The Management Thread | Live, Play, Repeat Edition

[xtra]

It's pretty simple. He screwed himself with other poor contracts, couldn't move salary and Aquilini was not gonna buy out anyone. Poor cap management forced tough decisions.

He prioritized defense and getting Holtby to insulate Demko. We could score that wasn't a big problem and Hoglander and Podkolzin were coming.

In saying that i still don't like signing 28yr old 2nd line wingers to long term deals especially given that the original info was 5 x 5.5 and would have left him as the only forward signed beyond 2023 Just because Montreal got a bargain deal doesn't mean we would have. I have already said that 4yrs and 4.25 was a deal i would have done.

You have to see how Pettersson and Hughes fit the financial future first. Get fans back in attendance. If there was time to reset it's this year.

Also why are you so mad about it. You have been going off about not being even close to a contender and then you want to sign older players to legacy contracts?

Hold up; you want us to believe that toffoli after saying he wants to be here and all that great stuff would ask for more money than he signed for?

now you either think toffoli was lying about wanting to be here or that’s some convoluted logic that he would take a discount to go sign else where

 

[sting101]

Why didn’t we just keep Tanev and Tofoli? Would buying out Sutter freed up enough cap (not getting Schmidt, Holtby, and signing Jake) to keep Marky too?
I just wonder about our management’s asset management and assessment of players’ abilities to help us win. I think they’re bad at both.

Your right Larry. We could have signed a cheap goalie and kept Toffoli Tanev and shuffled Virtanen without getting into whether it was right or wrong on Marky (which is almost always right to walk away by the way)

It's not like Demko is a kid anymore. It's too bad because our lack of depth up front is looking like an issue right now. Especially with Virtanen Gaudette esentially cratering to nothing

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Just an incompetent bumbling dumb doofus.

His reasoning and excuses are something you'd expect coming from the arsenal of an elementary student.
Teacher: "where is your book report?"
Student: "Well, I tried my best but I just didn't have enough time."
Teacher: "You've had months to do it..."

Jesus f***ing christ.

 

[VanillaCoke]

I think it might be time that we start a Fire Benning thread. It makes more sense than yet another Tank thread, which a lot of people seem to hate.

Idk why we cant have an anti Benning thread.

 

[m9]

I don't think the necessity for a winger out weighed the need to help the D and have a goalie that could insulate Demko if he had some struggles.

The allocation for Holtby and Schmidt was the same as Marky Tanev but we were able to theoretically upgrade in Schmidt and not lose the franchise goalie in doing so and are only on the hook for 2yrs vs 6. I'm ok with this even though it's hilarious how the 1st year after has them playing the cast offs 9 times each and of course it haunts us because were the Canucks.

I agree to some extent. The contracts to Toffoli, Markstrom and Tanev have all hilariously burned the Canucks so far to varying degrees but ultimately I would like to wait until more than 5% of those contracts are completed before making any proclamations about their long-term impact.

If the plan was to move on from those 3 and only sign/trade for guys on 1 year deals to give flexibility next year I would have made some sense from the plan. Alternatively, if the plan was to spend assets to ditch a couple of bad contracts and then use that money to take advantage of the window and re-sign some of Toffoli/Markstrom/Tanev I think there would have been some logic there too. I don't know that this half-ass approach they did (and really, have kind of done for 7 years) is going to accomplish much other than pissing off players and fans. Obviously any plan is open to criticism but at least the first two options are actual plans.

 

[4Twenty]

We don’t need it. The smart ones have treated this as an anti Benning thread for 6+ seasons.

It walks like a duck and talks like a duck. It’s a duck.

I feel bad for the folks who loved on him so much. It’s one if the strangest phenomenons I’ve ever witnessed. Celebrating incompetence. Aw shucks.

 

[m9]

At least "Out of Time" will be a nice news headline when Benning is finally let go.

 

[sting101]

Imo Tanev looks to be a better player than Schmidt. And certainly Marky is way better than Holtby.

Yes maybe MS can jump in here because i hate Vegas and don't watch them that much for my own reasons (FU Bettman).

Schmidt is either adjusting or needs his PEDs. I was excited when we got him, he was an impact player from what i saw.

Part of the issue may be how Baumer is asking him to play. Seemed like in Vegas he could bomb up ice more than here and actually be supported. Here he's having to be a calming steady guy and when he does he's not sure anyone is even gonna bother to cover for him.
It's been odd and mildly disappointing so far.

 

[4Twenty]

I agree to some extent. The contracts to Toffoli, Markstrom and Tanev have all hilariously burned the Canucks so far to varying degrees but ultimately I would like to wait until more than 5% of those contracts are completed before making any proclamations about their long-term impact.

If the plan was to move on from those 3 and only sign/trade for guys on 1 year deals to give flexibility next year I would have made some sense from the plan. Alternatively, if the plan was to spend assets to ditch a couple of bad contracts and then use that money to take advantage of the window and re-sign some of Toffoli/Markstrom/Tanev I think there would have been some logic there too. I don't know that this half-ass approach they did (and really, have kind of done for 7 years) is going to accomplish much other than pissing off players and fans. Obviously any plan is open to criticism but at least the first two options are actual plans.

Your much better at writing without emotions than I am. This is the nice version of what I’m trying to say but too angry to articulate.

We were told that from 2017 on there was improvement. I don’t see it. Never did. The one good thing about the JT Miller move is he’s actually good and will likely return the trade value. But Sven, Beagle,Roussel, Schaller, Benn, Myers don’t look any different than Guddy, Gagner, Granlund, Vey.

Of course you have little victories like Tyler motte being a fast 4th liner. And Stumbling on Pearson, Leivo and Fantenberg but these are small victories. The big losses set you back seasons. Clearly.

 

[CherryToke]

I think it might be time that we start a Fire Benning thread. It makes more sense than yet another Tank thread, which a lot of people seem to hate.

Fort Benning thread with lots of tank gifs

 

[Nucker101]

Even the Benning fans/apologists or "neutral" fans have to admit, it's pretty hilarious that one of Benning's selling points was that he was an old school, hardworking, good guy and yet Dhaliwal is reporting that Tanev is pissed at Benning. Then you have Gillis, who was supposed to be the arrogant douche and yet Ryan Kesler says that he didn't realize how good he had it under Gillus until he left.

I'll admit that I'm definitely surprised that it's come to this. I bought into Benning being a better(or less harsh) communicator than Gillis, but it seems like that turned out to be wrong. I mean the warning signs were there early when Gilman and Linden left, clearly Benning isn't as easy to get along with or as good of a communicator as first advertised.

 

[m9]

Your much better at writing without emotions than I am. This is the nice version of what I’m trying to say but too angry to articulate.

We were told that from 2017 on there was improvement. I don’t see it. Never did. The one good thing about the JT Miller move is he’s actually good and will likely return the trade value. But Sven, Beagle,Roussel, Schaller, Benn, Myers don’t look any different than Guddy, Gagner, Granlund, Vey.

Of course you have little victories like Tyler motte being a fast 4th liner. And Stumbling on Pearson, Leivo and Fantenberg but these are small victories. The big losses set you back seasons. Clearly.

I mean, there's been improvement since 2017 only because the 2014-2017 version was one of the worst managed NHL teams of recent times. And while the cost was extremely high in terms of picks/prospects and it was definitely aided by other factors like health & the pandemic, the team on the ice last year was better than previous (and current) versions of the team.

And yes, there will definitely be wins along the way. 7 years in though, it's past due on dissecting every micro-transaction to determine if this management group has been a success. They haven't been, and it's not really close.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

We didn't need hindsight to have known that it would be the right move, that's just disingenuous, bandy. I guarantee if you had made a poll last offseason, giving the options of keeping either Toffoli or Sutter and Virtanen, the former would have ran away with it.

The re-signing of Virtanen was actually the most head-scratching thing to me that happened last off season. After publicly stating how disappointed they were with Jake, and how much Green dislike him, and even some of his teammates being fed up, I thought for sure he is gone. That they re-upped him for TWO seasons and a decent raise was very surprising to me.
Letting Marky/Tanev go was a foregone conclusion to me so I wasn't surprised there (it sucked, but wasn't a surprise). Couldn't keep Toffoli was the 2nd surprise as, I thought, Benning would've done all he can do sign him to save face from the "paying a 2nd and a prospect for 12 games" fiasco.
Going hard after OEL was the 3rd surprise. With his cap structure, how he thought it was feasible to chase after a $8m AAV player on a long term contract is...odd (to put it nicely).

 

[4Twenty]

I mean, there's been improvement since 2017 only because the 2014-2017 version was one of the worst managed NHL teams of recent times. And while the cost was extremely high in terms of picks/prospects and it was definitely aided by other factors like health & the pandemic, the team on the ice last year was better than previous (and current) versions of the team.

And yes, there will definitely be wins along the way. 7 years in though, it's past due on dissecting every micro-transaction to determine if this management group has been a success. They haven't been, and it's not really close.

Last years team bled slot chances at the same level and was following the regular trend of fading down the stretch.

The bubble was great. Enjoyable. But it had that early Colorado/Toronto ...this is probably unsustainable feel.

They weren’t able to build on that is my beef. I didn’t think they were anything but mediocre but they caught lightning in a bottle for a bit there. It would’ve been nice to have been able to keep and add to it. Not shuffle pieces around hoping for better.

 

[Nucker101]

The re-signing of Virtanen was actually the most head-scratching thing to me that happened last off season. After publicly stating how disappointed they were with Jake, and how much Green dislike him, and even some of his teammates being fed up, I thought for sure he is gone. That they re-upped him for TWO seasons and a decent raise was very surprising to me.
Letting Marky/Tanev go was a foregone conclusion to me so I wasn't surprised there (it sucked, but wasn't a surprise). Couldn't keep Toffoli was the 2nd surprise as, I thought, Benning would've done all he can do sign him to save face from the "paying a 2nd and a prospect for 12 games" fiasco.
Going hard after OEL was the 3rd surprise. With his cap structure, how he thought it was feasible to chase after a $8m AAV player on a long term contract is...odd (to put it nicely).

Benning's non-trades are nightmare fuel.

He tried to trade Garrison for Berglund before trading him for a 2nd. Yet people say that trading Garrison for a 2nd was a sign that Benning was ready to rebuild/retool lol. Berglund was declining and ended up running away to the KHL lol.

He wanted Lucic in the Boeser draft and reportedly had an offer out to acquire Lucic.

He had a trade in place for PK Subban in the OJ draft, Dubois went off the board so the trade was off and OJ busted, but imagine being stuck with Subban's contract. Plus it wasn't a straight up deal, apparently it involved a roster player like Tanev as well LOL

The only reported non-trade that looked reasonable was Benning trying to trade Sutter for Demers.


I mean even Benning supporters or "neutral fans" have to be shook at this point.

 

[VanJack]

At least "Out of Time" will be a nice news headline when Benning is finally let go.

Yep...Jimbo telling Sportsnet that they really 'wanted to sign Tofoli' but just 'ran out of time'.....One assumes that the fruitless pursuit of OEL was just one of the reasons they 'ran out of time'. Or maybe he was wrangling with the owner to try and convince him that they needed to buy somebody out to move cap space.

If it's the latter, then Tofoli is accomplishing the impossible. He's not only sticking it to the GM who let him walk, but also to the 'fat-cat' owner. It's 'delicious' unless you're a long-suffering Canuck fan.

 

[RandV]

What I find hilarious is for years Benning talked about mentors and leadership and went out and overpaid bad players for that. Yet the guys who were actually mentoring our young players (Tanev for Hughes, Markstrom for Pettersson) were let go because we couldn't afford them.

I still feel it was the right call to not bring back Tanev or Markstrom, but the fact that we didn't have the money to improve the team after letting those two big pieces go is the problem.

That's something I fundamentally disagree on, or at the very least with Tanev. It's very rare that you get a team as good as Tampa where you're right up against the cap and every dollar is well spent. Typically, the majority of teams today are floating up to about maybe $10 million in 'dead' cap space. With that being the case, the guys you should be blowing this cap space on are your long term locker room leaders. Yes it's a risk that Tanev may not be playing well in year 3 or 4 of his contract but when right now he's a important leader in the locker room and a great mentor/D-partner for Hughes you take that risk and factor it in to your future dead cap space slush fund.

That's the ideal world of course. When you're already blowing like $30 million on the Beagles and the Sutters and the Myers then there's just nothing you can do when you watch your actual contributing vets get squeezed out, something no one could have predicted.

 

[y2kcanucks]

That's something I fundamentally disagree on, or at the very least with Tanev. It's very rare that you get a team as good as Tampa where you're right up against the cap and every dollar is well spent. Typically, the majority of teams today are floating up to about maybe $10 million in 'dead' cap space. With that being the case, the guys you should be blowing this cap space on are your long term locker room leaders. Yes it's a risk that Tanev may not be playing well in year 3 or 4 of his contract but when right now he's a important leader in the locker room and a great mentor/D-partner for Hughes you take that risk and factor it in to your future dead cap space slush fund.

That's the ideal world of course. When you're already blowing like $30 million on the Beagles and the Sutters and the Myers then there's just nothing you can do when you watch your actual contributing vets get squeezed out, something no one could have predicted.

Tanev wasn't playing well last year, so it would have been signing a bad contract knowing the player isn't really worth the money on day 1. I will never agree that signing bad contracts is a good strategy, ever.

 

[Nucker101]

Tanev wasn't playing well last year, so it would have been signing a bad contract knowing the player isn't really worth the money on day 1. I will never agree that signing bad contracts is a good strategy, ever.

The sad part is that it seems like most dmen seem to play better away from this “system”

 

[Hansen]

Yes maybe MS can jump in here because i hate Vegas and don't watch them that much for my own reasons (FU Bettman).

Schmidt is either adjusting or needs his PEDs. I was excited when we got him, he was an impact player from what i saw.

Part of the issue may be how Baumer is asking him to play. Seemed like in Vegas he could bomb up ice more than here and actually be supported. Here he's having to be a calming steady guy and when he does he's not sure anyone is even gonna bother to cover for him.
It's been odd and mildly disappointing so far.

This is actually a really interesting point, you really don't see him running and gunning which he excelled at in Vegas. He's played with Edler most so it's not like he's missing a guy he can lean on like he had in McNabb.

Baumer's D usage and deployment is baffling at the best of time (i.e. he handcuffs our bottom pairing to our top line in deployment which is just so f***ing stupid and has for years, Gud/Pou was some of the most infuriating of it with how they were out with the top line every time)

 

[4Twenty]

Tanev wasn't playing well last year, so it would have been signing a bad contract knowing the player isn't really worth the money on day 1. I will never agree that signing bad contracts is a good strategy, ever.

Is it possible that Tanev was playing well given the assignment of baby sitting Hughes who looks like an absolute nightmare with everyone else.

Covid got Calgary a deal. 4 years is reasonable. So is the AAV. It only looks pricey because the team is up against it.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Is it possible that Tanev was playing well given the assignment of baby sitting Hughes who looks like an absolute nightmare with everyone else.

Covid got Calgary a deal. 4 years is reasonable. So is the AAV. It only looks pricey because the team is up against it.

That's actually a fair point. I hadn't seen his numbers this year but his analytics are actually quite strong with Calgary. Small sample size, but definitely the opposite of how he was trending last year. To @Nucker101's point, it could be partially due to the system and to your point it could be partially due to babysitting Hughes.

 

[Hit the post]

Is it possible that Tanev was playing well given the assignment of baby sitting Hughes who looks like an absolute nightmare with everyone else.

Covid got Calgary a deal. 4 years is reasonable. So is the AAV. It only looks pricey because the team is up against it.

He's a sophmore still learning the game (who hasn't spent any time in the minors). I'm willing to cut him a ton of slack for now.

 

[4Twenty]

That's actually a fair point. I hadn't seen his numbers this year but his analytics are actually quite strong with Calgary. Small sample size, but definitely the opposite of how he was trending last year. To @Nucker101's point, it could be partially due to the system and to your point it could be partially due to babysitting Hughes.

Last offseason should’ve been a great period of adding quality for cheap and less term than ever. The Canucks were only able to sign a sub .900 goalie.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Last offseason should’ve been a great period of adding quality for cheap and less term than ever. The Canucks were only able to sign a sub .900 goalie.

Absolutely. This should have been the year the Canucks went all-in. We should have had cap space, and with our top 2 players on ELC's and other teams capped out we should have been set-up perfectly. Instead, the contracts that many Benning supporters said would never hurt us ended up hurting us.