Francesco Aquillini and Jim Benning --Tales of a Rebuild: Misconceptions, Misery, and Money

[LillStrimma]

7 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

Beautiful, thank you and you just cleared Eriksson, Virtanen, OEL and Myers of their play due to how they were treated and health related issues.

LE signed to play with the twins, spent no more than 31% of his TOI in 2016-17 playing with them, the following season dropped even further AND he sustained multiple big injuries. His offensive zone time was 50% and dropped significantly each season - that was purely utilization by Green.

 

Virtanen showed increased goal and point totals year by year. His ice time shrank year by year while producing more and his zone starts went from around 50% down to below 40%.

once again utilization by Green. Punished for producing.

 

OEL was a dynamic dman who whas utilized equally in both ends of the ice throughout his career, until he came here. Solely used to shutdown opposition. Battled through injury last season and then went down to injury last year. - Utilization and health

 

Myers was an offensive dman who has been used purely defensively here. Funny enough he has led Vancouver in defensive point shares 2/4 seasons and is usually top 5 when he doesnt lead the team. - utilization.

Why do you mix intelligent and moronic players? 
If Virtanen was punished it was because he couldn’t understand and follow the system.

It could also be that he tried to damage other players causing unnecessary penalties.

 

OEL was a majestic mistake. So damn idiotic only Ferland is worse.

You probably know we already had our number one LHD in Hughes.

So why get an expensive LHD more. Totally mindblowing…

 

Eriksson, it was told on CDC that Green never used Loui in the position he could be good in.

So that was an analytic mistake from Green and his proscouts. Hence why Loui finally talked about him and Green living on different planets.

 

Myers here you can compare with how Gudbranson was utilised with the Flames when he did a fine job there.

Put in the system where they can be good and they deliver.

 

[LillStrimma]

6 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

By Thomas Drance

Oct 12, 2022

---

Elias Pettersson doesn’t want to talk about last season.

On the eve of a new campaign and a fresh start for the Vancouver Canucks, their star centre knows that the widely publicized and endlessly dissected struggles that he endured in the first half of the 2021-22 season are behind him. They’re fuel, now. Motivational fodder.

“I learned a lot last year, I think it matured me — first off as a human,” Pettersson told The Athletic over the weekend. “The experience made me want to work even harder this summer.”

Since Canucks training camp opened in Whistler three weeks ago, Pettersson has carried himself a bit differently. He’s been dialed in on the ice, even at practice, but in a more restrained way than he was in his first couple of NHL seasons.

He’s been diligent in his media availabilities, but also careful. When given the opportunity to revisit how a wrist injury played a role in his slow start a year ago, for example, Pettersson has rejected the premise of the question — never mind that his shot looked completely different in the first 30 games than it did over the final 52.

Pettersson has spoken of how there were two versions of himself last season, but that’s only in regard to his on-ice performance. It’s not something mental that he spent time grappling with, trying to square away this offseason.

 

Elias Pettersson. (Bob Frid / USA Today)

No, Pettersson is 23 years old now, and he’ll be 24 in November. He’s grown up in the withering spotlight of the Vancouver hockey market and is now entering his prime. And as he’s matured, he’s discarded some of the distractions of prior seasons, in favour of putting in the work to be harder to play against.

The media spotlight, unfortunately for us, appears to be among those unnecessary distractions.

“I’m not going to try and give you a headline,” Pettersson responded this weekend when asked what he wants fans to know about where his game is at — and where he is at — going into this season.

“Come on,” I beseeched him in vain, “you should always try to give us a headline!”

“Nah, the headlines are more annoying to deal with,” Pettersson laughed. “I feel good, I’ve had a good summer of training and I’m ready for a new season — as boring as it sounds.”

Whether the quote is boring or not is immaterial, when compared with the weight of this upcoming campaign. There’s a responsibility on Pettersson and his teammates to play winning hockey, and that can only really occur if Pettersson is at his imperious, assertive best.

Whether he’ll say it or not, this is what Pettersson really wants Canucks fans to know about where his game is at — and where he is at — as a new season dawns. That he’s put in the work. That to him, winning is everything. That he can’t really tell you anything relevant anyway, it’s something he’ll have to show you once the puck drops.

“I didn’t really go on vacation,” Pettersson said of his offseason. “Right after the season I went to Miami, I watched F1 and then I took a couple weeks off when I got home — then it was all training and working all summer.

“I spent more time doing ice practices, more time on ice with different skills coaches, focusing on my skating and puck protection. That’s what me and my trainer agreed on. He sets the schedule, it’s a mutual process, what we want to work on, then he sets out the plan.”

His regimen focused on adding power to his stride. On being able to withstand checkers better, to remain on his feet and win more battles.

The plan included a strict diet, targeted to help Pettersson put on weight.

“I’ve learned that the food, the stuff I put in me, is as important, if not more important, than the workouts,” Pettersson said of his offseason diet. “Especially for me, who wants to gain muscle.”

Consistent with his under-the-radar approach, Pettersson declined to “give a number” for his current weight, not that we asked for it directly, but noted that he “definitely feels and looks stronger.”

This is important to Pettersson. The overarching theme of his summer training, of what he’s trying to become, is a more well-rounded player. We know he can score, and be a disruptive forechecker, and make plays, and command a level of gravity on the power play, opening up passing lanes for his teammates by his very presence on the right-side half-wall. We also know now that he can kill penalties and check effectively in high-leverage situations late in games — he proved that last season after the coaching change.

To take that next step though, Pettersson knows he has to be heavier — both literally and stylistically — on the ice.

Off of it, ironically, Pettersson seems to want to tread more lightly. To focus solely on his performance, rather than brand building.

“Everyone likes the attention when you play good, but I’ve just learned — or not learned — but I’ve realized that the more I think about what other people think, the more I look at social media …” Here Pettersson trailed off, and gathered his thoughts.

“When I got here, everything was so big compared to what I was used to back home,” Pettersson continued. “Now I’m not focusing on it too much. I know if I play good and if I help this team win, that’s all that matters. It’s great when people say good things about you, but it doesn’t really matter compared to the guys in the locker room.”

So there will be fewer headline-grabbing quotes. He’ll take a more serious tack in postgame scrums and interviews. You’re not likely to see Pettersson posting a highly-produced hype video on his Instagram.

“I don’t want to be on social media as much, I don’t think it matters as much as I maybe thought it did a few years ago,” Pettersson said. “It might not look like I’m having as much fun, but it’s been a lot of fun back home this summer. Just focusing on training and stuff.

“I think I’ve just realized that the more low key I am, the less I have to worry about. I was posting a lot after the COVID season and it was great, I don’t regret what I was doing, but I realized that it was a lot. I was thinking about it all the time. Now I don’t really care.”

Letting go of the inessential is a key part of growing up, which is perhaps why Pettersson doesn’t want to talk about last season. That’s fair enough. As of today, after all, this season is what matters

So you actually found some hard truth in there? 
Don’t become a journalist if so.

You can only guess what it is and you are strange if you wnat to have a guess as proof.

[conquestofbaguettes]

18 hours ago, LillStrimma said:

I love t when you guys still talks as if Benning was the one and only GM that had to handle the pandemic and flat cap.

Don’t you realise wvery single one of the NHL GMs had to handle that problem?

 

Bennings issue was himself since he paid too much for garbage or cheap players.

 

How much do you think went into his pockets since he was the one and only GM that put himself in that position? 
At least the one and only according to your post…

While every team obviously had to deal with the flat cap, not all teams were affected equally given the state and place the particular team was at. That's what you fail to realize over and over. And no. It wasn't just cuz of all the big bad Benning.

 

  Context is everything.

 

[AnthonyG]

3 hours ago, LillStrimma said:

So all of a sudden you turn into the HockeyGod or what his name is.

Damn it, my ears started bleeding by your shellshocking words.

You know what Im going to apologize to you for that reply. You didnt deserve that and you’re quite civil in your replies, so I’m sorry for being snappy.

look dude lets look at this from a very realistic standpoint. 
If Pettersson does not want to be here if we arent winning, do you think anyone wants to be here and take a discount to play in a bottom dwelling rebuilding organization? No. Guys want to win, guys want to play for something, each and every single one of those guys in that league are looking to win a cup, so if they are going to sacrifice their dream, they are going to want to win a cup and guys who have already won a cup will still want to come to the rink and enjoy playing, not get bent over game after game season after season.

Benning made a lot of his “bad” signings PRIOR to the arrival and impact of Hughes, Pettersson, Demko, and Miller. They proved very quickly that we no longer needed to continue rebuilding. No one could foresee those players immediate impact, same with Boeser. So yea in hindsight its a “bad” signing, but thats all because hindsight is 20/20. Those signings have had no impact or very VERY minimal impact on our window to win. Its a moot point. Benning had a 4-8mil cap increase coming in 2020 that came to a dead halt. That cap freeze has still yet to severely impact several teams around the league, its devastation on cap space has yet to fully hit teams like Edmonton, Toronto etc who have superstar players about to get paid big time based on contracts around the league and the cap hasnt grown at all. This shit is going to fuck McDavid for the rest of his career. He is in a win now mode with his current salary and the moment hes due, he is signing for max dollar and term into his decline. Im glad we didnt invest in guys like Tanev and Toffoli, I’d rather Hronek and Kuzmenko. We would have been locked in for nearly 10mil additional before Kuzmenko became an option as well as Hronek. It all works out in the end and complaining about what Benning did while having to rebuild an entire core WITHOUT a 1st overall, or top 3 or multiple picks inside the top 5 like almost every single cup winner the last 15-16 years AND restock the cupboards AND keep asses in the seat the entire time hes trying to replace that core and not having many trade chips to accelerate a rebuild is fucking insane man, those expectations are absolutely unreal AND to not have a single 1st round pick fail not have a single signing go wrong, not have one trade go bad…. Its ludicrous man. OEL was and still is highly serviceable and his defensive numbers are very solid, he wasnt utilized offensively he was used defensively. 
 

Is that not fair of me to say that hindsight is 20/20 and to judge someone largely off of hindsight is unfair and out to lunch. Otherwise why do we have GMs in the first place if you guys all know so much better AFTER the fact? Gillis ACTUALLY did damage while we were contending and it resulted in our window to win closing the moment the twins plateaued. He ended our hopes of a cup for the unforseeable future. No one could say for sure how long it would take us to get back to contending when you draft 6,24,23,5 in your first 3 drafts. Look how long it took NJD, look at CBJ, ARZ, BUF, EDM. It took us 5 drafts and 1 trade to rewrite our future. Its taken Edmonton how many 1st overalls?

[conquestofbaguettes]

On 12/14/2023 at 7:14 PM, 48MPHSlapshot said:

K

 

I'm sure I'll miss some, but...

 

-A 2nd rd pick for Linden Vey

-Signing Eriksson to a massive deal

-Drafting Virtanen

-Drafting Juolevi

-2nd rd pick (that turned into Rasmus Andersson) for Sven Baertschi 

-Kassian + a 5th for Prust

-Clendening for Forsling

-Future 40 goal scorers Jared McCann + a 2nd and a 4th for Gudbranson and a 5th

-Signing Beagle to an expensive contract

-Signing Roussel to an expensive contract

-Signing Ferland to an expensive contract when he already had concussion issues

-Letting Toffoli walk to free agency for Virtanen

-Letting Tanev walk because of his OEL obsession 

-Resigning Green

-Trading the final years of Eriksson, Roussel and Beagle in a year that we didn't make the playoffs, along with the 9th overall pick for OEL and Garland, one of which was bought out and the other of which is underperforming 

-Trading for Dickinson and signing him to an expensive contract 

-Signing Tucker Poolman to an expensive contract

-Chasing Trevor Linden out of the organization 

- Chasing Judd Brackett out of the organization 

-Developmental not developing a single full time NHLer other than Demko under his watch

-Only having one NHL caliber defenseman to show for 7 years of drafting under Benning 

 

I could go on...

 

This comment may be the worst offender in failing to account for context in the entire thread so far.

 

Complete with lowest of low hanging fruit, hindsight 20/20, and facepalm worthy false claims to boot. Could almost hit the entire logical fallacy list with those so-called "cards," tbh.

 

Bravo.

Edited December 16, 2023 by conquestofbaguettes

[48MPHSlapshot]

3 hours ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

 

This comment may be the worst offender in failing to account for context in the entire thread so far.

 

Complete with lowest of low hanging fruit, hindsight 20/20, and facepalm worthy false claims to boot. Could almost hit the entire logical fallacy list with those so-called "cards," tbh.

 

Bravo.

"But muh context!"

 

In every single context imaginable, Benning failed at his job. If he didn't, he would still have a job. Most of CDC gave him every chance imaginable and gave him every benefit of the doubt, and our faith was rewarded with idiocy nearly every time. You can bitch about hindsight all you like, at the end of the day it's the GM's job to ensure that the pro and ameture scouting is where it needs to be. If the job Aquilini wanted him to do was impossible, he shouldn't have taken it. 

 

Don't want people the pick the "low hanging fruit"? Don't leave so much fruit to be picked. 

[LillStrimma]

9 hours ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

While every team obviously had to deal with the flat cap, not all teams were affected equally given the state and place the particular team was at. That's what you fail to realize over and over. And no. It wasn't just cuz of all the big bad Benning.

 

  Context is everything.

 

I’m just glad the Canucks have the GM that actually work and act as a GM.

Allvin(and Rutherforsd) is as I thought a GM should be and the reason why I said on old CDC that Benning acts only as a scout, not as a GM of a multimillion company.

Utica wasn’t handled as it should either.

Bad ethics and morale, bad trades, spending to the cap, act bad against prospects… The list is so long on how bad the old regime were. 

So with hindsight I had the right opinion long ago since now it runs as it should have been. Both regarding the Canucks and Utica/Abby regarding prospects.

I could have written the manual. 

You can try to explain that Bennings bad act as a GM was something completely different. It doesn’t work. 

It’s funny, when Benning was GM his spin doctors only talked about his drafting success and that we had so and so many young prospects compared to Gillis. On and on and on and on… Now you changed the tune to be about the Canucks business strategy forced Benning to use all cap he had. Even so he crippled himself and shot himself in both feets and even both kneecaps. Not a bad strategy huh.
You completely disregard Bennings bad morale and ethics that affects the club from top to bottom.
The GM and organisation should be smooth and running gently irrelevant of strategy.

That means that if the strategy you talk about is right the organisation and dealings should have been run the same way it is now anyway. 

[LillStrimma]

5 hours ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

 

This comment may be the worst offender in failing to account for context in the entire thread so far.

 

Complete with lowest of low hanging fruit, hindsight 20/20, and facepalm worthy false claims to boot. Could almost hit the entire logical fallacy list with those so-called "cards," tbh.

 

Bravo.

As I said in my other answer to you, with hindsight my opinion about Benning, Utica etc could have been the manual for the new organisation.

With hindsight… 

[Elias Pettersson]

8 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

You know what Im going to apologize to you for that reply. You didnt deserve that and you’re quite civil in your replies, so I’m sorry for being snappy.

look dude lets look at this from a very realistic standpoint. 
If Pettersson does not want to be here if we arent winning, do you think anyone wants to be here and take a discount to play in a bottom dwelling rebuilding organization? No. Guys want to win, guys want to play for something, each and every single one of those guys in that league are looking to win a cup, so if they are going to sacrifice their dream, they are going to want to win a cup and guys who have already won a cup will still want to come to the rink and enjoy playing, not get bent over game after game season after season.

Benning made a lot of his “bad” signings PRIOR to the arrival and impact of Hughes, Pettersson, Demko, and Miller. They proved very quickly that we no longer needed to continue rebuilding. No one could foresee those players immediate impact, same with Boeser. So yea in hindsight its a “bad” signing, but thats all because hindsight is 20/20. Those signings have had no impact or very VERY minimal impact on our window to win. Its a moot point. Benning had a 4-8mil cap increase coming in 2020 that came to a dead halt. That cap freeze has still yet to severely impact several teams around the league, its devastation on cap space has yet to fully hit teams like Edmonton, Toronto etc who have superstar players about to get paid big time based on contracts around the league and the cap hasnt grown at all. This shit is going to fuck McDavid for the rest of his career. He is in a win now mode with his current salary and the moment hes due, he is signing for max dollar and term into his decline. Im glad we didnt invest in guys like Tanev and Toffoli, I’d rather Hronek and Kuzmenko. We would have been locked in for nearly 10mil additional before Kuzmenko became an option as well as Hronek. It all works out in the end and complaining about what Benning did while having to rebuild an entire core WITHOUT a 1st overall, or top 3 or multiple picks inside the top 5 like almost every single cup winner the last 15-16 years AND restock the cupboards AND keep asses in the seat the entire time hes trying to replace that core and not having many trade chips to accelerate a rebuild is fucking insane man, those expectations are absolutely unreal AND to not have a single 1st round pick fail not have a single signing go wrong, not have one trade go bad…. Its ludicrous man. OEL was and still is highly serviceable and his defensive numbers are very solid, he wasnt utilized offensively he was used defensively. 
 

Is that not fair of me to say that hindsight is 20/20 and to judge someone largely off of hindsight is unfair and out to lunch. Otherwise why do we have GMs in the first place if you guys all know so much better AFTER the fact? Gillis ACTUALLY did damage while we were contending and it resulted in our window to win closing the moment the twins plateaued. He ended our hopes of a cup for the unforseeable future. No one could say for sure how long it would take us to get back to contending when you draft 6,24,23,5 in your first 3 drafts. Look how long it took NJD, look at CBJ, ARZ, BUF, EDM. It took us 5 drafts and 1 trade to rewrite our future. Its taken Edmonton how many 1st overalls?

 

If Benning was so concerned with the cap and knew that the cap wouldn't be going up, which he most certainly would have known about in the summer of 2021 when we were literally in the middle of a pandemic, then why did he trade 3 players set to become UFA's for $12 million in total cap hit that would have been freed up for the summer of 2022 for another LHD offensive defencemen and for a smallish winger?  And knowing the cap was going to be flat, why sign a smallish winger to a 5x5 contract?

 

When Benning made the OEL deal, the salary cap didn't go up at all from the previous year.  So, he should have just stayed put and done nothing and ridden out those contracts.  Hughes was already a star in the making.  We didn't need another LHD offensive Dman making over $7 million per year.  What we needed was a partner for Hughes.

 

Notice how a real GM like Allvin, his very first thing he did was obtain that partner for Hughes?  Why did it take Allvin to do that and not Benning?  Benning had $12 million coming to him.  He could have easily waited until the offseason to try and sign a top end RHD in the summer of 2022.  Instead, he swung for the fences in the summer of 2021 in order to try and save his job, and it backfired on him spectacularly...

[Elias Pettersson]

On 12/14/2023 at 7:14 PM, 48MPHSlapshot said:

K

 

I'm sure I'll miss some, but...

 

-A 2nd rd pick for Linden Vey

-Signing Eriksson to a massive deal

-Drafting Virtanen

-Drafting Juolevi

-2nd rd pick (that turned into Rasmus Andersson) for Sven Baertschi 

-Kassian + a 5th for Prust

-Clendening for Forsling

-Future 40 goal scorers Jared McCann + a 2nd and a 4th for Gudbranson and a 5th

-Signing Beagle to an expensive contract

-Signing Roussel to an expensive contract

-Signing Ferland to an expensive contract when he already had concussion issues

-Letting Toffoli walk to free agency for Virtanen

-Letting Tanev walk because of his OEL obsession 

-Resigning Green

-Trading the final years of Eriksson, Roussel and Beagle in a year that we didn't make the playoffs, along with the 9th overall pick for OEL and Garland, one of which was bought out and the other of which is underperforming 

-Trading for Dickinson and signing him to an expensive contract 

-Signing Tucker Poolman to an expensive contract

-Chasing Trevor Linden out of the organization 

- Chasing Judd Brackett out of the organization 

-Developmental not developing a single full time NHLer other than Demko under his watch

-Only having one NHL caliber defenseman to show for 7 years of drafting under Benning 

 

I could go on...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fuck, that list makes me want to cry...

[conquestofbaguettes]

13 hours ago, 48MPHSlapshot said:

"But muh context!"

 

In every single context imaginable, Benning failed at his job. If he didn't, he would still have a job. Most of CDC gave him every chance imaginable and gave him every benefit of the doubt, and our faith was rewarded with idiocy nearly every time. You can bitch about hindsight all you like, at the end of the day it's the GM's job to ensure that the pro and ameture scouting is where it needs to be. If the job Aquilini wanted him to do was impossible, he shouldn't have taken it. 

 

Don't want people the pick the "low hanging fruit"? Don't leave so much fruit to be picked. 

 

Benning's core is out there lighting up the league. Oh yeah. Failed at his job so hard Rutherford decided to move forward with the players they inherited as he stated "we have a lot of good players here." They didn't blow it up. They built on it.

 

Bennings. Core.

 

Remember that and remember it well.

 

 

[conquestofbaguettes]

11 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Fuck, that list makes me want to cry...

Why. It's mostly bullshit. Half of it isn't really true and the other half consists of low hanging fruit arguments, hindsight being 20/20, and a plethora of other logical fallacies to boot.

 

Granted, I wouldn't expect the vehement Benning haters to understand how or why that is. For if they did, they wouldn't hold the views they do in the first place.

 

A similar worldview would be like blaming poor people for being poor, or claiming black people in America are prone to crime because so many black people are in prison.  These are obviously extreme examples, but I chose them for a reason.

 

The point is they are things which require a much more indepth look to really make sense of and understand. No different here.

 

But... expecting uneducated, or rather mal-educted folks to understand the context of the real world, the affect of things like social structures, economics, legislation, etc. etc.etc. and other equivalent guiding forces (largely outside of ones control) is clearly a tall order for some.

[Dizzle]

14 hours ago, 48MPHSlapshot said:

"But muh context!"

 

In every single context imaginable, Benning failed at his job. If he didn't, he would still have a job. Most of CDC gave him every chance imaginable and gave him every benefit of the doubt, and our faith was rewarded with idiocy nearly every time. You can bitch about hindsight all you like, at the end of the day it's the GM's job to ensure that the pro and ameture scouting is where it needs to be. If the job Aquilini wanted him to do was impossible, he shouldn't have taken it. 

 

Don't want people the pick the "low hanging fruit"? Don't leave so much fruit to be picked. 

I gave Benning every ounce of trust/faith/grace I had up until he was fired. 
 

In hindsight, he really just didn’t do a good job in a lot of areas. This management team should make it pretty easy to see that as the difference is night and day. 

[Elias Pettersson]

2 hours ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

Why. It's mostly bullshit. Half of it isn't really true and the other half consists of low hanging fruit arguments, hindsight being 20/20, and a plethora of other logical fallacies to boot.

 

Granted, I wouldn't expect the vehement Benning haters to understand how or why that is. For if they did, they wouldn't hold the views they do in the first place.

 

A similar worldview would be like blaming poor people for being poor, or claiming black people in America are prone to crime because so many black people are in prison.  These are obviously extreme examples, but I chose them for a reason.

 

The point is they are things which require a much more indepth look to really make sense of and understand. No different here.

 

But... expecting uneducated, or rather mal-educted folks to understand the context of the real world, the affect of things like social structures, economics, legislation, etc. etc.etc. and other equivalent guiding forces (largely outside of ones control) is clearly a tall order for some.

Can you provide examples of where 50% of that list is bullshit and isn’t true?

[Elias Pettersson]

3 hours ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

 

Benning's core is out there lighting up the league. Oh yeah. Failed at his job so hard Rutherford decided to move forward with the players they inherited as he stated "we have a lot of good players here." They didn't blow it up. They built on it.

 

Bennings. Core.

 

Remember that and remember it well.

 

 

So basically the only requirement of a GM is to build a core group through mostly top 10 picks?  That’s it? Nothing else?  There isn’t anything else Benning had to do?

 

So why is it that the team was one of the worst in the league when Benning got fired?  He had this same core did he not?  Why wasn’t the team playing the way they are today with the same core?  Can you explain that? 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Elias Pettersson

[The Duke]

4 hours ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

 

Benning's core is out there lighting up the league. Oh yeah. Failed at his job so hard Rutherford decided to move forward with the players they inherited as he stated "we have a lot of good players here." They didn't blow it up. They built on it.

 

Bennings. Core.

 

Remember that and remember it well.

 

If Benning’s mistakes had half the effect on the team’s fortunes that people claim there’s no way we would be in this position this year. 
 

IMO had he been let go, along with Green, after the disastrous Canadian division season you could easily argue he had a positive outcome on the team and left about as good a situation as fired GMs do.  

The OEL/Garland trade makes it a tougher sell, which is ironic since they’re both playing very good hockey this season.  
 

Not to say Allvin/JR haven’t been a huge upgrade.  But for all their good moves, it’s funny how a good coach and the maturation of Benning’s core are the main drivers of this success. Especially with Boeser finally reaching his potential this year.

[SV.]

This thread is still going

[Elias Pettersson]

1 hour ago, The Duke said:

If Benning’s mistakes had half the effect on the team’s fortunes that people claim there’s no way we would be in this position this year. 
 

IMO had he been let go, along with Green, after the disastrous Canadian division season you could easily argue he had a positive outcome on the team and left about as good a situation as fired GMs do.  

The OEL/Garland trade makes it a tougher sell, which is ironic since they’re both playing very good hockey this season.  
 

Not to say Allvin/JR haven’t been a huge upgrade.  But for all their good moves, it’s funny how a good coach and the maturation of Benning’s core are the main drivers of this success. Especially with Boeser finally reaching his potential this year.

13 new players on the team since Allvin was hired, over a 50% turnover in just 2 years. Plus they went out and hired the coach they wanted. Pretty sure those 13 players are just as much responsible for the success of this team now as the “core” group that Benning brought in. You think Benning would have been competent enough to bring in Rick Tocchet who has the relationship with JR and Rutherford plus those 13 players who are all playing Rick Tocchet hockey and are all playing within a “system”?  A system that was non existent when Benning was around. 
 

A GM’s job isn’t just about drafting a bunch of players. As you can see from what JR has accomplished in just over two years, it’s a lot more than that. 
 

The people in this thread who claim that this is Benning’s team have no clue what it means to actually build a team. If all it took to build a team was drafting in the top 10 for a few years and drafting some core players, then teams like Buffalo and Edmonton would have won 3-4 cups by now. Why can’t these teams win a cup if all it takes is drafting some top end talent?

[conquestofbaguettes]

2 hours ago, The Duke said:

If Benning’s mistakes had half the effect on the team’s fortunes that people claim there’s no way we would be in this position this year. 
 

IMO had he been let go, along with Green, after the disastrous Canadian division season you could easily argue he had a positive outcome on the team and left about as good a situation as fired GMs do.  

The OEL/Garland trade makes it a tougher sell, which is ironic since they’re both playing very good hockey this season.  
 

Not to say Allvin/JR haven’t been a huge upgrade.  But for all their good moves, it’s funny how a good coach and the maturation of Benning’s core are the main drivers of this success. Especially with Boeser finally reaching his potential this year.

 

Succinctly put.

 

 

[conquestofbaguettes]

2 hours ago, SV. said:

This thread is still going

Of course it's still going lol. It's one of, if not the most, polarizing periods in Canucks history. 

[Westcoasting]

55 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

13 new players on the team since Allvin was hired, over a 50% turnover in just 2 years. Plus they went out and hired the coach they wanted. Pretty sure those 13 players are just as much responsible for the success of this team now as the “core” group that Benning brought in. You think Benning would have been competent enough to bring in Rick Tocchet who has the relationship with JR and Rutherford plus those 13 players who are all playing Rick Tocchet hockey and are all playing within a “system”?  A system that was non existent when Benning was around. 
 

A GM’s job isn’t just about drafting a bunch of players. As you can see from what JR has accomplished in just over two years, it’s a lot more than that. 
 

The people in this thread who claim that this is Benning’s team have no clue what it means to actually build a team. If all it took to build a team was drafting in the top 10 for a few years and drafting some core players, then teams like Buffalo and Edmonton would have won 3-4 cups by now. Why can’t these teams win a cup if all it takes is drafting some top end talent?

I thought it was pretty telling when Smyl was talking  after the GM change about how the team needs to make the playoffs every year… or close to every year. He talked about the 80’s and how we never want that to happen …but here it is happening. Benning sure fleeced the owner as he never had anything remotely close to positive happening. Benning also convinced the owner that Linden was the issue as he had fit all say on everything… damn!

[conquestofbaguettes]

3 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

So basically the only requirement of a GM is to build a core group through mostly top 10 picks?  That’s it?

 

Of course not.  But that's also not all he did.

 

3 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

why is it that the team was one of the worst in the league when Benning got fired?

 

Lots of reasons, and not all have to the do with "the build."

 

As for fired, all GMs have a shelf life. Benning happened to last 8 years. But by that we can reasonably deduce they were doing something ownership liked to last that long. But oh well.  Meet the new Jim. Same as the old Jim. And by that I mean following the same process of building.

 

3 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

He had this same core did he not?

Why wasn’t the team playing the way they are today with the same core?  Can you explain that?

It's interesting how that works isn't it. Same core but vastly different results.

 

Players develop over time, injuries happen, even pandemic hell can happen apparently, players deal with family issues, all sorts of things. Of course this new all-star coaching staff has helped steer the ship in a good direction, and the supplemental players (and new core piece or two) has helped them succeed. Nevertheless, it's about process. Step by step, brick by brick as Allvin would say.

 

In my opinion, this core vastly underperformed in years previous due to a plethora of factors, some of which I listed above. So it looks like it was all some flick of a switch going from horrible to amazing all due to new management and their work. And I really like this management group and commend them for their work. But falsely attributing all the great to them is no different than attributing all the bad to the previous group before them. There's simply more to it than that.  On paper it's certainly easy to point to, but there's more to it.

[conquestofbaguettes]

1 hour ago, Elias Pettersson said:

A system that was non existent when Benning was around. 

I'm sure Tocchet would vehemently disagree with that statement. He even went to say Green is a good coach and didn't deserve to be fired. Of course Greener is one of his best friends, so it's not exactly an unbiased statement but are you calling Tocchet an idiot?

 

And FYI Green is coaching with Lindy Ruff in New Jersey right now. Certainly appears others in the NHL don't agree with your "no system" assessment of his work.

 

1 hour ago, Elias Pettersson said:

A GM’s job isn’t just about drafting a bunch of players. As you can see from what JR has accomplished in just over two years, it’s a lot more than that. 

Well no shit it's not just about that. Who said it was.  Only pointing out Bennings core is in fact still here. Rutherford didn't tear down as many thought was neccessary as he stated "we have a lot of good players here." Who do you suppose got all those players he's talking about.

 

JR accomplished more? In what regard? Benning had to build the whole organization from the bottom up. Rutherford gets to swoop in and build on all the work that was done before him.... and then apparently get all the credit.   Sounds familiar. Sounds like Mike Gillis after all the heavy lifting was done by Brian Burke and Dave Nonis.

 

This is not to discredit the good work of the new regime by any means but only to say we stand on the shoulders of giants.

 

1 hour ago, Elias Pettersson said:

The people in this thread who claim that this is Benning’s team have no clue what it means to actually build a team.

 

Woof.

 

See point above.

 

1 hour ago, Elias Pettersson said:

If all it took to build a team was drafting in the top 10 for a few years and drafting some core players, then teams like Buffalo and Edmonton would have won 3-4 cups by now. Why can’t these teams win a cup if all it takes is drafting some top end talent?

 

Who ever said it did. That's certainly how team tank makes it seem but there are no guarantees even if they do rebuild "properly." Rutherford said the same thing the other day.

 

The most important part of any rebuild is finding new star core players to build around. And Benning did that. Added supplemental pieces around them, some worked. Some didn't. But that's the process.  Rutherford and Allvin are continuing that process. It's just further down the line where all the work is finally coming to fruition and paying off where Rutherford et al. get the fun part of riding the wave, having avoided than the inevitable hurricane unlike the previous regime.  What can ya do. Rebuilds suck.

Edited December 17, 2023 by conquestofbaguettes

[Elias Pettersson]

15 minutes ago, conquestofbaguettes said:

 

Of course not.  But that's also not all he did.

 

 

Lots of reasons, and not all have to the do with "the build."

 

As for fired, all GMs have a shelf life. Benning happened to last 8 years. But by that we can reasonably deduce they were doing something ownership liked to last that long. But oh well.  Meet the new Jim. Same as the old Jim. And by that I mean following the same process of building.

 

It's interesting how that works isn't it. Same core but vastly different results.

 

Players develop over time, injuries happen, even pandemic hell can happen apparently, players deal with family issues, all sorts of things. Of course this new all-star coaching staff has helped steer the ship in a good direction, and the supplemental players (and new core piece or two) has helped them succeed. Nevertheless, it's about process. Step by step, brick by brick as Allvin would say.

 

In my opinion, this core vastly underperformed in years previous due to a plethora of factors, some of which I listed above. So it looks like it was all some flick of a switch going from horrible to amazing all due to new management and their work. And I really like this management group and commend them for their work. But falsely attributing all the great to them is no different than attributing all the bad to the previous group before them. There's simply more to it than that.  On paper it's certainly easy to point to, but there's more to it.

 

It wasn’t just a “flick of a switch” that this core suddenly got better and starting performing the way they should.  It was by design.  You bring in Rick Tocchet and Adam Foote and Sergei Gonchar, all Stanley Cup champions, to run the team and implement a “system”.  Something that was foreign language to Benning and company.  Then you surround the core talent with as many complementary players as possible to allow them to play to their full potential.

 

Kuzmenko, Mikheyev, Joshua, Blueger, Laffery, Suter, Zadorov, Cole, Hronek, Soucy, DeSmith.  These complemetary players have allowed our core players to elevate their game to a new level.  Plus the coaching has even been more important.  I’m sorry, but teams don’t just “flick a switch” and miraculously go from one of the worst teams in the league to one of the best in two years because the core players decided to play better.

 

Rewind to when Benning was around and who did he bring in to help these core players?  Willie Desjardins and Travis Green?  Linden Vey?  Sven Baertschi?  Loui Eriksson?  Erik Gudbranson?  Brandon Prust? Jay Beagle?  Zack Kassian?  Adam Clendening?  Jason Dickinson?  No wonder our core players were playing so horrible before JR and Tocchet arrived.  

 

Expecting our core players to elevate their game and play their best when they had all of these plugs surrounding them is the equivalent to asking Tiger Woods to win a golf tournament without using any golf clubs…

[conquestofbaguettes]

5 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

 

It wasn’t just a “flick of a switch” that this core suddenly got better and starting performing the way they should.  It was by design.  You bring in Rick Tocchet and Adam Foote and Sergei Gonchar, all Stanley Cup champions, to run the team and implement a “system”.  Something that was foreign language to Benning and company.  Then you surround the core talent with as many complementary players as possible to allow them to play to their full potential.

 

Kuzmenko, Mikheyev, Joshua, Blueger, Laffery, Suter, Zadorov, Cole, Hronek, Soucy, DeSmith.  These complemetary players have allowed our core players to elevate their game to a new level.  Plus the coaching has even been more important.  I’m sorry, but teams don’t just “flick a switch” and miraculously go from one of the worst teams in the league to one of the best in two years because the core players decided to play better.

 

Rewind to when Benning was around and who did he bring in to help these core players?  Willie Desjardins and Travis Green?  Linden Vey?  Sven Baertschi?  Loui Eriksson?  Erik Gudbranson?  Brandon Prust? Jay Beagle?  Zack Kassian?  Adam Clendening?  Jason Dickinson?  No wonder our core players were playing so horrible before JR and Tocchet arrived.  

 

Expecting our core players to elevate their game and play their best when they had all of these plugs surrounding them is the equivalent to asking Tiger Woods to win a golf tournament without using any golf clubs…

 

Two things:

 

You're comparing apples to oranges. Different phases of the rebulld, team and players development and not comparable in that way. Like at all.

 

Secondly,  there is no just "deciding" to play better to explain their shortcomings years previous compared to now.  There are many reasons as why some players were unable to thrive previously but are thriving now and no it doesn't all have to do with management and coaches. BROCK BOESER AND HIS DYING FATHER. DEMKO AND HIS INJURY. PETTERSON INJURY etc. etc etc.  Hell even OEL with his broken foot last year and now he's playing well in Florida now that he's healed. Shocker.

 

Of course management and coaching has helped the players. But good physical health, mental health, not to mention how players develop over time is absolutely a giant part of it. Eg. 21 year old vs 25 year old player are at different stages of development and grow and learn their game over time.