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.
