still being on our payroll.

There will be some vacancies and I'm sure owners are going to look at the current state of Vancouvers core and think "hmmm maybe we should give Jim Benning a call"

Very well expressed. Thanks for being thorough 

[Hammertime]

 

Elias Lindholm that is all.

[Elias Pettersson]

15 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

 

 

So I’m just curious, what exactly are you trying to get at? He sent Delorme AND Brackett over to scout Pettersson as a GM should. Inge Hammarstrom was the first to discover Petey and shed light on his potential. Actually sorry Naslund was, which I believe then Hammarstrom relayed that info and that is when Benning sent them overseas. He was serious enough about Pettersson to listen to what was being said to him and invested his scouting department in watching Pettersson closely. As a wise GM he listened to what his scouts reported. He ultimately chose Pettersson over Glass which if you read that article, JB tried moving down a few spots to gain more picks but was fearful of the Rangers taking Pettersson. So clearly Pettersson was the guy he wanted. There is more proof that he wanted Petey than he wanted Glass. Ultimately we wound up with Pettersson? So like whats the issue?

 

 

Well as we all know, or should... Our prospect pool was atrocious when JB took over and within a few years we had lost our #1 and #2 scorers. We had so many holes to fill at the NHL level to replace the existing core from '99-05. Hard to build an NHL team AND a farm team all in the same draft or first few drafts. That takes a very, very long time.

 

Okay so I've had this debate many times on the forums... At what point do you stop going BPA and start going for organizational needs? We had Horvat, Boeser, Virtanen, Baertschi, Etem, Sutter.... Not that all these guys were much to write home about, but they were all 1st round talent and all very young.... We needed to start addressing the blueline. OJ was consistently the highest ranked dman. If you want to call OJ a disaster, you may as well say Bourdon was a disaster. One tragically passed away, the other had multiple knee and back injuries/surgeries AND was hit the hardest by COVID. For all we know OJ could be a long COVID case. His conditioning was way down. OJ was derailed by health related circumstances that were unforeseeable, as was Bourdons tragic death. I think we can both agree, its unfair to pass judgement on a player that didnt work out because of purely health related issues. 

So lets look back and see when the last time we drafted a dman was.... 1998, Brian Allen 4th overall.... thats 18 years between dmen being selected. How do you expect to get a top 4 dman, if you aren't drafting and developing them when you have such little talent in your system to begin with that you cant exactly afford to trade a 1st round pick to get one and trading a young potentially up and coming player from your roster is just a lateral step. 

 

Jake Virtanen...... My god..... Who do you really think had the influence on that pick? Benning was hired 5 weeks prior to the 2014 draft. Our scouting department had been scouting and looking at top 10 picks, Benning came from Boston where he was looking at bottom 10 1st round potential picks. There was rumors Aquaweenie wanted Virtanen and JB who just got here, worked with our scouts and they sold him on Virtanen. After that, he made changes to the scouting department. It's pretty evident he wasn't pleased with the work they had done. He let them express their thoughts on who we should pick, he trusted their work and it didnt go over great. However JV was mishandled and I've wrote it out 1000 times for everyone. His production increased each year, yet his ice time and ozone starts decreased. How does one expect a player to produce with sub 40% onzone starts and around 12-13mins TOI, little to no PP1 time?

 

https://theathletic.com/2347455/2021/01/29/drafting-david-pastrnak-bruins-25th-pick/

 

Benning, an eight-year Bruins employee, helped write their playbook for the 2014 draft. Not only did Benning know every player his former employer preferred, he shared many of their team-building philosophies.

 

2014 Entry
Draft	Num.	Round	Player	Pos	Drafted From	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
2014 Entry	25	1	David Pastrnak	R	Sodertalje SK [Swe-1]	605	311	326	637	257
2014 Entry	56	2	Ryan Donato	C	Dexter School (Mass H.S.)	337	68	74	142	116
2014 Entry	116	4	Danton Heinen	L	Surrey Eagles [BCHL]	418	70	107	177	72
2014 Entry	146	5	Anders Bjork	L	U.S. National Under-18 Team [USHL]	225	26	35	61	44
2014 Entry	206	7	Emil Johansson	D	HV71 (Sweden Jrs.)

 

 

http://www.mynhldraft.com/2014-nhl-draft-prospect-rankings/

Jared McCann was BPA. BPA fucked us on that one.

 

 

If you're going to call a player out for failing to become an NHLer, at least call out guys who failed purely on their abilities and IQ.

*cough* White, Schroeder, Jensen, Gaunce, Shinkaruk

 

 

Eriksson was here during the dark days. He wasnt here during any contending season at all. He was here to play with Sedins, in which his highest season total icetime with the twins was 31%. His "linemates" retired early, LE suffered 2 lengthy injuries in his first 2 seasons and we had no other choice to accept a "rebuild" (which was already underway in the background) His tenure here had no impact on shortening any window to win a cup. Who cares? we were drafting in the top 10. 

2 of your top scorers retire and you hire Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and Tim Schaller.... Do those sound like replacements? No. This was the start of building a strong veteran presence around the youth. Targeting guys with cup experience or seasoned vets who have been through all sorts of highs and lows. It was to help shelter the youth at the NHL level and assist in development at the NHL level, rather than minors because we had no other choice after losing our top 2 scorers. The youth were given the torch and we let the experienced guys deal with bottom 6 duties, PK and protecting leads. Meanwhile the youth focused on offence and slowly learned the defensive side of the game. Is it any coincidence our PK hit historic lows as soon as LE, Beagle and Roussel were shipped out? It had an immediate impact on our PK. Went from 79.78% to 74.89% to 71.60% and now since we have finally rebuilt the bottom 6, we are back around 80%. These arent coincidences.

Why do you think Edmonton has ruined so many high end picks? Look at the disaster right now, where is the depth of experience to guide them through this? Confidence is well out the window, its 12 games in and they are already at a loss of words.

Myers has lived up to his contract when you compare him to guys around his cap hit and above. Go do some research on naturalstattrick.com hockey-reference.com capfriendly.... He has been utilized as a shutdown dman his entire time here. His defensive plays have led directly to offence the most out of any player on the canucks roster in 2/5 seasons and this season is not over yet. He is slightly behind Hughes. Nonetheless we are scoring more when he is on the ice than we are getting scored against and its not even close right now.

 

We needed youth who could actually play in a hurry. Cupboards were empty, no one was of NHL level quality and we had so many holes to fill. Benning had to retool while trying to rebuild in order to keep up with the pace of players who were approaching retirement, well past their best before date and try to establish placeholders to allow for development. 

 

Adam Clendenning was FAR greater on paper than Forsling. FAR better, go look at his stats and what the potential was. Clendenning was a HIGH 2nd round pick in 2011, Forsling was a low 5th. I'll gamble on those odds every time.

 

Pedan was a high 3rd round pick, borderline 2nd. 

 

Gudbranson was a 3rd overall, he suffered 82games worth of injuries in his first 2 seasons. McCann.... Took how many trades and years to get to where he is now? Our current POHO traded McCann for who now? McCann was paid for to be given away in the Seattle expansion draft...  What does that tell you?

 

Dickinson, sure it was not a great trade and just didnt work out. 

 

OEL and Myers were a top 5 shutdown pair LEAGUE WIDE in 2021-22. Last year OEL was playing through injury until he finally went down. Also... You wanna shit on Benning for that one?? The twins were heavily responsible for the influence on that trade. OEL is having himself a decent season so far in FLA and Garland is not costing us any games and had trade value at the end of 2021-22, this current management team bet on this team last year and doubled down on pushing for playoffs. They kept everyone around, made some additions and tried pushing for playoffs.. Unfortunately Demko struggled and went down and then Martin let in everything from everywhere. Cant do much about that, just shit goaltending that cost us the season. Imagine if Petey didnt have a hotboy summer in 2021?? and showed up to camp early like he has done the past couple seasons now. Maybe he wouldnt be held pointless in 24 of the first 40 games. Maybe we would have had 3-4 more wins and made playoffs with that last half of the season push where we were one of the top 5 teams in the league over that stretch of games. 

 

Retention on the cap IS the sweetner. 

 

You're right it was the least of his problems. 2 expansion drafts, COVID and a flat cap were his biggest problems to dance around.

That flattened cap has fucked more teams than any understands right now. For example McDavid's contract... The cap never caught up to inflation, his next deal is due when there is a large increase projected in the cap, meaning he will once again be at the top for $ and term most likely and by the time the cap catches up to his next deal, hes past his prime and a few years into his decline. 

 

WD had won a championship at every level. Not a bad guy to consider and put behind the bench.

lol Boudreau wasnt his choice? If you're going to try and shit on Benning, at least get some facts right, dont just start tossing things that were after him at the board and hope it sticks.

Travis Green coached during the growing pains. Personally I couldnt stand Green, but I dont think he was a bad coach. 

 

 

Benning was never going to be here long enough to see a cup. If he was it would have been a miracle considering how far behind on talent and development we were when he took over. He was here to build, which he did successfully.

He has done far more good than he has harm for the future of this organization. 

 

He built us a lasting core that will give us a chance to win a cup. He didnt fuck it up so bad we need to start over. He wasnt in charge when we were contenders and shorten the window like Gillis did. 

 

Be thankful for what Benning has done for this roster and move on.

 

Also he hasnt been hired or had an opportunity because his contract JUST ended. IDK if he can get hired while still being on our payroll.

There will be some vacancies and I'm sure owners are going to look at the current state of Vancouvers core and think "hmmm maybe we should give Jim Benning a call"

 

I used to be a big Jim Benning apologist back in the day.  This post reminds me of some of my old posts on CDC.  At some point I eventually turned the corner though.  Defending Benning's every move must get harder and harder each year.  I know for me I couldn't do it any longer.  At some point, logic kicks in and the emotion goes away.

 

I am sure most fans are thankful for Benning using his scouting team to get the core pieces we have today.  Benning was a good amateur scout.  As for everything else that he did, if you want to keep defending him for his atrocious trades and free agent signings then that is your choice.  I no longer do that, especially the OEL trade which was the worst trade in Vancouver Canucks history.

 

I have seen pretty much every GM come and go from this organization, so I know exactly what has happened the last 40+ years.  We've had some real stinker teams and some real bad GM's.  If you want to know what it means for a GM to start from absolute scratch and build a winner, then I advise you to do some research on the Pat Quinn hiring and the time that he was here.  I watched it all unfold in real time with my own eyes.  This might give you some semblance of how an actual GM builds a team from scratch and takes it all the way to the Stanley Cup finals in less than 7 years.

[AnthonyG]

On 11/12/2023 at 12:20 AM, Elias Pettersson said:

I have seen pretty much every GM come and go from this organization, so I know exactly what has happened the last 40+ years.  We've had some real stinker teams and some real bad GM's.  If you want to know what it means for a GM to start from absolute scratch and build a winner, then I advise you to do some research on the Pat Quinn hiring and the time that he was here.  I watched it all unfold in real time with my own eyes.  This might give you some semblance of how an actual GM builds a team from scratch and takes it all the way to the Stanley Cup finals in less than 7 years.

No offence man, but you might want to do a bit of research of your own….

Inheriting 

 

versus

 

 

is not even remotely close. Look at the avg age of those teams. Look at the value on those rosters. Pat Quinn inherited a young team with potential, along with plenty of prospects. Igor Larionov being one of them.

Pat Quinn was a beneficiary of the risk of taking Russian players back then, with the risk of them defecting to Russia it took away from their appeal. Without that we may have never seen Bure. Now its much harder to find diamonds in the rough. There were plenty of prospects in the system and Quinn had multiple top 3 picks.

The worst trade of all time was Pederson for Neely. Hands down, that takes the cake. Not a Quinn trade, but the worst ever. OEL gave a top 5 shutdown performance 2021-22. Injuries and shit goaltending made 22-23 a write off. This year… hes going pretty good in FLA. Garland is playing well and already changed the minds of fans who wanted him gone this season.