Benning appeared to run the Canucks in the way that a dumb small business owner who made their money doing something else (lets say they had equity in a startup that won the acquisition lottery, or they had rich as f*** parents or partner or whatever) and then decided to open a business in a field they enjoy but lack expertise in (they like hanging out at cafes so they open a coffee shop, or a restaurant, or they're an avid beer leaguer so they open a hockey shop) tends to run their business: They micromanage the areas in which they have knowledge, or that they think are neat and fun and make them feel like the big boss, and they utterly neglect the parts that aren't any fun. Worse yet, they're often incapable of separating the business from their own ego, which results in them constantly doubling down on bad ideas and marginalizing the talented voices they're supposed to be paying to be talented voices.
i think this maybe describes FAQ more than benning
i would add that it was three people who didn’t have the basic abilities to tread water at their jobs, but their biggest deficiencies also were almost a perfect storm of exponentially magnifying each other’s deficiencies
so you have FAQ, who meddles. but it’s not like he wants to be the GM, he just wants to feel like he’s contributing and maybe hit a few dingers occasionally. other than being stupid even for a nepo baby, probably not different from most nepo baby owners. he’s not the kind of owner who has his hands in everything and wants to be apprised of antoine roussel signings or if there’s anyone scouting the finnish league. he doesn’t have the discipline to do that. but like any fan he’s probably “called” a few picks or potential free agents signings, the way i once called giguere and niedermayer breaking out in the early 2000s before they met in the finals, but ignoring all the many times i got it horribly horribly wrong, like preferring nick ritchie to nylander with our 2014 pick or wanting desperately to cut bait on jtm last year.
so FAQ expects he can meddle here or there — hey remember loui eriksson? let’s get him, or hey draft the guy from the fraser valley — and assumes management will be good enough at the rest of the job to generate surplus value to cover any potential backfires from his occasional bright ideas.
tbh i think almost every owner expects this and it’s part of the PHO or GM’s job description to create the cushion to absorb owners’ bright ideas, although again FAQ is stupid for an owner. it was on him as the guy signing the cheques to know whether he had a structure below him to absorb his hockey pool-level expertise.
with linden, he was too passive, managing like he was in a fantasy world that didn’t really exist. he let the professionals do their job, which is a good idea in theory, only he never really oversaw them at first. so he assumed that benning was listening to his cap guy, and listening to the scouts who are out there watching the games, and giving them the resources and assignments to make informed recommendations. he realized years too late that none of that was happening and then tried to implement a process and chain of command. but that should have been his first order of business after taking the job.
benning? where do i start? just lacked all executive function. we talk about him being arrogant and power hungry and simultaneously lazy and only wanting to do what the work that’s easy, all of which is true to a degree. but when shit hit the fan, repeatedly, and he like anyone — even the laziest, most irresponsible jackwad — had to step up and do real managerial work, he had no idea what that was. like none. but i think if he knew what to do he would have, if only to save his own ass.
the scale of the organization, and probably even just the scale of the scouting dept, was beyond his ability to oversee. he just was not a systematic thinker on any level or an organized person in general. and so it became hide under a pile of coats and hope everything works itself out time.