Canucks Fans Can't Make Up Their Minds. (A Little Perspective)

[CherryToke]

Usually what happens when your team wins back to back President's trophies. Again, my point still stands. This team would be much better off if not for Benning's stupidity.

and when you miss on every draft pick. But lets blame that on Benning too.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

The Canucks are probably 5 years away from turning into a team that improves every year. The damage Benning has done has caused much more damage than his defenders realize.

Totally agree about this team being unlikeable as well. Aside from a few guys of course.

I think Aquaman has done more damage than Benning. But I'm kinda glad Benning is trying to keep the team competitive, rather than the guy picking up all the pieces. God help us all if Weisbrod is somehow the next GM.

 

[y2kcanucks]

and when you miss on every draft pick. But lets blame that on Benning too.

Benning has had control of the team for the past 2 years and has done nothing but make it worse, so yeah. But you're welcome to ignore that fact.

 

[The Drop]

and when you miss on every draft pick. But lets blame that on Benning too.

Well.. Virtanen being picked before Nylander looks like a miss.

Juolevi over Tkachuk remains to be seen.

 

[The Stig]

Benning has had control of the team for the past 2 years and has done nothing but make it worse, so yeah. But you're welcome to ignore that fact.

Boeser, Demko, Sven all seem to be good

 

[y2kcanucks]

Boeser, Demko, Sven all seem to be good

Seem to be good. Boeser and Demko have proven nothing at the pro level yet. Sure they're tracking well, but we'll see if that will translate to the NHL level. There are some concerns about Boeser's skating.

Baertschi has 30 points in 72 games in a Canucks uniform. Let's see him actually score more than 40 points in a season before we give too much credit for him.

Funny though, you could only name 3 players, and had to make a stretch at that. Doesn't erase all the bad Benning has done. Such as:

1) Poor return on the Kesler trade (targeted the wrong pieces in the package)
2) Left better prospects on the board when he drafted Virtanen at 6
3) Traded Jason Garrison for a 2nd round pick, and then traded that 2nd round pick for Linden Vey
4) Signed Ryan Miller to that awful $6M contract
5) Traded a 3rd round pick for Andrey Pedan
6) Traded Gustav Forsling for Adam Clendening (somehow not knowing that he couldn't skate)
7) Re-signed Luca Sbisa to that awful contract.
8) Re-signed Derek Dorsett to that awful contract.
9) Traded Eddie Lack (who outplayed Ryan Miller) for the worst return of any non-UFA goalie that was dealt at that draft, after announcing he only wanted a 2nd round pick publicly.
10) Paid Montreal to take Zack Kassian, while taking on Montreal's cap dump (Prust)
11) Re-signed Yannick Weber
12) Signed Matthew Bartkowski
13) Paid a premium to help Pittsburgh out of their cap hell by giving away the much cheaper Bonino, Clendening, and a draft pick upgrade to get an overrated Brandon Sutter (who likely wasn't going to re-sign in Pittsburgh)
14) Re-signed Brandon Sutter to that awful contract
15) Needed help from the NHL naming the opening day roster because they were pressed up against the cap
16) Gave away Frankie Corrado on waivers because he didn't understand the LTIR rules
17) Gave away Hunter Shinkaruk to Calgary for Markus Granlund (who likely could have been had for free off of waivers this October)
18) Failed to trade Dan Hamhuis at the trade deadline because he started the process too late (he thought this was a playoff team despite how poor the team had played), and lost Hamhuis for nothing.
19) Failed to trade Radim Vrbata at the trade deadline, and lost him for nothing.
20) Gave away a 4th round pick to Edmonton for a KHL defenseman who was a pending free agent anyway
21) Gave away promising young C Jared McCann and a high 2nd round pick for Erik Gudbranson
22) Drafted Olli Juolevi when there were better prospects on the board.
23) Signed Loui Eriksson (age 31) to a monster 6 year contract at $6M per year that is basically buyout proof due to all the bonuses that he receives.
24) Had the initial contract signed by Nikita Tryamkin rejected by the NHL because he didn't understand the CBA
25) Incurred a salary cap penalty for going over the 2015-16 salary cap

In his time here Benning has...

...traded away more draft picks than he has acquired
...traded away almost all of his 2nd round picks (including the extra ones he gave up assets to acquire)
...operated one of the worst teams in hockey despite having one of the most expensive teams in hockey
...significantly decreased the prospect talent pool among our forward group

Yeah, I think it's quite clear that Jim Benning is the worst GM in hockey, and arguably the worst GM in Canucks history. His blunders are going to keep this team in a bad state for the next decade. Life feels quite hopeless as a Canucks fan right now, and I say good luck to whomever the next GM is because he'll have to deal with the huge turd Benning left behind.

So to respond to the general theme of this thread: yes, Canuck fans can make up their mind. We see all the bad things Benning has done (I'm sure I'm probably even missing some) and we don't like it.

 

[Ho Borvat]

Purgatory. I think this season is a blah and next season is when we start seeing some payoff with Demko, Juolivi, and Boeser coming up.

The Canucks are probably 5 years away from turning into a team that improves every year. The damage Benning has done has caused much more damage than his defenders realize.

Totally agree about this team being unlikeable as well. Aside from a few guys of course.

I think a 5 year window until we're a team that's on an upward trajectory is fair. This is why its honestly crucial that we finish very low this next few seasons, and continue to get top-5 talent (and hoard draft picks).

We have some good pieces, but we need to draft those elite, franchise changing talents (The Matthews/Eichel/Ekblad types). We already have a decent supporting cast, but no real franchise saving talent.

We need to keep Boeser/OJ/Demko/Etc off this team for as long as possible (to take advantage of ELC's/bridge deals when we become a competitive team again).

I would ballpark we're 3 really good drafts away from having a core group of prospects who could form a team that would be a legit contender.

Boeser, Demko, Sven all seem to be good

This isn't a knock on Boeser/Demko - They are quality prospects. With the assets we've traded away, and how poorly this team has done, we should have way more in the way of quality prospects.

Between McCann, Boeser and Demko, Benning seems to shine in that late 1st-early 2nd round area. He just never f*^&#%$ picks there...

 

[The Optimist]

26) Fined by the league for being unable to follow the most basic rules when it comes to discussing players signed by other teams.

 

[Ho Borvat]

and when you miss on every draft pick. But lets blame that on Benning too.

Well.. Virtanen being picked before Nylander looks like a miss.

Juolevi over Tkachuk remains to be seen.

I think everyone would agree that on a per-draft pick basis, Jim Benning has the edge over Gillis in terms of finding NHL talent.

However:

These guys are managing 2 teams with polar opposite expectations/goals. Under Gillis (drafts 2008-2013, correct me if this date range is wrong) we had 2.2 picks per year in the top-100 of the draft.

Under Benning, we have 2.7 picks per year in the top-100 (League average would be 3.3 picks in the top-100). Jim Benning seems to hit on a high percentage of these top-100 picks... but goes into the draft with far too few picks.

If we want to critique Gillis for not drafting well during his tenure, that is fair criticism, but it should be noted the team was competitive and you would expect a low-volume of picks, and not many top-draft picks.

Benning deserves a lot of criticism over his drafting but because we should have a way higher volume of picks considering the position this team is in. He seems to have a competitive advantage in terms of hitting on his draft picks. Finishing 3rd last in the league and having 2 picks in the top-100 is an objective failure, no matter how good of a talent evaluator you are.

 

[denkiteki]

Seeing comments in other threads has got me asking questions. What exactly is it we want?

I've seen people complain that we didn't resign a 35 year old Hamhuis. I thought we wanted to get younger. Not better right away. Letting Hamhuis go opened a spot for someone like Tryamkin or maybe even Subban to get some games. Which is what people wanted, right?

The Canucks now have an average age of 27.78 years old. Toronto...who are apparently rebuilding "correctly", are only an average of .01 years younger than us. Our youth is looking better than it has in years with names like Boeser, Horvat, Baertschi, Virtanen, Tryamkin, Hutton, Subban, Markstrom, Demko...hell who knows, Juolevi may have a hell of a camp. Thats 9, possibly 10 guys you want as a young core, is it not? SO THEN WHAT ARE WE COMPLAINING ABOUT? We complain when we don't make youthful moves (Eriksson), yet also complain when we let vets go to make room for youth (Hamhuis).

It seems (to me) like Canucks fans want the best of both worlds. They want to win now, and to build through the draft. Complain when we lose games, yet complain if we push for the playoffs.

So now that we have some youth to work with, what do we want?

1) Hamhuis resigning is mostly due to the fact he's a good player, lots of fans here, and likely would serve as a good "mentor" for the younger players. The next most "experienced" D is our line-up is Edler but he's known to be quiet. Tanev, same thing. We really don't have any vet "leadership" in our current D group nor a lot of experience.

2) Average age is one of the most meaningless stat out there. A 4th liner contributes the same value to average age as a 1st pair D. Basically a 5-10m player counts just as much age as a 20-30m player despite their difference in playing time. In our case, our scorers are the Sedins who are 2 of the oldest players on our team. Assuming Eriksson is their winger, he's also above our average age. Also rebuild isn't just who's on the roster right now but the prospect(s) and pick(s) we have. Toronto has been stockpiling that while we have been trading them away. We have a few interesting prospects, Toronto has a lot more and likely has a young franchise center (while we clearly lack that right now aka no one to replace the Sedins when they retire). Basically its safe to assume over half our production will likely come from 30+ players, Toronto probably expects a lot of their productions from players under 30 (or at least younger than the Twins).

3) As far as the youth is concern, we have some who have upside but thats about it. Juolevi doesn't really have an NHL D-men body yet (as in he needs to add more muscle). He might have the skill to play but his body wouldn't likely stand the punishment he'll absorb meaning he'll be an injury risk if we tried to play him all year long (refer to Edmonton + *insert recent 1st round pick here*). Boeser isn't signed and plan for him is to spend another year in NCAA. Subban won't make the team and likely isn't even in the plans (most of MG's related players have been released/traded). Stecher is likely ahead of him in the depth chart as it is. Demko is also unlikely to make the team (and lets be honest goalies is probably our strength still so that's a non-issue). The rest will have a chance to make the team but realistically how much scoring are you going to get out of them next year? Odds are not much... their upside/ceiling (in terms of offense) isn't bad but likely isn't 1st line either (its possible but not likely). Our biggest issue is scoring and that continues to be an issue (that will likely only get bigger as Sedins continue to regress due to age and/or retire). If you compare our prospects to other teams, you'll find most teams have more higher-end prospects (or top 6 ceiling) prospects than us... thats the biggest problem with our "rebuild" or actually "retool". We missed the playoffs in 2 of the last 3 years and our prospect pool isn't really all that much better than before (while our core has aged 3 years/team is worst than it was 3 years ago). That's pretty much why Benning isn't all the popular (he was GM for 2 seasons but he was the one with the picks for all 3 years and he has had 3 off seasons now).

 

[F A N]

We really don't have any vet "leadership" in our current D group nor a lot of experience.

I don't think that's the case/a problem. Edler is a 9+ year vet. Sbisa has 7+ years of experience. Tanev may be entering his 4th full season but he's basically a 27 year old 6 year vet. Gudranson may be young, but he's a 5 year vet who is captain material. Other than that, Hutton is a 23 year old entering his 2nd NHL season. Tryamkin and Pedan really are the only potential rookies or young players who may benefit from "mentoring." Biega and Larsen are vets.

Leadership on D shouldn't be a problem. I'm sure if Edler, Tanev, or Gudbranson speaks everyone would listen.

 

[Ho Borvat]

I don't think that's the case/a problem. Edler is a 9+ year vet. Sbisa has 7+ years of experience. Tanev may be entering his 4th full season but he's basically a 27 year old 6 year vet. Gudranson may be young, but he's a 5 year vet who is captain material. Other than that, Hutton is a 23 year old entering his 2nd NHL season. Tryamkin and Pedan really are the only potential rookies or young players who may benefit from "mentoring." Biega and Larsen are vets.

Leadership on D shouldn't be a problem. I'm sure if Edler, Tanev, or Gudbranson speaks everyone would listen.

Im a little torn on the issue. I wanted Hamhuis back, but even I was having trouble seeing where he would fit (as long as Sbisa is in the equation). A buyout of Sbisa is tough to swallow, and like it or not hes here for the next 2 years.

Just another reason to hate that boneheaded contract extension/raise.