[Article] Canucks: Trevor Linden slams former GM Jim Benning in Sportsnet 650 interview

[filthy animal]

9 hours ago, Provost said:

I flew back from Vegas (after seeing U2 at The Sphere) a couple weeks ago with Linden sitting two rows behind me.

 

He is always really super polite and friendly.  It must be hard to be “switched on” and ready all the time.  He must enjoy it overall though as he stays in Vancouver.  He could be largely anonymous in a lot of different cities.

 

 

 

 

How was the concert in the Sphere? Ive met Linden a few times too, hes always been very personable. One of the nicest Canucks Ive met. Oddly enough, i know hes gotten his share of flack by fans, Virtanen is a really cool dude

[filthy animal]

1 hour ago, Elias Pettersson said:

 

It may be difficult to look soley at the draft, as it will continue to be Benning wanted this guy, Brackett wanted that guy.  At the end of the day, the Canucks hit a homerun on 3 picks, but also literally threw away 2 top 6 picks as well.

 

The draft isn't really what got Benning fired.  It was his free agent signings and his trades that did him in.  Loui Eriksson, Jay Beagle, Tyler Myers, trading a top 10 pick and a 2nd for OEL who now is going to haunt us and screw our cap for 7 more years, plus we have Garland on the books for 2 more years at $5 million when he is a 3rd liner.

 

Benning had a chance to completely wipe out alot of his problems by simply allowing the contracts of Beagle, Eriksson and Roussel to expire.  Instead, he doubled down and traded those contracts plus the picks on top in order to get his guy from Arizona who was going to come and lead us to the playoffs and save his job.  It completely backfired on him and now we are suffering as a result of that massive mistake.

 

If people want to give credit to Benning for being a great amateur scout, then go for it.  But in virtually every other area of the GM job, he was absolutely brutal.  

 

Pretty spot on. Notice how Benning fanboys seem to love to just harp on his drafting and not everything else. You'll never hear them mention the names Eriksson, Beagle Sutter, Gudbranson, and many others who were collosal failures in their tenure here

 

Good on #16 to get the Benning fan club riled up

[filthy animal]

11 hours ago, iinatcc said:

 

I do to. The best logos in sports tend to be the simplest in the NHL Montreal and Boston have simple logos that just works and pops. 

 

Blackhawks jersey has always been badass. Pretty good for washing cars too during 2008 - 2010 season

[Jeremy Hronek]

5 hours ago, filthy animal said:

 

Virtanen is a really cool dude

 

I'm sure many women would agree with you.  

[bishopshodan]

I've lost some respect for Trev.

 

I mean, he has all the right to say what he wants as I have the right to my opinion.

Benning will wear this as another thing for people to dump on him and that imo is unfortunate.

 

Everything that happened, exactly how it did, created the team we have now. A team off to an historic start. Jim was a massive part of that. 

Orgs come and go but those that work and play for the Canucks will always be part of our history, they will always be Canucks to me. 

 

We're talking about one of the best forwards to ever put on our sweater. When hockey fans in the future see Benning they will remember these media sound bites and laugh in his face about somehting I am sure he is very proud of...being the main part of drafting the Alien, our star, Elias Pettersson.

[aGENT]

8 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

The draft isn't really what got Benning fired.  It was his free agent signings and his trades that did him in.  Loui Eriksson, Jay Beagle, Tyler Myers, trading a top 10 pick and a 2nd for OEL who now is going to haunt us and screw our cap for 7 more years, plus we have Garland on the books for 2 more years at $5 million when he is a 3rd liner.

 

IMO the biggest issue was by far his team building, second was cap management.

 

Most of those players individually were/are decent to good players and plenty went on to play well on other teams. But he seemed completely lost on how to put complementary pieces together and build a cohesive TEAM. He could not seem to put players in position to succeed. It's honestly the biggest change new management has made (as well as coaching/structure... which is similar to Green's) and IMO is the main reason the team, lead by players he drafted/signed/traded for, is doing so well now.

 

 

[DixonWard]

On 11/9/2023 at 12:40 AM, iinatcc said:

 

Um Canucks Central was asking him about the process of drafting Pettersson. Linden was just being candid in how he answers the question 

 

I guess to Benning's credit if this was indeed what happened he was on board with Pettersson. So I will give him that.

 

 

I do appreciate honest answers, but Benning is long gone and everybody craps on him.  Nobody craps on Linden.  He doesn't need to set the record straight for any reason.  It doesn't matter.  Everybody already loves Linden and dislikes Benning.  Being this honest at this point just seems to rile people up and put salt on a wound that is finally scabbing over.

[NoCupSyndrome]

1 hour ago, DixonWard said:

I do appreciate honest answers, but Benning is long gone and everybody craps on him.  Nobody craps on Linden.  He doesn't need to set the record straight for any reason.  It doesn't matter.  Everybody already loves Linden and dislikes Benning.  Being this honest at this point just seems to rile people up and put salt on a wound that is finally scabbing over.

 

I tend to agree, Linden was not ready for the role of President...his hiring and most importantly oversight/management of Benning clearly shows that. 

[LillStrimma]

2 hours ago, DixonWard said:

I do appreciate honest answers, but Benning is long gone and everybody craps on him.  Nobody craps on Linden.  He doesn't need to set the record straight for any reason.  It doesn't matter.  Everybody already loves Linden and dislikes Benning.  Being this honest at this point just seems to rile people up and put salt on a wound that is finally scabbing over.

When you got another scout saying ”Finally” it means Benning made a lot of blunders scoutwise. Not just about OJ…

[fanfor42]

I listened to the radio interview and watched the Donnie and Dhali tv interview.  My take is that Linden sees the Canucks are on the rise and his ego won't let him pass up an opportunity to say he played a bigger part in it than Benning. The timing of his comments are the tip off.

 

And I am not a Benning fan. 

 

But why Linden chose to speak up now is pure ego Imo.

 

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by fanfor42

[6of1_halfdozenofother]

As a person who admires Trevor Linden, I have to say that his biggest failure in the role (and yes, I would qualify it as a failure) is that he didn't fire Jim Benning when it became obvious to him that Jim was looking to usurp power from those working with him.  Now, it's possible that he didn't care enough to do it, it's also possible he didn't want to destroy people's futures by firing them, or it's possible that he decided to pull himself out of the situation altogether given his young family and let the team sort itself out.   However, if his stated goal (which he reiterated on the interviews) was truly to do what was best for the club, his first job should have been to fire GMJB's ass once it was apparent that there was going to be a divergence of vision that would be unreconcilable amongst the management team, and then to clean house to remove any of JB's hires whose loyalties were stronger with GMJB than they were to the team.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[XxNaslundxX]

I mean in hindsight linden came back to the canucks to be the teams president and to help benning turn the team around. He got canned (unfairly imo) because he didnt want to retool how benning was and he thought we needed to tank and so it created a rift in management. Ownership sided with benning. I see nothing wrong on trevors character here. I think hes allowed a few "i told ya sooo"s now after the fact. 

[Rusty Shackleford]

23 hours ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

 

Well yeah. He got fired because he was idealistic and not realistic about the business that is NHL hockey in Vancouver. Linden was talking tank and ownership saw hundreds of millions of dollars burning in front of their eyes. What did he think was going to happen. Lol. Ownership chose to stay "competitive" for the duration for a reason.

 

Here's former Canucks AGM Chris Gear talking about how and why things played out the way they did:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmBXThA1fvQ&t=848s

 

 

 

Great interview.  Interesting that this was pre Horvat trade and Chris mentions he didn't think we needed to rebuild as we have Petey, Hughes and Demko, ie. Star players in each position.  He then goes on to mention that we need a center and a RHD or 1st in return for Horvat and we got exactly that to round out the roster and organizational depth.

 

[conquestofbaguettes]

2 hours ago, fanfor42 said:

Linden sees the Canucks are on the rise and his ego won't let him pass up an opportunity to say he played a bigger part in it than Benning.

 

Which he didn't lol. Linden's idealistic tank views got him shitcanned and he's still bitter about it. Benning broke radio silence after two years to call BS on Trevor's stories. Says it all far as I'm concerned.

[Rusty Shackleford]

2 hours ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

As a person who admires Trevor Linden, I have to say that his biggest failure in the role (and yes, I would qualify it as a failure) is that he didn't fire Jim Benning when it became obvious to him that Jim was looking to usurp power from those working with him.  Now, it's possible that he didn't care enough to do it, it's also possible he didn't want to destroy people's futures by firing them, or it's possible that he decided to pull himself out of the situation altogether given his young family and let the team sort itself out.   However, if his stated goal (which he reiterated on the interviews) was truly to do what was best for the club, his first job should have been to fire GMJB's ass once it was apparent that there was going to be a divergence of vision that would be unreconcilable amongst the management team, and then to clean house to remove any of JB's hires whose loyalties were stronger with GMJB than they were to the team.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

He also mentions that his plan all along was to be with the organization 4-5 years and he stayed for 4.  Seems like he has no regrets and the club is now better off for it.  All's well that ends well, except for, maybe JB

[conquestofbaguettes]

25 minutes ago, Rusty Shackleford said:

 

Great interview.  Interesting that this was pre Horvat trade and Chris mentions he didn't think we needed to rebuild as we have Petey, Hughes and Demko, ie. Star players in each position.  He then goes on to mention that we need a center and a RHD or 1st in return for Horvat and we got exactly that to round out the roster and organizational depth.

 

Yeah dude. Chris Gear explains in perfect English why the rebuild went the way it did. Linden was talking "tank" and ownership wasn't hearing it for multiple reasons.

 

As Gear states, they "didn't want to get shelled 6-1 every night."  Wonder why. People don't come out to games when they're losing that badly. People tune out. We know this. And NHL hockey is a business first and foremost. Few teams in ANY league are willing to tank. Especially when you don't have the stars in the pipeline as Gear  mentioned (because Gillis sold the farm before them [which i don't blame him for doing but still the reality of the situation.])

Benning didn't have an easy job. They had two simultaneous goals: Needs of the now, and the needs of the future. What can you do? Exactly what we saw.

 

Of course maybe this or that trade, this or that pick could have been better and maybe sped up the process a bit... but shit happens. Sometimes contracts don't work out, sometimes teams miss on stars at the draft. It happens all the time. The kicker is most the trades didn't matter at that time anyway! With tons of holes in the roster, waiting for that new crop of stars, trying to ice a product to keep asses in the seats. That was the whole point.

 

In the end, as long as you hit where you really really need to (1c, 1d, 1g) you'll have what you need to build around. And the rest will fall into place. And that's exactly what they did (with a few other core additions along the way. Boeser, Miller, Hoglander, Podkolzin...)

 

That's how I view it anyway.

Edited November 11, 2023 by conquestofbaguettes

[iinatcc]

6 hours ago, DixonWard said:

I do appreciate honest answers, but Benning is long gone and everybody craps on him.  Nobody craps on Linden.  He doesn't need to set the record straight for any reason.  It doesn't matter.  Everybody already loves Linden and dislikes Benning.  Being this honest at this point just seems to rile people up and put salt on a wound that is finally scabbing over.

I didn't see his response that way though. I don't think his intention was to knock on Linden rather discuss the importance of setting a process and give credit to the scouting department. 

[chaoticmonkey]

At the end of the day it doesn't matter. Benning listened to his scouts and made the right pick. If you blame him for bad picks you have to give him credit for the good picks.

 

Also it's funny that Linden said he thought the team had to look at 2020 as the time to compete. When did he make his remarks about it not being fair for the Sedins to do a full rebuild?

[The Duke]

6 minutes ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

Yeah dude. Chris Gear explains in perfect English why the rebuild went the way it did. Linden was talking "tank" and ownership wasn't hearing it for multiple reasons.

 

As Gear states, they "didn't want to get shelled 6-1 every night."  Wonder why. People don't come out to games when they're losing that badly. People tune out. We know this. And NHL hockey is a business first and foremost. Few teams in ANY league are willing to tank. Especially when you don't have the stars in the pipeline as Gear  mentioned (because Gillis sold the farm before them [which i don't blame him for doing but still the reality of the situation.])

Benning didn't have an easy job. They had two simultaneous goals: Needs of the now, and the needs of the future. What can you do? Exactly what we saw.

 

Of course maybe this or that trade, this or that pick could have been better and maybe sped up the process a bit... but shit happens. Sometimes contracts don't work out, sometimes teams miss on stars at the draft. It happens all the time. The kicker is most the trades didn't matter at that time anyway! With tons of holes in the roster, waiting for that new crop of stars, trying to ice a product to keep asses in the seats.

 

In the end, as long as you hit where you really really need to (1c, 1d, 1g) you have what you need to build around. And the rest will fall into place.

 

That's how I view it anyway.

If that’s true, Linden pushing “tank” and getting tuned out by ownership when he should have been pushing “patience” and just letting the team organically scrape the bottom for 4-5 years (which happened anyways) is a pretty big mistake. 
 

Tanking sucks - but giving ownership some hope by loading the team with overpriced high character UFA vets might have worked out fine if we didn’t trade away Forsling, McCann and the 2nd that turned into Andersson.  

[Alflives]

Too drunk to read all. But if Aquilini is reading this, then Zkeep your friggin’ snout out of hockey ops. Pretty much- SHUT YOIR MOUTH. 

[LillStrimma]

50 minutes ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

because Gillis sold the farm

This I don’t understand.

 

Gillis bought Utica and Utica is the farm or is it something I’m missing here?

[conquestofbaguettes]

1 hour ago, The Duke said:

If that’s true, Linden pushing “tank” and getting tuned out by ownership when he should have been pushing “patience” and just letting the team organically scrape the bottom for 4-5 years (which happened anyways) is a pretty big mistake. 
 

Tanking sucks - but giving ownership some hope by loading the team with overpriced high character UFA vets might have worked out fine if we didn’t trade away Forsling, McCann and the 2nd that turned into Andersson.  

 

We all know Linden was mostly a PR hire. Zero experience, org wanted to keep brand interest up with a trusted face, pander to season ticket holders and the corporate boxes while the product was about to turn to a bag of poop.  Saying we'll "be competitive"  so it won't be a full flaming bag of poop, but poop nonetheless.  That was his purpose.  And when his idealistic ideas of tanking were not shared (obviously) they knew it was time say goodbye.

 

As for the Forsling and McCann trades, they are and always will be somewhat low hanging fruit. Forsling was traded like 4 times and claimed off waivers before landing in Florida and finding his game. McCann went thru like 3 or 4 himself.  That kinda thing happens to teams all the time with players they draft. Some pull thru. Most don't. It's sucks, but nothing out of the ordinary really. But I agree would've been nice to have a few extra pieces for now rather than using the assets to be competitive then. Oh well

Edited November 11, 2023 by conquestofbaguettes

[conquestofbaguettes]

24 minutes ago, LillStrimma said:

This I don’t understand.

 

Gillis bought Utica and Utica is the farm or is it something I’m missing here?

Ie. Gillis sold picks to go on the cup run, and their drafting was poop too.  Didn't leave the next regime much to build with. 

 

Not that I blame Gillis. Strike while the iron is hot. But... that is what it looks like when you take your shot and miss.

[LillStrimma]

25 minutes ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

Ie. Gillis sold picks to go on the cup run, and their drafting was poop too.  Didn't leave the next regime much to build with. 

 

Not that I blame Gillis. Strike while the iron is hot. But... that is what it looks like when you take your shot and miss.

And then he bought a real hockeyfarm as compensation… Doesn’t that count?

The first bit with going on a cup run with less picks and bad possibilities to find prospects through draft is quite understandable. It’s not like he got a lot of great picks.

When he got a 9th in the draft he picked Horvat so it seems his organisation could draft with success if they had Bennings choices.

 

[The Duke]

1 hour ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

 

We all know Linden was mostly a PR hire. Zero experience, org wanted to keep brand interest up with a trusted face, pander to season ticket holders and the corporate boxes while the product was about to turn to a bag of poop.  Saying we'll "be competitive"  so it won't be a full flaming bag of poop, but poop nonetheless.  That was his purpose.  And when his idealistic ideas of tanking were not shared (obviously) they knew it was time say goodbye.

 

As for the Forsling and McCann trades, they are and always will be somewhat low hanging fruit. Forsling was traded like 4 times and claimed off waivers before landing in Florida and finding his game. McCann went thru like 3 or 4 himself.  That kinda thing happens to teams all the time with players they draft. Some pull thru. Most don't. It's sucks, but nothing out of the ordinary really. But I agree would've been nice to have a few extra pieces for now rather than using the assets to be competitive then. Oh well

Yeah. Regarding McCann, Forsling (and the 2nd round picks) I defended the process at the time, and with better targets it could have been a fine strategy.  But, like a lot of things in that era, we didn’t just take the less popular strategic approach - we also either targeted duds (Gudbranson, Clendenning, Vey) or got unlucky with injuries (Baer, Sutter) or whatever.  
 

McCann and Forsling may have been traded more than once as they took time to mature, but the organization really shouldn’t have been in any rush to move out prospects.  I say this as someone at the time saw value in not tanking - and at least having some respectability.
 

And I agree, he was really just a PR hire.  If we’re going to revisit Linden-as-president, he said the “not fair to rebuild with the sedins” and was prez when Benning made a lot of (with hindsight) costly errors to speed up the process - with literally nothing to show for it. That’s the opposite of tanking. I’m just saying it would have been nice if he had pushed for a middle ground instead of advocating one extreme and presiding over the other.  All with the benefit of hindsight, of course.

Edited November 11, 2023 by The Duke