2020 Roster and Fantasy GM Thread II

[UK Canuck]

This is hilarious.

We've reached the point where the argument is now that we should take all of Jim Benning's GM responsibilities away from him because he's incompetent at them, but we should still keep him as GM because he's a drafting guru ... who pushed to draft Olli Juolevi and Cody Glass ahead of Matthew Tkachuk and Elias Pettersson with consecutive top-5 picks.

I am but a humble peasant, but I've always generally thought that drafting (and particularly the lead up to draft) is the thing the GM has least to do with, its all about the amateur scouts who actually go out there and bring all the information and opinion to the table and its a massive collaborative effort, to credit Benning(or any GM) for their draft record seems off the mark to me, there's also a lot less analytics available at the junior level, which is why its probably such a crap shoot once you get beyond pick 7 or so

 

[Hoghandler]

'I believe' doesn't count for much. Extremely credibly media reports are 4 years as of his hiring, which would make sense given that Gilman was fired 4.5 years previous and someone had to be doing the contract work given that Jim Benning is too stupid to be executed by the state of Texas.

Even if we take your 'notion' of 18 months, that's $19 million in albatross contracts signed during that time.



He and Linden hired a new head scout who did a good job and saved his ass, then forced out that new head scout and gave Ron Delorme - the guy primarily responsible for the 20 years of poor drafting you're referring to - an increased role.

And if Benning had had his way we'd have taken Juolevi and Glass with consecutive top-5 picks. The guy can't scout his way out of a paper bag, and Boston was the worst-drafting team in the NHL when he was running the show there.



If your GM shouldn't be involved in contract negotiations or trade negotiations, why the hell should he be an NHL GM?

Your argument seems to be that we should have a completely incompetent buffoon as GM running all aspects of the hockey side of the organization because he's good at the one tiny little thing of setting parameters for the entry draft. And, of course, a mountain of evidence exists that he isn't even good at that.

You’re interpretations continue to be... uh, let’s just say, not great.

I’m going off what Chris Gear said when he was interviewed. He wasn’t handling contract negotiations when he was hired. He was moved into that role recently. Initially, he handled the legal components of contracts, not the dollars and terms.

Benning re-built the scouting structure, to great success. Twisting and contorting that into a negative is absurd. Look for Todd Harvey to be the next guy in line for the director of amateur scouting role, not Ron Delorme.

My argument is Benning ‘should run every aspect of the hockey side of the organization’? Are you paying attention at all to what I’ve said? I have literally said word for word the exact opposite of that...

 

[Peter10]

You’re interpretations continue to be... uh, let’s just say, not great.

I’m going off what Chris Gear said when he was interviewed. He wasn’t handling contract negotiations when he was hired. He was moved into that role recently. Initially, he handled the legal components of contracts, not the dollars and terms.

Benning re-built the scouting structure, to great success. Twisting and contorting that into a negative is absurd. Look for Todd Harvey to be the next guy in line for the director of amateur scouting role, not Ron Delorme.

My argument is Benning ‘should run every aspect of the hockey side of the organization’? Are you paying attention at all to what I’ve said? I have literally said word for word the exact opposite of that...

Can you point out what he did to rebuilt the scouting structure besides promoting Brackett? Most of the scout changes came after the 2018 draft, I find it diffcult to call the 2019 draft a great success just yet.

 

[Hoghandler]

"hey Jim, this is Fred(or Brian or whatever name you want) he's here to make all the important decisions outside of drafting because you're a bumbling idiot with trades, contracts etc, you can still keep your GM title but you won't actually be doing anything other than watching draft film all year, you wont be allowed near a company phone line and we've banned you from talking to other GM's, ok?"

I'm sure that'll do down well

You mean like when Benning took the job, underneath then president Trevor Linden? Just a heads up, reports are it was Linden manning the phones in trade negotiations.

So basically things would be exactly as they were, except instead of an empty suit holding the top position in the organization, this time it would go to someone competent.

Imagine that.

 

[Hoghandler]

Can you point out what he did to rebuilt the scouting structure besides promoting Brackett? Most of the scout changes came after the 2018 draft, I find it diffcult to call the 2019 draft a great success just yet.

He fired the head of amateur scouting and replaced him with a young guy way down the pecking order.

 

[MS]

You’re interpretations continue to be... uh, let’s just say, not great.

I’m going off what Chris Gear said when he was interviewed. He wasn’t handling contract negotiations when he was hired. He was moved into that role recently. Initially, he handled the legal components of contracts, not the dollars and terms.

Provide a source. Credible sources say the opposite.

And again, even if correct, that means that nearly $20 million of garbage contracts have been signed by Gear. Our 2019 offseason and the Myers/Ferland/Benn signings say pretty clearly that Gear is not preventing Benning from making bad decisions in free agency.

Benning re-built the scouting structure, to great success. Twisting and contorting that into a negative is absurd. Look for Todd Harvey to be the next guy in line for the director of amateur scouting role, not Ron Delorme.

Benning didn't rebuild anything. The 2012-2014 Eric Crawford drafts were excellent and the drafting had already been fixed, before Crawford was fired for reasons that had nothing to do with job performance.

Literally everything positive that's happened in our drafting post-2015 is directly tied to Judd Brackett, the guy they forced out. And again, without Linden stepping in on the Pettersson pick, our drafting under Benning would be pretty garbage, even with Brackett's USHL hits.

Benning has been quoted as saying Delorme will have a bigger influence. That is bad.

My argument is Benning ‘should run every aspect of the hockey side of the organization’? Are you paying attention at all to what I’ve said? I have literally said word for word the exact opposite of that...

I phrased that poorly. Your argument is that we should have someone in the role which is supposed to oversee all aspects of the hockey side of the organization, but take all his responsibilities away from him and for some reason have a GM who is a glorified amateur scout but isn't even good at amateur scouting.

 

[MS]

Just a heads up, reports are it was Linden manning the phones in trade negotiations.

Benning is literally on video manning the Kesler trade negotiations in 2014 and the Lucic trade negotiations in 2015, and details of him manning the Gudbranson trade negotiations in 2016 have been widely reported. The breakdown of the Bieksa-SJ trade in 2015 was also between Wilson and Benning, not Wilson and Linden.

Presumably Benning/Weisbrod were also manning the negotiations for Weisbrod's pets from Calgary in Granlund and Baertschi, too.

If Linden was manning the phones in any trade negotiations ... those negotiations don't seem to have come to anything because pretty much every trade that the team made 2014-2017 can be tied directly to Benning.

 

[m9]

I have no idea who does the contract negotiations, but I'm also not sure how important the person who does the actual negotiations is - particularly for UFAs. The mistakes the team have made in that regard are due to poor pro scouting and the team's laser-focus on specific players causing them to pay the highest possible price to secure them. I don't think it's a contract negotiations issue.

 

[timw33]

I have no idea who does the contract negotiations, but I'm also not sure how important the person who does the actual negotiations is - particularly for UFAs. The mistakes the team have made in that regard are due to poor pro scouting and the team's laser-focus on specific players causing them to pay the highest possible price to secure them. I don't think it's a contract negotiations issue.

It's the same thing with personnel decisions, didn't they only give 1 coach (Green) a proper in person interview?

 

[MS]

I have no idea who does the contract negotiations, but I'm also not sure how important the person who does the actual negotiations is - particularly for UFAs. The mistakes the team have made in that regard are due to poor pro scouting and the team's laser-focus on specific players causing them to pay the highest possible price to secure them. I don't think it's a contract negotiations issue.

No doubt.

We had the best contracts guy in the league in Lawrence Gilman doing the Sbisa deal and that didn't stop it from happening. The contracts guys are doing what they get instructed to do from above.

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

I have no idea who does the contract negotiations, but I'm also not sure how important the person who does the actual negotiations is - particularly for UFAs. The mistakes the team have made in that regard are due to poor pro scouting and the team's laser-focus on specific players causing them to pay the highest possible price to secure them. I don't think it's a contract negotiations issue.

This is absolutley correct. Jim Benning does not view players as assets to value. There are only players he wants, and whether or not he can pay the cost to get them, and players he wants to get rid of, and what he can get for them at the moment he wants to dump them.

 

[sting101]

I have no idea who does the contract negotiations, but I'm also not sure how important the person who does the actual negotiations is - particularly for UFAs. The mistakes the team have made in that regard are due to poor pro scouting and the team's laser-focus on specific players causing them to pay the highest possible price to secure them. I don't think it's a contract negotiations issue.

Good post.

It's pretty simple in UFA negotiations once the player has us on their radar as far as a place they will play. Put the best deal on the table or he goes somewhere else.

It's more like a live auction than a negotiation where a player already with the team has to divorce himself from his current life, teammates/friends and city. Weighting the market vs his desire to stay in his current situation. These are actual contract negotiations.

As you mentioned it's the internal decisions to acquire specific players that has put them over a barrel.

As another poster mentioned we were incredibly fortunate to get and have Petey and Hughes impact our lineup so quickly also which makes a lot of the whining over wasting contending with their ETCs a curious narrative. Just 2 yrs ago we had very little pieces and were nowhere near a playoff ready contender. How fortunate have we become that we can actually look at our roster and see ways to spend appropriately to contend vs continuing the search for top level talent that puts us in the conversation.

Would we have traded for Miller and Toffoli and signed Ferland and Myers (20 million) if they were still looking for a 1C and and elite puck moving defenseman to put us in the conversation? I doubt it and you could also contend that Tanev and Markstrom would have been trade bait rather than keeping them to try and win.

 

[tradervik]

All threads are the management thread.

 

[Cogburn]

Eriksson and Demko to Detroit for San Jose's third. Solves a lot of issues for us, and an early 3rd to boot.

Proposed by a Red Wings fan and self described homer too.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

Eriksson and Demko to Detroit for San Jose's third. Solves a lot of issues for us, and an early 3rd to boot.

Proposed by a Red Wings fan and self described homer too.

That's absolutely a great deal for us, I'd take it and run.
Really doubt Yzerman will do us such a huge favor AND giving us a decent pick back. If 1 year of Marleau is worth a 1st round pick, 2 years of Eriksson doesn't get us a 3rd back, even if we throw in Demko.

 

[Cogburn]

That's absolutely a great deal for us, I'd take it and run.
Really doubt Yzerman will do us such a huge favor AND giving us a decent pick back. If 1 year of Marleau is worth a 1st round pick, 2 years of Eriksson doesn't get us a 3rd back, even if we throw in Demko.

If its for real, I don't look back either.

But Marleau was due almost as much over the one year as Eriksson is over two, and we don't "need" to move Eriksson to simply continue, like Toronto did. We have other options...so I don't think we're paying as much as the Leafs did.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

If its for real, I don't look back either.

But Marleau was due almost as much over the one year as Eriksson is over two, and we don't "need" to move Eriksson to simply continue, like Toronto did. We have other options...so I don't think we're paying as much as the Leafs did.

With a flat cap the next couple years, lots of teams will be trying to unload hit cap hit contracts. The supply of teams that can take those on is low, while the demand is high. That should drive price up.
Also our "need" depends on our goal for the next couple seasons. If we are tanking then sure, we can ride it out. If we are trying to compete, carrying Eriksson's contract is definitely not an option. With Benning and Aquilini, you know which path they are likely to take.

 

[Bleach Clean]

No, his impact on our scouting isn’t unknown. Who do you think revamped the scouting staff, fired the director of amateur scouting and hired a young, progressive upstart in Judd Brackett? Let’s not forget, Benning was roundly criticized in this market for replacing Crawford with Brackett.

And if you don’t already see the tremendous value Benning’s Rolodex/connections are for the organization from the time him and his family spent on the scouting circuit, I’m not going to be able to convince you otherwise. That network is essentially priceless.

Benning was billed as a guy that could come in and turn this franchises draft fortunes around. Well, 6 years later, we can say unequivocally, he did just that.

I do not agree that pursuing moves to open up cap flexibility is a poor idea. Though I do agree the costs could be prohibitive.

The cost to move bad contracts is why it's a bad idea. You are paying another team to be rid of a problem. That's not good.

Benning himself did not turn draft fortunes around. Brackett's direct impact did so. Benning's indirect impact did so, but his direct impact was very limited.

The rolodex comment is pure gold. Thank you for that, made me smile. Certainly paid off with the Juolevi pick...

Benning has ridden coattails to stay employed. He's taken credit for the work of his Scouting Director, whom he has ousted from his position. His pro scouting has been abhorrent. What are the chances that this is a scouting savant in hiding?

Your defense of him is encapsulated by hiring an SD and having connections. Bravo.

Signing bad contracts is the poor practice.

I don't believe trading future assets to unload bad contracts should automatically be dismissed as poor practice, it depends on the situation and the return. I don't have faith in the management group effectively navigating such a move, but dismissing the premise completely doesn't make sense to me.

The premise itself is built upon trading a negative asset by pillaging from positive assets. What situation or return, aside from being rid of the negative asset itself, makes this a net positive transaction?

If you say it's to allow for the signing of a valuable asset, that is a separate transaction. It doesn't make the negative transaction positive. This is like saying everything is square because Pearson produces as much as McCann. It's a false justification of two distinct trades. (It's also inaccurate when considering contracts and age)

 

[Catamarca Livin]

Provide a source. Credible sources say the opposite.

And again, even if correct, that means that nearly $20 million of garbage contracts have been signed by Gear. Our 2019 offseason and the Myers/Ferland/Benn signings say pretty clearly that Gear is not preventing Benning from making bad decisions in free agency.



Benning didn't rebuild anything. The 2012-2014 Eric Crawford drafts were excellent and the drafting had already been fixed, before Crawford was fired for reasons that had nothing to do with job performance.

Literally everything positive that's happened in our drafting post-2015 is directly tied to Judd Brackett, the guy they forced out. And again, without Linden stepping in on the Pettersson pick, our drafting under Benning would be pretty garbage, even with Brackett's USHL hits.

Benning has been quoted as saying Delorme will have a bigger influence. That is bad.



I phrased that poorly. Your argument is that we should have someone in the role which is supposed to oversee all aspects of the hockey side of the organization, but take all his responsibilities away from him and for some reason have a GM who is a glorified amateur scout but isn't even good at amateur scouting.

2012, 2013 drafts produced exactly 1 non waiver level NHL player. Bo Horvat pick required a major trade to acquire. No original Canuck pick turned into a solid nhl player. Hunter S. and Gaunce are poor 1st round picks. Not sure how that is excellent. Ben Hutton looked promising but then failed. 2014 draft is mixed on who was responsible for it as Benning was here, so hard to know who was responsible.

 

[Cogburn]

With a flat cap the next couple years, lots of teams will be trying to unload hit cap hit contracts. The supply of teams that can take those on is low, while the demand is high. That should drive price up.
Also our "need" depends on our goal for the next couple seasons. If we are tanking then sure, we can ride it out. If we are trying to compete, carrying Eriksson's contract is definitely not an option. With Benning and Aquilini, you know which path they are likely to take.

Which is what makes it such a noteworthy offer. Hell, I wouldn't have been so one sided with an offer and I am definitely a homer.

Before paying a premium to dump Eriksson, we can either pay a little (possibly even get a low pick back) for Baertschi and/or Sutter. I mean, even buried, Baertschi+Sutter are worth more then Eriksson. Just an alternative if someone keeps pulling the "Marleau cost the Leafs a first" card over and over and over and doesn't listen to reason. As an absolute last case scenario, we can let one or two of our UFAs walk and still have most of a functional team (at least not a tank-worthy team).

 

[MS]

2012, 2013 drafts produced exactly 1 non waiver level NHL player. Bo Horvat pick required a major trade to acquire. No original Canuck pick turned into a solid nhl player. Hunter S. and Gaunce are poor 1st round picks. Not sure how that is excellent. Ben Hutton looked promising but then failed. 2014 draft is mixed on who was responsible for it as Benning was here, so hard to know who was responsible.

Horvat was a home run. That a trade was involved means nothing about the actual scouting in play.

Hutton was also a home run and not a 'waiver calibre player'. The fact that the team bungled his contract status and then didn't qualify him because they overpaid him previously, again, has no real reflection on the quality of the scouting. 2012 was one of the worst drafts ever and the team did very well out of that.

Gaunce turned out better than 15 of the next 17 players taken after him.

Can you honestly look at the 2012-2014 drafts vs. the 2015-2017 drafts and say you see a major difference there? The only difference is that the team has more high picks.

 

[Peter10]

... you could also contend that Tanev and Markstrom would have been trade bait rather than keeping them to try and win.

Now they might just leave for nothing in return because the team cannot afford to sign.

 

[Bleach Clean]

Your argument seems to be that we should have a completely incompetent buffoon as GM running all aspects of the hockey side of the organization because he's good at the one tiny little thing of setting parameters for the entry draft. And, of course, a mountain of evidence exists that he isn't even good at that.

Benning followed his own parameters when drafting Juolevi, preferring Glass, and potentially drafting Virtanen.

Doesn't this prove that parameter setting doesn't necessitate a specific selection? This is the smoking gun. With the same parameters, the scouting savant failed. With the same parameters, the scouting director succeeded. So what was Benning's impact, really?

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Benning is literally on video manning the Kesler trade negotiations in 2014 and the Lucic trade negotiations in 2015, and details of him manning the Gudbranson trade negotiations in 2016 have been widely reported. The breakdown of the Bieksa-SJ trade in 2015 was also between Wilson and Benning, not Wilson and Linden.

Presumably Benning/Weisbrod were also manning the negotiations for Weisbrod's pets from Calgary in Granlund and Baertschi, too.

If Linden was manning the phones in any trade negotiations ... those negotiations don't seem to have come to anything because pretty much every trade that the team made 2014-2017 can be tied directly to Benning.

Not according to Jason Botchford..Essentially, its your word against his.

 

[m9]

The premise itself is built upon trading a negative asset by pillaging from positive assets. What situation or return, aside from being rid of the negative asset itself, makes this a net positive transaction?

If you say it's to allow for the signing of a valuable asset, that is a separate transaction. It doesn't make the negative transaction positive. This is like saying everything is square because Pearson produces as much as McCann. It's a false justification of two distinct trades. (It's also inaccurate when considering contracts and age)

What you are accusing me of framing is exactly what I think you're doing - combining transactions that are separate. I never said trading those assets makes "everything square" or absolves the previous mistakes and I don't believe that to be true. Those past transactions are already done and can be judged separately.

What I am saying is that it would be possible for a trade moving a negative asset to be successful.

Using the most extreme example, trading negative asset Eriksson and future asset of a 6th round pick for a 7th round pick would be a home run. Conversely, trading Podkolzin and Jamie Benn for a 7th round pick to dump Benn's final year would be awful.

Obviously all potential deals would fall in between those. For example, in my opinion trading Virtanen, Eriksson and Sutter for nothing and then using that 13 million to sign other players would be great. I don't need to factor in that Virtanen was a bad pick, Sutter was a bad trade or Eriksson was a bad signing. I just think it's a good move for the current team. It's important to remember all those bad things when discussing the GM in general but that's a separate issue.