I laugh at all the people who say Benning is a bad GM when his predecessor was the bad GM. And yes, Sakic is turning out to be a stinker of a GM.
I like how you laugh and claim Benning isn't at fault with his predecessor doing most of the "bad" wheeling and dealing. Nonis was for sure to blame on A LOT of deals.
Well the same applies for Sakic. From 2006 Giguere and then Sherman from 2009, til when Sakic took over (partially with Roy) basically purged the prospect pool and threw money at overagers. Once Sakic and Roy took over, Roy wanted his team (big strong and defensive), hence this rebuild. Roy signed Stuart, Beauchemin, Iginla all overagers, and ran Stastny/ROR/McGinn/PAP all out of town. Filling holes in the lineup with stop gap players, and not prospects in your farm system like every other team has.
Since Joe has finally taken full control on all the GM duties, like when he drafted Mikko Rantanen and then a year later Tyson Jost over Roy's guys, Roy bailed and Sakic was left to fix the mess. Since then, when Joe officially was fully 100% in control, he has to be easily in the above average conversation. Him and Dorion have basically switched spots, with one trade.
People forget that Roy had the majority of the say in GM duties up until 2016, when Sherman was finally weeded out and everyone stopped listening to Roy. As soon as Roy lost his say, roughly start of calendar 2016, the team started to do some good things. Once Sakic was 100% in control he has done more good, than bad.