Management Discussion | You can’t handle the Rebuild!

[bossram]

The plan has always been the same. To try to tinker around the edges to make this core more competitive. Unfortunately, there seems to be a disconnect between how management values its players and the rest of the league values said players. So it's still "patience" as we wait for the market to pick up on crappy players so we can move Myers, Garland and Pearson at a minimal cost. Then they'll probably try to re-sign Horvat (they won't be able to) and fiddle around with whatever meagre cap space they have remaining while still being able to make a competitive offer for Pettersson.

As far as I can tell, they're sitting around waiting for the market to improve. Will it? Who knows.

They will likely fail because the probability for the confluence of factors to occur that they require to be successful is extremely low. They also continue to completely disregard the farm system.

The "wait and see" plan to the extreme. It's terrible. And not a plan.

Set a direction and execute. This whole regime so far has purely been reactive. "If we make the playoffs we'll do X....if we're close to the playoffs we'll do Y....we'll only trade Miller if we receive Z, otherwise re-sign him..."

It's dumb. They've said the right things. But they don't actually know what they're supposed to do.

The only thing that can save the club is a complete, blow-it-up rebuild. A retool was possible with the right GMing, but they've blown that vanishingly small shot. Blow it up. Get Bedard or Fantilli or Carlsson or Michkov. That's the only hope the club has.

 

[Canucker]

Yeah, this management group isn't "Dead to me" just yet...but they're on life support. Initially, I was pretty hopeful...they seemed to make some astute hires, JR seemed to have his finger on the real problems with the construction of the team and it seemed like there was going to be a willingness to do what it takes to "right the ship"...well that all seemed to fizzle out when they kept waffling on dealing with Miller...people around here kept making excuses, "he'll get a better return at the deadline" to "he'll get a better return in the off-season when more teams have cap space" to "8 years at $8m? well...it's not bad for a 99 point center" and now he's a complete gong show on and off the ice...and his signing before Bo has probably forced Bo out the door. So many unforced errors and mixed messages is the reason people have a tough time getting on board with these guys.

 

[BrentSopelsHair]

The "wait and see" plan to the extreme. It's terrible. And not a plan.

Set a direction and execute. This whole regime so far has purely been reactive. "If we make the playoffs we'll do X....if we're close to the playoffs we'll do Y....we'll only trade Miller if we receive Z, otherwise re-sign him..."

It's dumb. They've said the right things. But they don't actually know what they're supposed to do.

The only thing that can save the club is a complete, blow-it-up rebuild. A retool was possible with the right GMing, but they've blown that vanishingly small shot. Blow it up. Get Bedard or Fantilli or Carlsson or Michkov. That's the only hope the club has.

A lot of it comes back to a complete lack of courage from the franchise writ large over the past decade +.

There are never concrete goals for a given season, because otherwise they could be used to gauge management's competence based on whether they are met or missed. There's never a concrete direction communicated to fans, because what if there's fan displeasure? There's no appetite for taking a step back to take three steps forward later, because what if fans have to watch *gasp* shitty, boring, loser hockey??

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

Honestly, I was okay with the objective of making the playoffs for this season. However, that was on a condition the team preserved their cap flexibility going forward by not saddling themselves with term contracts. Giving this "core" one last chance to prove it would have been the right move. If they failed, well at least you could begin the deconstruction of the roster with Miller/Horvat being awesome rentals, and having the ability to take back short-term contracts.

You had nothing to lose by cutting ties with Boeser, not extending Miller and pretty much keeping your top 9 the way it was. A roster without Mikaylev, Boeser and Lazar would pretty much be in the same spot in the standings.

What they have done to screw this up is remarkable. Now we are in a position of maybe having to add even more assets to clear newly signed contracts.

 

[Vancouver_2010]

Don't bother with the main trade board, they all under value our player, horvat should cost the Rangers Alexis Lafrenière and 2 1st round, or Columbus Kent Johnson and a first.

 

[gringo]

The "wait and see" plan to the extreme. It's terrible. And not a plan.

Set a direction and execute. This whole regime so far has purely been reactive. "If we make the playoffs we'll do X....if we're close to the playoffs we'll do Y....we'll only trade Miller if we receive Z, otherwise re-sign him..."

It's dumb. They've said the right things. But they don't actually know what they're supposed to do.

The only thing that can save the club is a complete, blow-it-up rebuild. A retool was possible with the right GMing, but they've blown that vanishingly small shot. Blow it up. Get Bedard or Fantilli or Carlsson or Michkov. That's the only hope the club has.

I think they wanted to come in blasting but the sheer number of unmovable contracts and the cap constraints around the league made that impossible. I also think teams were testing them out a bit on the Miller trade last year and maybe they let their egos get ahead of getting a deal done.

Not excuses just what I think happened. They clearly need to do something, and fast.





Again I got to agree with my Portuguese friend Sid

 

[bossram]

A lot of it comes back to a complete lack of courage from the franchise writ large over the past decade +.

There are never concrete goals for a given season, because otherwise they could be used to gauge management's competence based on whether they are met or missed. There's never a concrete direction communicated to fans, because what if there's fan displeasure? There's no appetite for taking a step back to take three steps forward later, because what if fans have to watch *gasp* shitty, boring, loser hockey??

Yeah, kudos to management for never allowing their fans to succumb to that! Gotta compete! Anything can happen!

 

[4Twenty]

Don't bother with the main trade board, they all under value our player, horvat should cost the Rangers Alexis Lafrenière and 2 1st round, or Columbus Kent Johnson and a first.

Pass it over here bruh

 

[arttk]

I can understand the "don't jump to conclusions on this management group just yet" idea to a certain degree, but I cannot understand justifying it by the fact that they have said all the right things about how this team is in need of a revamp.

This management crew has consistently spoken out of both sides of their mouths thus far, selling change in the market and instead bringing stagnancy and the same old shit. They are now responsible for signing a player for another 7 seasons who might be the worst possible market fit imaginable, a highly-paid powerplay specialist veteran who is absolutely not a leader on a team about to lose their longtime captain, a guy who signed up for 7 years on a team that is destined for utter mediocrity who is a whiny child when he's not on a winning team, a guy who clearly doesn't care about the responsibilities that come with being a highly paid player in a crazy hockey market. Just a colossal error that compounds the decade of other stupid moves that, while not their fault, SHOULD have given context to their decisions that they've made thus far.

Thus far in their more than a calendar year in charge, their wins have been small and their errors have been large, when in order to turn this team around without a scorched earth rebuild they were likely going to need to have an almost unprecedented run of managerial ass-kicking, trade winning and excellence. I am still hopeful that they'll swing some big deal in return for Horvat and that they can get Miller off the books before his NMC kicks in next year, but right now that just seems like an absurd pipe dream given how they have performed to this point

Shit sucks, I hate this team

I still don’t think Miller is as big as a problem people here thinks. He’s only a problem if he plays like this for the rest of his contract and if he plays like the Miller for the past 4 seasons for like 4-5 years out of his 7 year extension, then that extension is perfectly fine especially in the context of OEL contract being gone and the cap going up.

The debate between Miller and Horvat should really be, who is more likely to live up to the contract. What is likely to happen, Miller continue to be PPG or Bo to have like 40goals+ seasons? You guys are simply being too damn reactionary. It’s like one good/bad season and everything they have done before is simply forgotten.

I think at the end of the day, this is the skeleton they will get to and if they don’t, then there will be high issues.
Kuz-Petey-Mik
Miller -??? - ???
Pod -??? - hog
Joshua- Stud - lazar

Hughes- ???
OEL - ???
Dermott - Bear
Schenn (signing him back after trading him away)

From a cap perspective if they can get there then there is no issue with Miller being at 8M and improvement will require heavily on pro scouting which we will have a better read on depending on who they get.

That’s why I argue, if his off-season is when we can evaluate better because contracts should become easier to move off of and as they replace more parts, we will get more datapoint to evaluate their ability to trade and what type of players they value.

 

[theguardianII]

I wonder where and why there is such fear in the front office for starting a build around one or two players?

They aren't making the playoffs anyway and the fantasy that they want the revenue is an illusion, they can make more with a well managed cap control.

So money is not the issue, they save more than the would make in a single playoff run.

Fans won't attend? Fans have been going even through this farce that has been offered up as hockey for 8 years with no idea where the team is going even when one GM stated he had no idea what tomorrow would bring, a confidence building statement that was pretty much ignored by fans going to the arena.

So even though fan loyalty has been stretched to the limit, a new hope of a rebuild or build with many new players would still have fans going and probably buying jersey's instead of burning them.

Ottawa and Buffalo with their most recent rebuilds and retool are far and away ahead of the Canucks in just around 3 years.

Can fans stomach 3 years of a purposeful getting the same number of points each year that they have got over the last 8 years?

In a heart beat, they would embrace a rebuild.

 

[VanillaCoke]

If you woke up from a coma and just looked back at the last 13 months of canucks transactions the vast majority of ppl wouldn't know dim jim is gone.

Disgusting and pathetic.

 

[BrentSopelsHair]

I still don’t think Miller is as big as a problem people here thinks. He’s only a problem if he plays like this for the rest of his contract and if he plays like the Miller for the past 4 seasons for like 4-5 years out of his 7 year extension, then that extension is perfectly fine especially in the context of OEL contract being gone and the cap going up.

The debate between Miller and Horvat should really be, who is more likely to live up to the contract. What is likely to happen, Miller continue to be PPG or Bo to have like 40goals+ seasons? You guys are simply being too damn reactionary. It’s like one good/bad season and everything they have done before is simply forgotten.

I think at the end of the day, this is the skeleton they will get to and if they don’t, then there will be high issues.
Kuz-Petey-Mik
Miller -??? - ???
Pod -??? - hog
Joshua- Stud - lazar

Hughes- ???
OEL - ???
Dermott - Bear
Schenn (signing him back after trading him away)

From a cap perspective if they can get there then there is no issue with Miller being at 8M and improvement will require heavily on pro scouting which we will have a better read on depending on who they get.

That’s why I argue, if his off-season is when we can evaluate better because contracts should become easier to move off of and as they replace more parts, we will get more datapoint to evaluate their ability to trade and what type of players they value.

I mean, Miller will only really live up to his contract if he is a top6 centre or if he's a top line winger who is posting point totals similar to last year, when he overproduced his historical priors by an absurd degree. So I would say it's very unlikely that he lives up to his contract, and it hasn't even started.

Saying that the "real question" is choosing between Miller & Horvat and who will live up to their next contract, I would rather have Horvat 100 times out of 100. He's a centre, he's a great part of the larger Canucks community, he's a solid ambassador for a reprehensible franchise, he's younger by 2 years, he has a pre-existing connection to the team and the fans, and he has consistently improved over his career due to his open-mindedness to external help and overwhelming work ethic. Sounds like a guy I'd love to have around a team that is trying to fix a reportedly toxic dressing room! Miller has put up points like no one's business while he's been here, but other than that he's by all accounts been a culture black hole in his time in Vancouver, other than in the bubble when the team was having success. He's a great passenger on a successful team, but someone I want to keep a thousand miles away from a team in any stage of development.

As for that projected lineup you posted, it still looks like a shitty team unless almost all of those holes are being filled by above-average contributors! Love that its super simple to find 2 top-6 forwards, an elite third-line centre and three top-4 defensemen in order to get the team anywhere sniffing contention

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

If you woke up from a coma and just looked back at the last 13 months of canucks transactions the vast majority of ppl wouldn't know dim jim is gone.

Disgusting and pathetic.

Eh, Dim wouldn’t have been able to land Kuzmenko nor would he target cheaper depth players like Lazar, Aman, and Joshua. He also likely would not acquire players like Bear and Dermott as he preferred shitty, overpaid defencemen.

Not saying this management group has been good so far, but the context is very different between management groups. Benning took over with a fairly competitive team intact, along with plenty of cap space and assets to work with, and a few solid prospects. Allvin did not really have this blank canvas to work with, and made the mistake of doubling down on this core.

 

[arttk]

I mean, Miller will only really live up to his contract if he is a top6 centre or if he's a top line winger who is posting point totals similar to last year, when he overproduced his historical priors by an absurd degree. So I would say it's very unlikely that he lives up to his contract, and it hasn't even started.

Saying that the "real question" is choosing between Miller & Horvat and who will live up to their next contract, I would rather have Horvat 100 times out of 100. He's a centre, he's a great part of the larger Canucks community, he's a solid ambassador for a reprehensible franchise, he's younger by 2 years, he has a pre-existing connection to the team and the fans, and he has consistently improved over his career due to his open-mindedness to external help and overwhelming work ethic. Sounds like a guy I'd love to have around a team that is trying to fix a reportedly toxic dressing room! Miller has put up points like no one's business while he's been here, but other than that he's by all accounts been a culture black hole in his time in Vancouver, other than in the bubble when the team was having success. He's a great passenger on a successful team, but someone I want to keep a thousand miles away from a team in any stage of development.

As for that projected lineup you posted, it still looks like a shitty team unless almost all of those holes are being filled by above-average contributors! Love that its super simple to find 2 top-6 forwards, an elite third-line centre and three top-4 defensemen in order to get the team anywhere sniffing contention

That’s not true, if he is a PPG winger he will live up to his contract. If you don’t think that’s true, look at all the wingers that are contributing PPG. Look at Fiala, prior to this season, he was putting up less points than Miller and he got a 7.8M contract. Miller’s contract is perfectly in line with a PPG winger.

PPG center is gonna cost more than 8M a year. The only guys who are making less than that are guys who were signed before they broke out.

Sure Bo is a great ambassador, but is he so good that we should pay 7.5+ for that ambassadorship? Yeah sure externally he is like a good soldier but how many times have we seen him talk after the game oh we didn’t do good enough and we need to improve only for that to happen the very next game and he is also part of that as well. It’s all f***ing talk and no substance. Have we seen any improvement to the culture ever since he has been the captain? How often do we say this group of players are f***ing soft and don’t back each other. At some point you have to look and say, hey whatever the f*** he is doing as a leader, it’s not working because nothing about it works. Hell if he is the leader, why don’t we see or hear him pull Miller to the side and sort this shit out. If we want to see a change in culture in the team, well guess what, we need to change the leader.

Yeah it’s not easy to find 2 top6 forwards and yet that is exactly what they have done this off-season. Like I said, it’s a skeleton and we’ll get a better read on this management because those ??? will need to be filled like right away and we’ll know how good/bad their pro scouting is. I am not arguing oh that skeleton looks sexy or whatever, it’s just that once we get there this off-season, we are going to have a bunch of datapoint to understand if this management group is good or crap.

 

[arttk]

If you woke up from a coma and just looked back at the last 13 months of canucks transactions the vast majority of ppl wouldn't know dim jim is gone.

Disgusting and pathetic.

When was the last time Benning paid for a functioning dman with a pick lower than the 9th OA pick?

If you still don’t get what made Benning bad despite living through it in the last 8 years, then the problem is your ability to do any coins of analysis.

The biggest issue when I see folks like you say oh this management is Benning bad. The issue is not saying this management is bad, the issue is you are minimizing how god damn awful Benning was. He is legit GOAT level terrible and there is really no comparison to any GM. If you want to say this management group sucks, go for it, just don’t try to minimize and make Benning look better.

 

[Canucker]

When was the last time Benning paid for a functioning dman with a pick lower than the 9th OA pick?

If you still don’t get what made Benning bad despite living through it in the last 8 years, then the problem is your ability to do any coins of analysis.

Show me where its better? Do we have more cap flexibility? No. Do we have a better farm system? No. Do we have a better lineup? Not according to our place in the standings. The only thing that's better is that the current management group can articulate in great detail the problems with this team, they still haven't been able to solve any of those problems yet.

 

[4Twenty]

When was the last time Benning paid for a functioning dman with a pick lower than the 9th OA pick?

If you still don’t get what made Benning bad despite living through it in the last 8 years, then the problem is your ability to do any coins of analysis.

The biggest issue when I see folks like you say oh this management is Benning bad. The issue is not saying this management is bad, the issue is you are minimizing how god damn awful Benning was. He is legit GOAT level terrible and there is really no comparison to any GM. If you want to say this management group sucks, go for it, just don’t try to minimize and make Benning look better.

Schmidt.
Stecher.
Hamonic. (better numbers here than Bear)
Burroughs

If definitely feels the same to me. Same core. Same market misplays. Same trash team. Same awful blueline. Same retool on the fly mentality. Same sending out picks.

Probably best not to ridicule other folks analysis when serving up crap yourself.

 

[tyhee]

Yeah, this management group isn't "Dead to me" just yet...but they're on life support. ...

There were worrisome signs before then, but they died to me on September 2, 2022, the day the Miller extension was announced. They are more competent than the previous management group but the destructive direction of the team continues.

Being stuck with the Boeser contract through 2025, the OEL contract (acquired by Benning) through 2027 and the Miller contract through 2030, with the team due to lose Horvat and probably Kuzmenko this offseason and the likelihood that EP40, Hughes and Demko (among others) will want to get to better organizations when they can leaves little room for hope for years to come.

 

[sting101]

It really doesn't matter what you do when ..
1 - Your goalies suck
2 - Your defense is terrible
3 - the players wont commit to working hard and supporting each other

Until they fix these 3 things nothing matters other than building for the future

 

[BrentSopelsHair]

That’s not true, if he is a PPG winger he will live up to his contract. If you don’t think that’s true, look at all the wingers that are contributing PPG. Look at Fiala, prior to this season, he was putting up less points than Miller and he got a 7.8M contract. Miller’s contract is perfectly in line with a PPG winger.

PPG center is gonna cost more than 8M a year. The only guys who are making less than that are guys who were signed before they broke out.

Sure Bo is a great ambassador, but is he so good that we should pay 7.5+ for that ambassadorship? Yeah sure externally he is like a good soldier but how many times have we seen him talk after the game oh we didn’t do good enough and we need to improve only for that to happen the very next game and he is also part of that as well. It’s all f***ing talk and no substance. Have we seen any improvement to the culture ever since he has been the captain? How often do we say this group of players are f***ing soft and don’t back each other. At some point you have to look and say, hey whatever the f*** he is doing as a leader, it’s not working because nothing about it works. Hell if he is the leader, why don’t we see or hear him pull Miller to the side and sort this shit out. If we want to see a change in culture in the team, well guess what, we need to change the leader.

Yeah it’s not easy to find 2 top6 forwards and yet that is exactly what they have done this off-season. Like I said, it’s a skeleton and we’ll get a better read on this management because those ??? will need to be filled like right away and we’ll know how good/bad their pro scouting is. I am not arguing oh that skeleton looks sexy or whatever, it’s just that once we get there this off-season, we are going to have a bunch of datapoint to understand if this management group is good or crap.

I mean you are projecting Miller as being a PPG player moving forward. If he is at that level, of course he'll be worth the money. However, I definitely don't expect him to be there as he ages, which makes it less likely that he'll be worth that money and cap.

I also didn't say that I would give Horvat all that money due to those intangibles. The question was between the two players, who would be more likely to live up to the deal, ie. who would someone be more comfortable committing to. I don't dispute that he's been the face of consistent disappointment over his career here, but also when in his career has he been equipped with a legitimately solid team? Maybe only the bubble year, and even that team significantly over-achieved. There are no leaders with enough intangibles to overcome a terrible defence corps or horrible team structure. While he obviously isn't deserving of praise for the team's consistently bad results, he's also one of the last people that deserves a finger pointed at him.

I wont dispute that we brought in some solid players this summer, but the task ahead is so, so much more difficult than paying market value for a speedy winger and getting the opportunity to pay league minimum for 1 season of Kuzmenko. The tightrope ahead is going to need consistent A+ GMing to not fall further into the morass of teams that are going nowhere, so even with this management being good it likely will not be enough. We need to massively win all of our trades and signings bets over the next year or so to conceivably be a team with a chance to be in the hunt.

I'd give them about a 5% likelihood that they're able to pull this off. If they do, great, we're a solid playoff team. If they don't we're looking at likely another 5 years of bad teams and very little hope for improvement

 

[mriswith]

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Schmidt.
Stecher.
Hamonic. (better numbers here than Bear)
Burroughs

If definitely feels the same to me. Same core. Same market misplays. Same trash team. Same awful blueline. Same retool on the fly mentality. Same sending out picks.

Probably best not to ridicule other folks analysis when serving up crap yourself.

This ignores all nuance and is way too simplistic.

Compare the players that Benning brought in along with the assets spent to what PA/JR have done. Never mind comparing 8 years of work to less than 1 year.

 

[arttk]

Show me where its better? Do we have more cap flexibility? No. Do we have a better farm system? No. Do we have a better lineup? Not according to our place in the standings. The only thing that's better is that the current management group can articulate in great detail the problems with this team, they still haven't been able to solve any of those problems yet.

Can you think more beyond the cap dimension?
Benning is horrible in every single aspect of GMing.
If he was still here, he would probably have signed a bunch of “top 6” forwards that don’t produce like one but are paid like one and with term.
He wouldnt have gotten anyone like Dermott and Bear because he hasn’t shown that he knows wtf is a NHL dman nevermind if he did went out to get a NHL dman via trade, he would’ve paid a 1st or 2nd and more. The last time he paid a 5th for a d he got f***ing Holm. Does anyone remember what Holm was like? I sure don’t because he was so bad he was barely on the roster that finished at the bottom of the league.

Do you think he would’ve paid Miller 8M? Hell he would’ve signed him to like 9 or 10 with like 8 years term considering he put up 99points. Ditto with Bo, he would’ve paid him whatever the f*** him and his agent asked for ala the Pearson signing. Well the agent said it would take this so therefore I give him this.

Hell look at Abby at how dysfunctional it was with Benning vs now.

Do you guys seriously still have no f***ing clue what Benning would do after 8 years of it? Take the worst deal this management group made, just assume that player would be worse, paid more with term and acquired with a bunch of picks and then multiply those deals that until we are sitting against the cap and then start tacking on bonuses that will bleed to the next season. That’s Benning.

 

[4Twenty]

This ignores all nuance and is way too simplistic.

Compare the players that Benning brought in along with the assets spent to what PA/JR have done. Never mind comparing 8 years of work to less than 1 year.

Huh?

The guy asked when the last functional Dman was acquired. I listed a few.


Stillman, Bear, Dermott = 2nd, 3rd, 5th and one absolutely blows

Schmidt 3rd
Hamonic free
Stecher free


The idea it’s miles different and requires some kind of nuance is weird. The other posters point still stands. If someone was in a coma for the last 13 months and woke up, things would feel nearly identical.


Seems like the same thing, retooling on the fly. Miller extension and Boeser extension are more impactful than putting together a 4th line and some bottom pair defenders.


Having to now likely move the captain after signing Miller seems Benning AF, and even if the rental return is decent, it still looks like a half assed retool. I mean it’s better to get something than nothing but it would have the air of signing Myers to usher Tanev out the door.

 

[Peen]

Show me where its better? Do we have more cap flexibility? No. Do we have a better farm system? No. Do we have a better lineup? Not according to our place in the standings. The only thing that's better is that the current management group can articulate in great detail the problems with this team, they still haven't been able to solve any of those problems yet.

I’ll repeat what I have said for a year now.

What I said at first was that we would need A grade management with a high volume of action and high hit rates if they wanted to turn things around quickly.

C grade, or even B grade management wouldn’t be good enough because their starting position is so bad. I thought they made the right decision holding onto Miller past the TDL because I felt the package they could get after would be comparable at worst to the NYR 1st + Chytil/Kravtsov + Nils offer. They then did get pretty close to the 13th pick at the draft, without knowing what else was a part of that deal.

Their cheap bets were not as bad as the Pouliot, Vey, Sbisa, Clendenning, Granlund tier - albeit they also haven’t had a noticeable win yet either.

The problem is that this management, and even posters like @MS, could not see the forest for the trees. The notion of trading for a second round pick was laughed at. Sure trading a guy like Garland for a second after his ES point totals last season wouldn’t have felt great, but that cap flexibility and second rounder got Marino. The idea of not qualifying Boeser seemingly was never considered, or else they probably would have leaked it because this organization is very concerned about PR of moves they make. Instead, they make a stupid signing and people like Drance praise it for some reason. Then, they panic with Miller. I also like Mikheyev, and he has proven to have been a good signing and not the horror show @VanillaCoke claimed him to be, but the roster was so flawed and so capped out with excess winger salary that there were unintended costs associated with signing Mik.

Then they don’t want to take a step back or take on short term money according to every report a year ago - Rutherford saying taking back money isn’t something they’re looking at. Imagine they just made the necessary moves when they came in in January.

I also want to make one thing clear. The type of package you should be willing to take is situational. If you’re going for a tear down and want to be bad, you take “perceived below market offers” for guys like Debrincat because it positions your team better. When you’re trying to do a quick retool, you need to maximize your best assets (Miller last year, Horvat this year). That is what makes this path so hard.

This management group hasn’t solved anything. In a vacuum, they have been C grade. I don’t think any less is fair.

But in regards to your point, relative to Benning’s historically bad F, it’s a huge improvement.

Relative to the A+ they would have needed to get us out of this mess in the timeline Rutherford set of two years, it is not good enough and we are an unserious franchise that will not compete for at least a decade unless they have a willingness to change direction.

They don’t have the balls to do anything. They haven’t even fired the coach they hate. They haven’t sorted a new practice facility which was reportedly a big deal a year ago. The whole Doerrie/Castonguay debacle looks awful for the organization. Management hiding from the media. No improvement in accountability, anything.