Has your opinion of Jim Benning changed?

[BCNate]

My report card for Benning (previously posted on the Canucks board),

*Disclaimer: really long post incoming.


If you were to grade Benning on all major aspects of being a GM, he would undoubtedly fail miserably. It really is as simple as evaluating all of the major facets and job duties of a GM and then evaluating Benning holistically. Each trade/signing needs to be evaluated in isolation to assess its merits, and then all moves will be viewed cumulatively to assess how Benning has done. The majority of his bad moves looked bad at the time that they were made, so no point in trying to use a hindsight excuse for Benning here. And please, no one post "but the draft pick we traded turned into X who isn't very good!" because that's not viewing the trade in isolation.

I'll try to demonstrate what I mean about this assessment though (I might not include the lesser/irrelevant players or things like ELCs for the sake of brevity):

1. UFA Signings - Fail

I would give him an F (more bad contracts/players than good, aka a letter grade under 50%). Of course this is a mix of both quantitative and qualitative data (not all contracts are viewed equally given their impact in terms of varying term, cap hit, and salary).

Good:
Rafferty
Stecher
Benn

Bad:

Eriksson - probably the most impactful contract given out in the worst way possible. Nothing more needs to be said.

Gagner - not much needs to be said here.

Schaller - 2 years was too much term at $1.9 million, especially when he only played half the season last year. He's a player who is easily replaceable with a 4th liner getting paid league minimum.

Beagle - 4 years at $3 million is insane for a 4th line centre. Once again, fairly easily replaceable with a guy like Richardson. He's not a terrible player, this is just a bad use of cap space in prioritizing the wrong position that is easily replaceable, and the combination of term/cap make it a dumb move.

Bartkowski - barf. At least the term/cap wasn't bad, so it didn't cripple the team or anything, but still an atrociously bad player.

Average/Mediocre:

Miller - we needed a stop-gap starter and Miller was a decent option while Markstrom developed.
Vrbata (one good season, one bad)
Roussel
Vanek
Nilsson
Del Zotto (I wanted to include this as 'bad', given how terrible he was, but we ended up with a late draft pick)
Fantenberg

*I did not include Myers/Ferland as it's still way too early to fairly judge them given their longer term. I tend to lean towards 'bad' given the longer term and Myers' defensive gaffes, along with Ferland's health problems, but I see an argument to be made for each side which is why I have not included them.

2. Trades - Fail

Good:

Lack for 3rd round pick. I remember people complaining at the time that it wasn't a lot (some thought we could get Edmontons' early 2nd round pick at the time). I think this was a decent trade (could fall under average); this was probably the market for goalies and we got fair value. Once again, I'm not going to judge this trade based on what our 3rd round pick became, because that falls under the 'Drafting' assessment.

Burrows for Dahlen.

Hansen for Goldobin + 4th round pick.

Bieksa for a 2nd.

Carcone for Leivo.

Gudbranson for Pearson.

Bad:

53rd overall for Baertschi - given the prospects available at 53rd overall (Andersson, but also Dunn and Cirelli getting drafted shortly after), and what Baer has provided for this team, I'd say this is a fail. Some might disagree and that's fine; I can see the argument that we may have drafted a bust if we had kept the pick. This could also go into the 'average' category of trades.

Forsling for Clendening - bad at the time it was made. Forsling looked like he was on his way to become a bottom pairing dman; Clendening couldn't even skate.

Bonino + 2nd round pick for Sutter + 3rd (the difference in draft picks was only 9 spots IIRC). Bonino had 2 years left at $1.9 million per and was coming off a fairly good season as our #2 centre. He had more value than Sutter, and Sutter was the wrong player to target for our roster. I think we'd be in a better position if we literally did nothing and kept Bonino, let his contract expire and him walk, and have more cap space available as a result.

5th round pick for Larsen - he was useless.

Kassian + 5th round pick for Prust - " ". I get that Kassian had his issues with substance abuse, but throwing in a 5th round pick was unnecessary to offload him.

Mallet + 3rd for Pedan - waste of a 3rd round pick.

50th overall for Vey - waste of a 2nd round pick.

Jensen + 6th round pick for Etem. No reason to include that draft pick based on both prospects being project players at this time.

Pedan + 4th round pick for Pouliot.

McCann + 33rd overall + 4th round pick for Gudbranson + 5th round pick. Worst trade Benning has made during his tenure here. There were plenty of great prospects available at 33rd overall, this set us back big time.

Average/Mediocre:

Kesler for Bonino, 24th overall, and Sbisa. I take issue with Sbisa, and Bonino was not a great piece for a rebuilding team (would have preferred a younger/future asset). I would have put this into the "Bad" category, but I'm giving Benning the benefit of the doubt here that ownership pressured him into finding a replacement for Kesler, which explains why Bonino was included, as well as Kesler's 2 team trade list limiting the options for trade partners.

Shinkaruk for Granlund - neither team really benefited from it in the end. Granlund wasn't really a great NHLer so if you disagree with this assessment then I will concede that it is the most meaningless 'trade victory' that I've ever seen.

3rd round pick for Dorsett - Dorsett was a useful player for us and no one could have foreseen such a crazy career ending injury (although his play style certainly indicated a shorter shelf life).

Garrison + 7th round pick for a 2nd round pick.

Holm for Leipsic.

Subban for Dowd.

Vanek for Motte and Jokinen (could also be under 'bad' for no real useful futures being included).

Dahlen for Karlsson - too early to tell but could be a nothing trade.

Gagner for Spooner - trash for trash.

*Not including the Miller trade as it is WAY too early to properly judge, we don't even know where our draft pick will end up.


3. Contract extensions. Fail.

The 'bad' contracts here have had a much bigger impact on this team's future than the good ones have had (and I was generous with the 'good' contract extensions as I feel most of them just got market value and not a discount).

Good:

Horvat
Tanev
Markstrom

Bad:

Sbisa
Dorsett
Sutter
Gudbranson


Average:

Boeser
Stecher
Virtanen
Edler


4. Drafting - C

We've been pretty average in drafting in the top 10. Some huge hits, some huge misses. We have done relatively poorly in terms of later round picks, when compared to some of the better drafting teams. We should have more NHLers from our 2nd - 7th round picks at this point, almost 6 years into Benning's tenure.

5. CBA knowledge and cap management - Fail

This one I'd give less weight to as the other categories. It's become fairly clear that Benning is not great at managing the cap based on how our bottom 6 is getting paid, along with Spooner being bought out and Baertschi being in the AHL with a cap hit of $3.36 million. This is going to really impact the team once Pettersson, Hughes, and Demko finish their ELCs and also if they hit their contract bonuses, along with Boeser coming off his 3 year contract.

Benning has also attempted to tender a noncompliant contract to Tryamkin that was rejected by the league, along with being charged with tampering. These are more embarrassing and competency issues rather than having a huge impact on the team, but they still speaks to his ability under this category.

6. Asset management - Fail

So many UFAs wasted for nothing (Hamhuis, Miller, Vrbata) . So many draft picks thrown into trades at a time that we needed to rebuild (see above trades). So many poor trade targets (Gudbranson, Vey, Pouliot, Clendening, Sutter, Prust, Larsen, Granlund, etc.) where we wasted assets.


Conclusion: if you somehow think Benning deserves a passing letter grade based on the above factors, you have a lot of explaining to do. I personally don't think it's possible to prove Benning is anything but a failure based on the objective facts available, but to each their own.

Benning has built a very good team, and has been a very good gm.
Simple explanation if you need it: look at the standings.

 

[FreeMcdavid]

Stopped reading this thread when after reading the first couple a pages realized this is a HF Canucks thread full of Canuck fans attacking eachother. The only difference is this one is in the main boards. I will now go back to HF Canucks and attack other Canucks posters........

I should have added in the OP that this thread is for non Van fan base. Would have been waay more productive

 

[Diamonddog01]

No, it doesn't. And no where did I call my report card assessment objective, stop lying. I agree that drafting Pettersson is much more important to the franchise than the Forsling/Clendening trade. But they fall under separate categories/job duties of a GM (drafting and trading). My assessment involved rating each part of his job and then grading each part. It's fine if you think drafting is more important than trading, I never said my methodology was perfect, but it at least elaborates my opinion on why I believe Benning has not done a great job so far and provides more logic and reasoning than a lot of the posts in this thread.

As for the 2nd part of your post, 2nd - 6th round picks should still be important to a rebuilding team, especially when the GM is heralded for his drafting ability. But the greater point is that it's poor asset management. We needed to have stockpiled futures, not traded them for waiver-eligible bust prospects like Clendening, Larsen, Etem, Vey, Pouliot, etc. You shouldn't be looking at what the average number of late picks contributing is, because the Canucks record over the last 6 years is anything but average.

You said, and I quote, "I personally don't think it's possible to prove Benning is anything but a failure based on the objective facts available, but to each their own." The objective facts include much which you've either reduced by equating them to completely meaningless, minor league transactions or late round pick exchanges or trades you've outright omitted.

You've missed the point again, it's not that I believe drafting is more important that trading (although for a rebuilding team you could make a good argument for it), it's that you've put equal weight to all moves in your ratings or drafting, trading and contracts. A better comparison than the Forsling trade would be the Miller trade and the Forsling trade. Do you think these two moves deserve equal consideration when assessing his trades as a whole? That's ridiculous.

Of course 2 - 6th round picks are important. You didn't answer my question however. How many late round picks, taken from 2014 onwards, are playing on each team? You can't make a comment that having 2 on our team is poor if you don't realize that it's actually league average. Late round picks have very slim chances of making the NHL.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Good post. And realistically the later round picks take at least three years in most cases to make the NHL. It’s far too early to assess the last three years drafts even though some later picks like Madden and Rathbone are tracking well.

Explain to me how using the average number of later round picks contributing to the NHL makes sense for a team that has been well below average for pretty much 6 years now? If we were an average/bubble team, I'd agree, that's a fair measurement. But we've been terrible and have had higher picks than average as a result.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Explain to me how using the average number of later round picks contributing to the NHL makes sense for a team that has been well below average for pretty much 6 years now? If we were an average/bubble team, I'd agree, that's a fair measurement. But we've been terrible and have had higher picks than average as a result.

I didn’t say that. I said it’s too early to determine whether we are average or above average.
My main point is that getting EP and Hughes without a top 5 pick is huge for the franchise moving forward and outweighs some of the more minor errors you’ve outlined. To be fair there have been some major errors as well.
I’ve already outlined in my earlier posts why I don’t agree with some of your grades so I won’t rehash that.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

You said, and I quote, "I personally don't think it's possible to prove Benning is anything but a failure based on the objective facts available, but to each their own." The objective facts include much which you've either reduced by equating them to completely meaningless, minor league transactions or late round pick exchanges or trades you've outright omitted.

Right, and that was because I literally posted the transaction history of Benning in my assessment...which are facts (i.e. X was traded for Y, this was bad because I believe Z). I'm not saying my opinion/assessment is objective, I'm saying all of the facts that I'm relying on to form my opinion are objective. Two very different things that you seem to have conflated.

You've missed the point again, it's not that I believe drafting is more important that trading (although for a rebuilding team you could make a good argument for it), it's that you've put equal weight to all moves in your ratings or drafting, trading and contracts. A better comparison than the Forsling trade would be the Miller trade and the Forsling trade. Do you think these two moves deserve equal consideration when assessing his trades as a whole? That's ridiculous.

I addressed this in my most recent post with you saying that my methodology is far from perfect. I agree, each factor should carry a different amount of weight and will influence the team in different ways.

It's worth noting that I did put more weight on certain transactions (I point it out a few times, such as the McCann + 33rd overall for Gudbranson trade, where I say it was the worst trade Benning has made and set us back the most, or the Eriksson UFA signing being the worst signing with the biggest impact). So either you didn't read my original post that carefully, or you refuse to acknowledge that I already addressed this.

Of course 2 - 6th round picks are important. You didn't answer my question however. How many late round picks, taken from 2014 onwards, are playing on each team? You can't make a comment that having 2 on our team is poor if you don't realize that it's actually league average. Late round picks have very slim chances of making the NHL.

You're using what the average team has drafted as a baseline. The Canucks have been well below average for pretty much 6 years, so they have received higher draft picks than the average team in every round. So your measuring stick is already broken from the get go.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I didn’t say that. I said it’s too early to determine whether we are average or above average.
My main point is that getting EP and Hughes without a top 5 pick is huge for the franchise moving forward and outweighs some of the more minor errors you’ve outlined. To be fair there have been some major errors as well.
I’ve already outlined in my earlier posts why I don’t agree with some of your grades so I won’t rehash that.

You said 'good post' after quoting @Diamonddog01 in using the average team as a measurement, so I took that as you agreeing with him. That would only make sense if the Canucks were an average team, which they have not been.

 

[Nucks N Canes]

What key player has he dealt that makes his trades so poor? He has won the bulk of the trades he made.

He's lost more than he won, and until we make the playoffs this year the miller trade will be still debatable. Having a good one year, wouldnt make up for losing a lotto pick. When trading you can't judge the winner of the trade from who the other team drafted but from the strength of those draft years.

I don't think it's up for debate he lost these trades:
Clendening
Sutter
Kesler
Baertschi
Vey
Mccann

Trades he won:
Hansen
Burrows
Gudbranson for Pearson

Up for debate:
Miller (most are calling this a win solely for the team being competitive, but nucks haven't done anything yet).

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Benning has built a very good team, and has been a very good gm.
Simple explanation if you need it: look at the standings.

Yikes.

I can get very intoxicated and still drive safely.
Simple explanation: I got home safely last time.

Same logical fallacy as your post.

 

[Diamonddog01]

Right, and that was because I literally posted the transaction history of Benning in my assessment...which are facts (i.e. X was traded for Y, this was bad because I believe Z). I'm not saying my opinion/assessment is objective, I'm saying all of the facts that I'm relying on to form my opinion are objective. Two very different things that you seem to have conflated.

When you omit facts, or give equal weight to all facts, it means your interpretation of those fact is anything but objective.

I addressed this in my most recent post with you saying that my methodology is far from perfect. I agree, each factor should carry a different amount of weight and will influence the team in different ways.

It's worth noting that I did put more weight on certain transactions (I point it out a few times, such as the McCann + 33rd overall for Gudbranson trade, where I say it was the worst trade Benning has made and set us back the most, or the Eriksson UFA signing being the worst signing with the biggest impact). So either you didn't read my original post that carefully, or you refuse to acknowledge that I already addressed this.

I read it very carefully. Explain it further, so saying that the trades you don't like are the worst of all is somehow accurately weighing each trade in order to average them out in your final ranking? Part of the reason many are having issues with your methodology is that it's an incredibly lazy and poor quality methodology.

You're using what the average team has drafted as a baseline. The Canucks have been well below average for pretty much 6 years, so they have received higher draft picks than the average team in every round. So your measuring stick is already broken from the get go.

Lol. Your really attempting to propose that draft order matters that much in later round picks? Dude you're grasping at straws here.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

You said 'good post' after quoting @Diamonddog01 in using the average team as a measurement, so I took that as you agreeing with him. That would only make sense if the Canucks were an average team, which they have not been.

Incorrect. He also said that drafting EP and Hughes with non top five picks was more impactful than the negatives you listed.
He’s right. That’s like two number one picks without a top five pick which is why I’d give him a B at drafting. He’s set us up like Burke did drafting the Sedins.
On whether we are above or below average on the later picks it’s still too early to tell which I have told you about 5 times now. When you get to the later rounds I doubt that it matters much whether you’re drafting 126th or the average which is 145th. But there may be a small advantage. Unlikely that it’s significant.

 

[Killer Orcas]

No it hasn't he's hit on some picks recently but the boatload of dead cap space he has is ridiculous. Imagine what we could have signed to put around the kids this coming off season if we didn't have Eriksson, Sutter, Beagle, one of Ferland or Roussel, Baertschi and Spooner just insane. That is almost 20 million counting just one of Roussel or Ferland we didn't need both but fine with one.

 

[WiLBoY]

What's funny is I used to work with Benning's brother. I thought he was trolling me when he told me Jim Benning was his brother. After a while I realize he wasn't lying.

 

[howkie]

I blame the owners mor then Benning for many of his wierd and bad moves. Dont think Virtanen was Bennings pick, but the owners wanted their BC-boy etc etc

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

When you omit facts, or give equal weight to all facts, it means your interpretation of those fact is anything but objective.

What facts did I omit that would have really moved the needle?
I didn't give equal weight to each transaction in my assessment (I already pointed out examples), but I can see how it can appear that way. At the end of the day, I wasn't here to write a novel because I know that would have lost a lot of people along the way. I can respect your issues with my methodology - but that doesn't void the entire thing. I actually tried to give Benning credit in a lot of areas (I know that Tanev was the last contract Gilman negotiated, but I gave that to Benning, for instance, as he's the GM at the end of the day).

I read it very carefully. Explain it further, so saying that the trades you don't like are the worst of all is somehow accurately weighing each trade in order to average them out in your final ranking? Part of the reason many are having issues with your methodology is that it's an incredibly lazy and poor quality methodology.

The main issue is that it's a hybrid of quantitative and qualitative analysis. When I give Benning a "fail" in a certain category, it's a combination of both of these factors. I put more weight on qualitative (so the Eriksson contract is likely to have the biggest impact in the assessment for UFA signings as it is the most far reaching).

My post still trumps most of the lazy 2-3 sentence posts in this thread that aren't even well appraised of all of the facts. I was able to cite pretty much every somewhat important transaction Benning has made.

Feel free to come up with your own assessment that relies on the facts available though; you can use your own methodology, and prove why Benning has been a good/bad GM. I'd like to see your opinion since you appear to know a lot about research methods and analysis and how to improve upon what I started.

Lol. Your really attempting to propose that draft order matters that much in later round picks? Dude you're grasping at straws here.

Of course it does. Especially in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, draft position is huge! This is a 31 team league. Are you telling me that there's no difference in the quality of player you draft from 32nd overall (bottom feeder) to 48th overall (average team)? Or 63rd overall compared to 79th overall? You're out to lunch on this one as the statistics are on my side.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Incorrect. He also said that drafting EP and Hughes with non top five picks was more impactful than the negatives you listed.
He’s right. That’s like two number one picks without a top five pick which is why I’d give him a B at drafting. He’s set us up like Burke did drafting the Sedins.
On whether we are above or below average on the later picks it’s still too early to tell which I have told you about 5 times now. When you get to the later rounds I doubt that it matters much whether you’re drafting 126th or the average which is 145th. But there may be a small advantage. Unlikely that it’s significant.

Ok so you were agreeing with the other part of his part, got it.

Part of the issue here is that you can evaluate drafting in many different ways, which I think is starting to bog down the discussion here. You can rate a draft pick based on the result (i.e. McDavid at #1st overall was a great pick), which I believe applies to Hughes (I averaged the draft rankings and he was ranked as 6.8 overall, so right where we drafted him). Or you can rate a draft pick based on how savvy it was (Pettersson and Horvat are good examples of this).

As I've mentioned many times already, I have given Benning credit for the Pettersson pick and it certainly was huge for the team. But in a sense, doesn't the Juolevi pick kind of level the playing field here? Like the difference between Juolevi and Tkachuk, currently, is massive. That difference in production is almost the same size as the numbers Pettersson puts up. So that's part of the logic in my assessment of his drafting.

 

[Diamonddog01]

The main issue is that it's a hybrid of quantitative and quantitative analysis. When I give Benning a "fail" in a certain category, it's a combination of both of these factors. I put more weight on quantitative (so the Eriksson contract is likely to have the biggest impact in the assessment for UFA signings as it is the most far reaching).

My post still trumps most of the lazy 2-3 sentence posts in this thread that aren't even well appraised of all of the facts. I was able to cite pretty much every

Feel free to come up with your own assessment that relies on the facts available though; you can use your own methodology, and prove why Benning has been a good/bad GM. I'd like to see your opinion since you appear to know a lot about research methods and analysis and how to improve upon what I started.

I think a hybrid of qualitative and quantitative analysis would be superior However your methodology is neither. It's subjective, which is why I called you out earlier.

Of course it does. Especially in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, draft position is huge! This is a 31 team league. Are you telling me that there's no difference in the quality of player you draft from 32nd overall (bottom feeder) to 48th overall? Or 63rd overall compared to 79th overall? You're out to lunch on this one as the statistics are on my side.

Lol, you could argue the early to mid 2nd round and that's about it. The statistics are on your side? Really? Care to prove that? What would that mean, a 1% increase in probability? And remember your point here was that the Canucks late round drafting is poor as a) there aren't many late round picks on the team and now b) that the few hits we do have is due to our poor standings. I've addressed a and I think using b to somehow discredit the Demko or Gaudette pick, as you've already attempted to do on other grounds, is absurd.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Ok so you were agreeing with the other part of his part, got it.

Part of the issue here is that you can evaluate drafting in many different ways, which I think is starting to bog down the discussion here. You can rate a draft pick based on the result (i.e. McDavid at #1st overall was a great pick), which I believe applies to Hughes (I averaged the draft rankings and he was ranked as 6.8 overall, so right where we drafted him). Or you can rate a draft pick based on how savvy it was (Pettersson is a good example of this).

As I've mentioned many times already, I have given Benning credit for the Pettersson pick and it certainly was huge for the team. But in a sense, doesn't the Juolevi pick kind of level the playing field here? Like the difference between Juolevi and Tkachuk, currently, is massive. That difference in production is almost the same size as the numbers Pettersson puts up. So that's part of the logic in my assessment of his drafting.

No for me personally, getting EP and Hughes when other good GMs passed on them is a huge win for Benning. I was impressed that he was willing to put aside his earlier emphasis on size and pick small skilled guys with huge question marks but sky high ceilings.
And absolutely the Juolevi pick was a huge miss. Had he taken Tkachuk I’d have given him an A or A plus as he would probably have the best drafting record of any GM during his tenure. The reality though is that pretty much every GM has misses. Look at the Virtanen draft. NYI took DaColle, Calgary took Bennett and even Buffalo took Reinhart who is a good player but not nearly as good as Drai.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I think a hybrid of qualitative and quantitative analysis would be superior However your methodology is neither. It's subjective, which is why I called you out earlier.

Of course it's subjective though. There's literally no way possible to objectively measure these categories or how well Benning has done as a GM. Every post in this thread is subjective. I can at least rest easy knowing that I relied on every transaction Benning has made to come to an informed opinion.

And I still don't know what facts I omitted that you called me out on in the last post?

Lol, you could argue the early to mid 2nd round and that's about it. The statistics are on your side? Really? Care to prove that? What would that mean, a 1% increase in probability? And remember your point here was that the Canucks late round drafting is poor as a) there aren't many late round picks on the team and now b) that the few hits we do have is due to our poor standings. I've addressed a and I think using b to somehow discredit the Gaudette pick, as you've already attempted to do on other grounds, is absurd.

I would put money that yes, the statistics show that a team that drafts 16 spots ahead of another team in every round (bottom feeder vs. average team) has a higher likelihood of drafting NHL players. I do not think that's absurd. The point is that your original post using average teams as a measurement of determining the likelihood of 2nd-7th round picks reaching the NHL was erroneous. For someone that is so quick to criticize my methodologies for my assessment, you sure are defensive about your shortcomings.

I've seen graphs for the likelihood of 1st rounders becoming NHLers where the drop off becomes huge the farther you go back in the round, I'll see if I can find a graph/stats for later rounds.

The thing is, it's still a very nuanced analysis. Let's say hypothetically that, as a bottom feeder, you have an extra 5% chance of drafting a player in the 2nd round than the average team. You still need to apply that 5% for every draft for 5 years (every year we sucked). So it's not as meaningless as it may first appear to you.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

And absolutely the Juolevi pick was a huge miss. Had he taken Tkachuk I’d have given him an A or A plus as he would probably have the best drafting record of any GM during his tenure. The reality though is that pretty much every GM has misses. Look at the Virtanen draft. NYI took DaColle, Calgary took Bennett and even Buffalo took Reinhart who is a good player but not nearly as good as Drai.

Right, but I'm basing my assessment of his drafting at the time the draft pick was made. So Dal Colle, Bennett, and Reinhart aren't good comparables to Juolevi, because those were the consensus picks and no one was really surprised or took issue with those picks. Everyone knew the Juolevi pick was a reach at the time it was made. They aren't comparable situations at all, at least from a point of logical analysis.

 

[Beezeral]

at the end of the day it comes down to this for Jimbo.

If you believe that drafting Franchise players like Hughes and Pettersson and assembling one of the brighter cores in the NHL is the same value positively as it is negatively to giving Loui Eriksson 6x6 contract then there is no changing your mind.

I guess Tyler Myers at 5 more years at 6 million AAV is a good deal to you?
What about Roussel at 2 more years for 3 million AAV?
You already mentioned Beagle and his 3 million AAV

If you could say, hey look, Benning made some UFA mistakes in the past but over the past few years he's gotten better, I'd give him some credit. But every year, he finds a new way to spend too much money on the wrong UFAs. There's roughly 20 million worth of bloat on that payroll signed for two or more seasons. They have 18-20 million of cap space for next season (depending on cap increase) and only have 14 players signed. 8-9 players to sign and 18 million to do it. Add in that Markstrom and Stetcher will almost certainly want raises.

So no, I don't think drafting in the top 10 which has become way more of an exact science the past decade is impressive enough to make me overlook the 20ish million in poorly allocated long term cap space by Benning.

 

[4Twenty]

Benning has built a very good team, and has been a very good gm.
Simple explanation if you need it: look at the standings.

What about the standings the previous seasons?

 

[Diamonddog01]

I would put money that yes, the statistics show that a team that drafts 16 spots ahead of another team in every round (bottom feeder vs. average team) has a higher likelihood of drafting NHL players. I do not think that's absurd. The point is that your original post using average teams as a measurement of determining the likelihood of 2nd-7th round picks reaching the NHL was erroneous. For someone that is so quick to criticize my methodologies for my assessment, you sure are defensive about your shortcomings.

I've seen graphs for the likelihood of 1st rounders becoming NHLers where the drop off becomes huge the farther you go back in the round, I'll see if I can find a graph/stats for later rounds.

The thing is, it's still a very nuanced analysis. Let's say hypothetically that, as a bottom feeder, you have an extra 5% chance of drafting a player in the 2nd round than the average team. You still need to apply that 5% for every draft for 5 years (every year we sucked). So it's not as meaningless as it may first appear to you.

Dude the drop is massive after the first round. If you really believe that the 0.25% or whatever difference in statistical success rate of 5th round picks somehow means Benning shouldn't get credit for Gaudette I'm not sure what to say. I mean, sure that might be a bit higher in the 2nd round but it's still a fairly marginal difference statistically and less than 5% imo.

I think this conversation as run it's course at this point.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Right, but I'm basing my assessment of his drafting at the time the draft pick was made. So Dal Colle, Bennett, and Reinhart aren't good comparables to Juolevi, because those were the consensus picks and no one was really surprised or took issue with those picks. Everyone knew the Juolevi pick was a reach at the time it was made. They aren't comparable situations at all, at least from a point of logical analysis.

My point was to show that most good GMs miss on picks. Yes Juolevi was a tiny reach as were EP and Hughes. If you want a GM to just follow the consensus pick ( if there is such a thing) then that’s fine. Imo we’d be much worse off if we had that GM.
I don’t think we are going to change others views on his drafting so I’ll bow out of the discussion. I do tend to agree with you more on the other areas though.

 

[Beezeral]

Benning has built a very good team, and has been a very good gm.
Simple explanation if you need it: look at the standings.

If we were talking about the Atlanta Canucks, they'd be another bubble team on the outside looking in with zero cap flexibility to improve the roster.