2. What people here won't admit to is that the level of discourse surrounding him is so ignorant and vitriolic that it's dull and unnuanced.
2 things can be true at once.
1. He was a stooge of the owner and was largely a catastrophe here (again, I say largely because I'm a biiig fan of Petey and Hughes), he was one of the worst GMs in the league many of the years here and at times, particularly early in his tenure, he was worst by far.
but, 2: there were also mitigating circumstances that don't obfuscate his incompetence or lack of spine, but do delineate the moves that were pure incompetence and the ones that were due to being hamstrung by mercurial, incompetent, rash decrees by ownership.
I do think that Benning's skillset plus the strategic mandate that Ownership gave him was the perfect cocktail of generationally bad GMing.
I acknowledge there is a lot of vitriol around JB, and it's understandable when a figure hurts a franchise you love so badly.
And I do avoid attacking Benning's character because of the very vitriol you mentioned. He got the cash bag from Aqua, and I can't blame him for that. If there is anything I would attack his character/integrity on, it is probably how he threw his benefactor Linden under the bus when it came to the power struggle of where this team was headed back in 2017. That's my speculation of course, I'm sure in private he's a nice guy to his friends/family.
In any case, I'll inject some additional nuance to the reasons why when we take a closer look at his incompetence, i'm more inclined to think it is generational.
I'm not even going to talk about the OEL trade the Myers contract or the Eriksson/Beagle/Roussel contracts here. There's plenty of other stuff to pick apart.
1.) Bad short term micro decisions that cascade into bigger future problems
There's so many that I think I can take a micro transaction and illustrate just the branches of damage it does.
I think of the Poolman extension in July 2021 when Petey was asking for a long term deal, which inevitably he signed a bridge in november 2021. This is no different than Calgary deciding to give Tkachuk a bridge because they wanted to keep Michael Frolik on the books, and look what happened to them.
Because Benning didn't even think a few months ahead, he spent $10 mil ($2.5M x 4) in cap space on Poolman and as a result, the team will eventually have to pay an extra $16-24 (Assuming we sign Petey at 10M +)mil in cap space to Petey because he's now a 100+ pt player at the end of his bridge deal.
Or we can lose Petey like Calgary did Tkachuk because we valued a depth guy in the moment over keeping the Franchise player long term.
And the ironic part is the Poolman contract was to replace Schmidt ($5.95M) who was to replace Tanev who signed at $4.5 M with Calgary. Kicking the can down the road with zero foresight.
2.) Driving executive talent away from the organization
This team has not been able to be nimble around the salary cap since firing Lawerence Gilman. And his refusal to give Judd Brackett greater autonomy at the draft table drove him away. You can believe what you like, but it was rumored that after the Juolevi fiasco, Benning was inclined to side with Bracket's recommendations on Petey in 2017 when he wanted Glass.
But an underrated firing was the Athletic trainer Mike Burnstein in 2015 to bring in Celebrini, who I think was disastrous for the team in man games lost, and played a part in devaluing Chris Tanev as an asset that Benning should have prioritized in 2020.
Man games lost in Cap $ during the Benning era (blue bar being average range)
Chris Tanev's Games played during the Benning era.
3.) Not properly setting up Utica/Abbotsford as a development tool, being impatient with letting Prospects marinate in the AHL for NHL results now
Benning may be praised for Petey and Hughes, but we're lucky enough that they're both talented enough to stick in the NHL. His impatience at getting results at the NHL level caused us to rush prospects and ruined their development curve, either making them zero value assets or losing them in trades and waivers. It's a miracle Hogs is still in the org given we never properly developed him to start. But I truly think Benning robbed himself of a potential top 6 player in McCann by rushing him then giving up on him.
A competent GM sees the farm team as a weapon, Benning saw it as a distraction.
I personally don't buy into Benning's drafting accolades when he's picking high enough in the top 10 that any of us with a hockey magazine can pick a Tkachuk at least 50% of the time.
Lord knows how many NHLers he's cost this org by refusing to develop them properly.
McCann
Hogs
Jake
Gaudette
