Has your opinion of Jim Benning changed?

[mc1laren]

Okay, he’s not looking pretty good either, especially for that price tag.

The work-load he has been able to take off Tanev and Edler is worth the price tag. He's likely one of the reasons Tanev has remained healthy close to 50 games into the season.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Benning's trades, UFA signings, contract extensions, asset management, and cap management are all enough to make his time in Vancouver a failure. Our record of consistently being a bottom 3 team in the league over the last 6 years is reflective of this. Whatever you want to call his drafting (I think slightly above average is generous enough) cannot salvage the train wreck that is the rest of his job duties.

I'd prefer to have:

• Kassian
• McCann
• 33rd overall (2016), 55th overall (2016), 53rd overall (2015), 50th overall (2014)
• Bonino (or whatever asset we could have traded him for not named Sutter)
• Two 3rd round picks
• 4th round pick
• Two 5th round picks
• 6th round pick

As opposed to:

• Sutter
• Prust
• Vey
• Larsen
• Pouliot/Pedan
• Etem
• Baertschi
• Dorsett

But hey, I'm the crazy one, right?

Nevermind the absurd amount of cap space wasted on Sutter, Beagle, Eriksson, Baertschi, Spooner buyout, Roussel, etc. We're going to lose even more assets because of this cap strap, whether it be including assets to offload these bums or letting go of free agents like Tanev/Markstrom. This dead cap space is going to negatively impact this team as soon as this offseason.

 

[DS7]

Benning knows how to draft assets. Its what he does with the assets afterwards via trades/signings/cap management that sink him imo

 

[WetcoastOrca]

I gave him credit where credit is due. See the "good" parts of my report card. I have given him credit for the Boeser/Pettersson draft picks, those were huge. Still doesn't mean we automatically forget all of the crap that he has done to set back the team.

The damage control here is bewildering. Too many Rogers' Arena accounts on here trying to play up the 1st in the division card while they can.

One persons damage control is another persons objectivity. I think you did a good job of listing the transactions and providing the reasons for your grades.
I’m not sure why you then had to shut off all debate by proclaiming that your view is the objective one and anyone who disagrees with you is a Benning lackey in full damage control.
I can see both sides here. Yes the team has been bad for a while and yes the draft does reward this. But the draft lottery has also not been kind to the Canucks and still they’ve come away with arguably a number one player in one draft and arguably a top two pick in another draft. The trades for Miller, Pearson and to an extent Leivo look like they’ve yielded two top six guys and one third liner without giving up a significant player from the team other than what looks like a mid to late first.

 

[mc1laren]

I have a friend who is from Vancouver.

He hates Benning saying he should not have signed Myers and Ferland this year especially considering he has to resign their #1 goalie (Markstrom) and top defensive defensemen (Chris Tanev).

Also a quick look at Vancouver's cap situation, and it looks pretty grim.

• They still have Petterson and Hughes on entry level deals. When they re-sign in two years, they will have a huge cap hit
• They have Ericksons awful 6 mill deal for 2 more years after this,
• They have Myers at 6mill per year for 4 more years after this (He sucks defensively)
• they have Luongo's 3 mill cap recapture for 2 more years after this one, (Not really Bennings fault but it should at least force him to be more careful in the future)
• they have Baerchi's 2.2 mill deal (He's in the minors and hasn't been traded),
• they have Ferland 3.5 mill deal for 3 more years after this one, (He's barely played this season as he's had concussion problems)
• They have Sutter at 4.3 mill deal (Sutter's been consistently injured so can't really help)

That's 25 million in wasted cap. (22 mill if you take away the Luongo cap recapture).

They only have $30,000 of cap-space and that's with LTIR. And this is before they re-sign Petterson and Hughes.

What a fricken mess. Benning has no one to blame but himself for this.

Expect Baertschi, Goldobin, Stetcher, and Sutter to be moved from now till next year. That's over 10m in savings. If Eriksson decides to mutually terminate his contact this off-season after his bonus, that's another 6 million off the books. Benning cant predict injuries. Ferland was a great deal given most had expected him to sign north of $5m. Myers, no matter which was you slice it is a top 4 defenseman. 5-5.5 would have been ideal for him but an extra $1m to ensure he signed here isn't going to make or break our cap situation.

They are tight against the cap but that doesn't mean they have no means of finding cap relief over the next 1-2 seasons. Contracts like Beagle, Sutter, Eriksson, and Edler are all off the books in 1-2 years.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Benning's trades, UFA signings, contract extensions, asset management, and cap management are all enough to make his time in Vancouver a failure. Our record of consistently being a bottom 3 team in the league over the last 6 years is reflective of this. Whatever you want to call his drafting (I think slightly above average is generous enough) cannot salvage the train wreck that is the rest of his job duties.

I'd prefer to have:

• Kassian
• McCann
• 33rd overall (2016), 55th overall (2016), 53rd overall (2015), 50th overall (2014)
• Bonino (or whatever asset we could have traded him for not named Sutter)
• Two 3rd round picks
• 4th round pick
• Two 5th round picks
• 6th round pick

As opposed to:

• Sutter
• Prust
• Vey
• Larsen
• Pouliot/Pedan
• Etem
• Baertschi
• Dorsett

But hey, I'm the crazy one, right?

Nevermind the absurd amount of cap space wasted on Sutter, Beagle, Eriksson, Baertschi, Spooner buyout, Roussel, etc. We're going to lose even more assets because of this cap strap, whether it be including assets to offload these bums or letting go of free agents like Tanev/Markstrom. This dead cap space is going to negatively impact this team as soon as this offseason.

You left out Pearson, Miller and Leivo from your list of players acquired. Probably his three best trades and three most recent. Why?
Drafting I’d give a solid B to B plus. If you look at any team they all have draft misses.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Do you think Benning is the only one involved in conversations around signing players?

No of course not; but the buck stops at the GM. So if people point to Pettersson as a Benning decision (when it's a collective decision amongst the scouts), then you can't have it both ways with UFA signings.

 

[NHL1995]

Expect Baertschi, Goldobin, Stetcher, and Sutter to be moved from now till next year. That's over 10m in savings. If Eriksson decides to mutually terminate his contact this off-season after his bonus, that's another 6 million off the books. Benning cant predict injuries. Ferland was a great deal given most had expected him to sign north of $5m. Myers, no matter which was you slice it is a top 4 defenseman. 5-5.5 would have been ideal for him but an extra $1m to ensure he signed here isn't going to make or break our cap situation.

They are tight against the cap but that doesn't mean they have no means of finding cap relief over the next 1-2 seasons. Contracts like Beagle, Sutter, Eriksson, and Edler are all off the books in 1-2 years.

I'm talking about the situation right now

We don't know if any of the things your saying will actually happen.

If they do fine, he's fixed his mistakes, but all of this should have happened in the offseason, when he knew he has to resign Markstrom and Tanev.

The fact we are sitting here talking about this less than a year before their contract ends is not a good sign. He hasn't moved a single dead weight contract out as of this post.

What makes you think he will all of a sudden?

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

You left out Pearson, Miller and Leivo from your list of players acquired. Why?
Drafting I’d give a solid B to B plus.

I was demonstrating his terrible asset management (could have included UFAs he lost for nothing like Hamhuis, Vrbata, Miller, etc. as well). I included your examples in my longer post above; this post was to demonstrate how many futures he has wasted when the team needed to rebuild. It is mind boggling that the Eriksson signing, Juolevi pick, and Gudbranson for McCann + 33rd overall trade all happened in a 2 week span or so. Should have been canned for that.

Also, a deal was in place involving Gudbranson for Demers, until Demers vetoed the trade. In other words, Benning's first choice for trading Gudbranson was freaking Demers! It's about questioning the decision making and logic behind the decisions, not always just the results.

As I mentioned above, Juolevi + Virtanen, along with a lack of later round success, is why I gave him a 'C' in drafting. But I think we have a different methodology. I wouldn't give a GM credit for drafting McDavid 1st overall because that's expected. The same goes for Hughes - he was on average rated 6.8 overall, so drafting him at 7th overall is not some magical pick like some may suggest.

If you want a team that I would give a good letter grade to for drafting - see the Jets. They've pretty much nailed every high pick they've received, with no Juolevi or Virtanen gaffes to speak of.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

-The Canucks have not brought in good veterans. - The Canucks have made the playoffs once in Benning’s tenure. Other than that year they’ve been arguably the worst team in the league over that stretch.

Been known to happen when you transition from an old core to a new one.

 

[eviohh26]

I'm talking about the situation right now

We don't know if any of the things your saying will actually happen.

If they do fine, he's fixed his mistakes, but all of this should have happened in the offseason, when he knew he has to resign Markstrom and Tanev.

The fact we are sitting here talking about this less than a year before their contract ends is not a good sign. He hasn't moved a single dead weight contract out as of this post.

What makes you think he will all of a sudden?

He has lots of time to work the cap out. Cap is not what im worried about at all.

 

[MadaCanuckle]

I have a friend who is from Vancouver.

He hates Benning saying he should not have signed Myers and Ferland this year especially considering he has to resign their #1 goalie (Markstrom) and top defensive defensemen (Chris Tanev) at the end of this year.

Also a quick look at Vancouver's cap situation, and it looks pretty grim.

• They still have Petterson and Hughes on entry level deals. When they re-sign in two years, they will have a huge cap hit
• They have Ericksons awful 6 mill deal for 2 more years after this,
• They have Myers at 6mill per year for 4 more years after this (He sucks defensively)
• they have Luongo's 3 mill cap recapture for 2 more years after this one, (Not really Bennings fault but it should at least force him to be more careful in the future)
• they have Baerchi's 2.2 mill deal (He's in the minors and hasn't been traded),
• they have Ferland 3.5 mill deal for 3 more years after this one, (He's barely played this season as he's had concussion problems)
• They have Sutter at 4.3 mill deal (Sutter's been consistently injured so can't really help)

That's 25 million in wasted cap. (22 mill if you take away the Luongo cap recapture).

They only have $30,000 of cap-space as of this post and that's with LTIR. And this is before they re-sign Petterson and Hughes.

What a fricken mess. Benning has no one to blame but himself for this.

Tell that to some posters in HFCanucks. It's like talking to walls.

 

[Bizzare]

No of course not; but the buck stops at the GM. So if people point to Pettersson as a Benning decision (when it's a collective decision amongst the scouts), then you can't have it both ways with UFA signings.

Seems like you're the one "trying" to have it both ways. You keep mentioning how X and Y scout liked a player, yet throw the blame at Benning for signings.

 

[Pip]

Been known to happen when you transition from an old core to a new one.

did you read the post I was replying to?

2 claims were made:

1- The Canucks brought in good veteran players
2- The Canucks needed to spend on veterans to remain competitive.

They did not remain competitive “year in and year our” during the rebuild/retool/whatever and the veterans they have brought in have largely sucked.

 

[Canucks LB]

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.

No offense, Thanks for taking the time doing this.
I agree with a lot of it, but giving him a C in drafting pretty much destroys the entire credibility of the entire post.
Also, 90% of this is about his work in the first 3 years, which fairly was awful, but he has gotten significantly better.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

I was demonstrating his terrible asset management (could have included UFAs he lost for nothing like Hamhuis, Vrbata, Miller, etc. as well). I included your examples in my longer post above; this post was to demonstrate how many futures he has wasted when the team needed to rebuild. It is mind boggling that the Eriksson extension, Juolevi pick, and Gudrbanson for McCann + 33rd overall trade all happened in a 2 week span or so. Should have been canned for that.

Also, a deal was in place involving Gudbranson for Demers, until Demers vetoed the trade. In other words, Benning's first choice for trading Gudbranson was freaking Demers! It's about questioning the decision making and logic behind the decisions, not always just the results.

As I mentioned above, Juolevi + Virtanen, along with a lack of later round success, is why I gave him a C. But I think we have a different methodology. I wouldn't give a GM credit for drafting McDavid 1st overall because that's expected. The same goes for Hughes - he was on average rated 6.8 overall, so drafting him at 7th overall is not some magical pick like some may suggest.

If you want a team that I would give a good letter grade to for drafting - see the Jets. They've pretty much nailed every high pick they've received, with no Juolevi or Virtanen gaffes to speak of.

Sure but in the post I responded to you can’t just exclude his three best trades which also happen to be his three most recent. It’s simply not a balanced portrayal of what he’s done. I’d still give him at best a C- on trades but I think including those three trades is only fair.
And yes the Jets and a couple of other teams are the gold standard in drafting. Benning shouldn’t be with those. But in my opinion I’d rather have a GM that hits a couple of home runs and another great pick which gets a franchise D, franchise C and a top line winger (with a later first) than a GM who hits on every first rounder but doesn’t get those key players. And again his more recent drafts show a GM that is willing to change and start drafting for high end skill even if it comes in smaller packages. I’m encouraged by the change in philosophy and the implementation of a scouting system that is light years ahead of what we had under the previous regime.

 

[NHL1995]

He has lots of time to work the cap out. Cap is not what im worried about at all.

He has till July 1st of 2020 if he doesn't want to lose Markstrom or Tanev for nothing. That's less than a year.

 

[Pip]

He has lots of time to work the cap out. Cap is not what im worried about at all.

What scares me is that I think Benning has the same mindset.

 

[Dump Itch]

I was demonstrating his terrible asset management (could have included UFAs he lost for nothing like Hamhuis, Vrbata, Miller, etc. as well). I included your examples in my longer post above; this post was to demonstrate how many futures he has wasted when the team needed to rebuild. It is mind boggling that the Eriksson signing, Juolevi pick, and Gudbranson for McCann + 33rd overall trade all happened in a 2 week span or so. Should have been canned for that.

Also, a deal was in place involving Gudbranson for Demers, until Demers vetoed the trade. In other words, Benning's first choice for trading Gudbranson was freaking Demers! It's about questioning the decision making and logic behind the decisions, not always just the results.

As I mentioned above, Juolevi + Virtanen, along with a lack of later round success, is why I gave him a 'C' in drafting. But I think we have a different methodology. I wouldn't give a GM credit for drafting McDavid 1st overall because that's expected. The same goes for Hughes - he was on average rated 6.8 overall, so drafting him at 7th overall is not some magical pick like some may suggest.

If you want a team that I would give a good letter grade to for drafting - see the Jets. They've pretty much nailed every high pick they've received, with no Juolevi or Virtanen gaffes to speak of.

Who do you believe is a good manager in this league that's been in the league for at least 5 years?

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Seems like you're the one "trying" to have it both ways. You keep mentioning how X and Y scout liked a player, yet throw the blame at Benning for signings.

It's happening on both sides if you read through the thread.

 

[NHL1995]

I will admit though that with the exception of drafting Julivi over Tkachuk, he's been pretty good at drafting.

 

[Canucks5551]

The work-load he has been able to take off Tanev and Edler is worth the price tag. He's likely one of the reasons Tanev has remained healthy close to 50 games into the season.

Edler plays the opposite side from Myers, so any ice time Myers gets isn’t coming from Edler. Edler’s reduction in ice time is due to Quinn Hughes. Tanev is playing a grand total of 22 seconds a game less than last year and one second more than two years ago. Attributing him not getting injured to Myers is just plain wrong.

Even if it was true, though, you could get another mediocre defenceman to feed minutes to and get the same results for a fraction of the cost.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

No offense, Thanks for taking the time doing this.
I agree with a lot of it, but giving him a C in drafting pretty much destroys the entire credibility of the entire post.
Also, 90% of this is about his work in the first 3 years, which fairly was awful, but he has gotten significantly better.

Agree to disagree here, but I can expand on some of these points to see if we can find some common ground.

The C in drafting is largely based on Juolevi + Virtanen, along with the lack of later round success. We had two 2nd round pick in 2017 and have not seen an NHL game out of either one (while Hague, who was available over Lind, is already playing meaningful minutes in Vegas). Gaudette is our only late round pick success over a 5 year period. That's not good enough.

I don't understand why people are saying "90% of this is in his first 3 years" as if that does not have an impact on today's roster. The Eriksson contract is still hurting the team. The contracts for Sutter, Beagle, Spooner buy-out, Baertschi, etc. will hurt the team's cap space over the next few years. Trading away a stupid amount of draft picks and young players (McCann, Kassian, 33rd overall, etc.) has set back our rebuild further.

Just because something happened a few years ago doesn't mean its consequences aren't far reaching.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Agree to disagree here, but I can expand on some of these points to see if we can find some common ground.

The C in drafting is largely based on Juolevi + Virtanen, along with the lack of later round success. We had two 2nd round pick in 2017 and have not seen an NHL game out of either one (while Hague, who was available over Lind, is already playing meaningful minutes in Vegas). Gaudette is our only late round pick success over a 5 year period. That's not good enough.

I don't understand why people are saying "90% of this is in his first 3 years" as if that does not have an impact on today's roster. The Eriksson contract is still hurting the team. The contracts for Sutter, Beagle, Spooner buy-out, Baertschi, etc. will hurt the team's cap space over the next few years. Trading away a stupid amount of draft picks and young players (McCann, Kassian, 33rd overall, etc.) has set back our rebuild further.

Just because something happened a few years ago doesn't mean its consequences aren't far reaching.

I would say Gaudette is our only late round success over a two year period. It’s unreasonable to expect late round picks to be in the NHL that quickly. That’s why they are later picks as they still have a lot of work to do. There are still lots of potential picks from the last three drafts who could end up as NHL players. Too soon to say one way or the other.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Sure but in the post I responded to you can’t just exclude his three best trades which also happen to be his three most recent. It’s simply not a balanced portrayal of what he’s done. I’d still give him at best a C- on trades but I think including those three trades is only fair.
And yes the Jets and a couple of other teams are the gold standard in drafting. Benning shouldn’t be with those. But in my opinion I’d rather have a GM that hits a couple of home runs and another great pick which gets a franchise D, franchise C and a top line winger (with a later first) than a GM who hits on every first rounder but doesn’t get those key players. And again his more recent drafts show a GM that is willing to change and start drafting for high end skill even if it comes in smaller packages. I’m encouraged by the change in philosophy and the implementation of a scouting system that is light years ahead of what we had under the previous regime.

I mean I already addressed all of this in my longer, first post above. So it's just going around in circles now. I have no problem giving Benning credit, I already did in my report card post.

I still don't think the Miller trade was necessarily a win. For the sake of argument, let's say that Miller settles in nicely as a ~70 point, 1st line, good two-way player. Not a crazy prediction, I don't think. Would you take that over a top 5-10 pick? I don't know if I would, considering Pettersson, Horvat, and Hughes were all top 5-10 picks. I would have made this type of trade in 1-2 years, not at a time when we had shown 0 promise for making the playoffs (remember, it only logically makes sense to evaluate a trade at the time it was made, not with the benefit hindsight).

It's hard to compare the Canucks' drafting with other teams since the Canucks have one of the worst records in the league over the last few years, and have received five top 10 draft picks since Benning took over. Not only that, but every additional round would be higher as well, so our chances in the 2nd/3rd/4th rounds are also better than 90% of other teams.