D take longer to develop!
Injuries! Who could have known!
Fewer picks means you can draft a better player!
Cap space doesn't matter!
Signings are hard! Trades too!
But Gillis!
Is it Benning's fault that Gillis left him the most injury prone top pairing in the league?
To boot, one of them with an NTC (Edler) and the other with such an injury history that you could never get fair value for him on the trade market.
Basically being stuck with them.
While the rest of the core was either non-existent (zero NHL level goalies in spite of what some Eddie Lack fanboys might say) or headed for a steep decline (Sedins, Burrows, Higgins, basically all the forwards that previously had any sort of value).
It's pretty incredible that we're here today with an exciting group of extremely talented extremely young and extremely high character guys who are poised to lead the next iteration of the Vancouver Canucks to glory.
Whether he stays or not we will be watching the Jim Benning Canucks for the next 10-15+ years because he built this new core with his vision of how the team should play. With speed, with skill, with smarts. That's the kind of hockey I enjoyed paying to see all year and will continue to enjoy paying to see in the future.