The Management Thread | We live Page to Page here

[Vector]

Good to know. Thank you.

 

[The Vasili Jerry]

I guess I've been living in LA/OC the wrong way the past decade. I've been getting duped by my bank account into thinking it is expensive.

 

[Hit the post]

I guess I've been living in LA/OC the wrong way the past decade. I've been getting duped by my bank account into thinking it is expensive.

I'm not Chinese. You were duped!

 

[The Vasili Jerry]

I'm not Chinese. You were duped!

I might wanna think about changing my city.

 

[RussianRacket]

Lots of confidence restored in Benning after his moves this offseason. Lets goooooooo!

 

[Bleach Clean]

Isn't my information to give in detail but I wouldn't be repeating it if I didn't totally trust the source and if it didn't line up with some other (seemingly unrelated) subsequent events. Make of it what you will, I guess.

What I can say is that it was very obvious that they were close to making a change. The Courtnall and Griffiths consults should tell us that pretty unequivocally. That they'd gone pretty far on other options shouldn't be a huge leap.

What information are you repeating here? What is the reference?

Edit: Ah I see you don't want to relay it.

 

[geebaan]

Lots of confidence restored in Benning after his moves this offseason. Lets goooooooo!

I think it’s literally just you saying this

 

[Bleach Clean]

One really doesn't.

People are pretty straight forward about this stuff. Miller trade and Garland (for the 9th OA) are examples. People are okay with the value, aren't convinced this team should be trading draft picks right now, and they say that straight up.

That's probably been the way the OP has been perceiving it throughout regardless. Cheering for bad management makes a good 'fan'. Meanwhile, side eye any criticism from discerning fans, accurate or not. It's how you get to the "be positive" narrative while the franchise crumbles before you. 7+ years of this...

I would caution: Be weary of any poster that superimposes your inherent bias onto your ability to evaluate GM actions. These are not one and the same, and said poster probably has to link the two in order to shape reality for himself.

 

[Bleach Clean]

the repeated answer to what you’re saying @krutovsdonut is that ownership will never change even if no one likes that ugly clown aqua and recognizes that - if we have to make a gm change in the next 12 months - the likelihood of it being a brisebois level candidate who can alter the course of the franchise for the next decade is virtually null

so we either just keep complaining about the symptom and hope the new one will be good or.. stop following the team

i’ll go with the former

Couple of things:

1. The likelihood of a progressive candidate, Brisebois being the pinnacle, is not null. We only need to look back at history to understand this: Gillis. When Aqua goes to the green-GM-well, the odds that he gets someone good is about equal because we don't know how that GM will adapt to the role.

2. I seldom respond to Krutov anymore, but I will this time. Have a look at it with regards to ownership being the real problem.

 

[Paulinbc]

Lots of confidence restored in Benning after his moves this offseason. Lets goooooooo!

Did you ever lose confidence in benning?

 

[RussianRacket]

I think it’s literally just you saying this

I disagree!

 

[geebaan]

I disagree!

show me another post. I dare you.

 

[Peen]

show me another post. I dare you.

he’s right fwiw there is a handful

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

Everyone has implicit biases though. If you're cheering for the team to lose it changes your perception. A Canucks fan cheering for the team to win would naturally be more excited about a good move than someone cheering for the team to lose.

I think a lot of us have been metaphorically kicked in the private area so often by this regime that we have become kinda numb to the day to day pain and can detach a little enough to see both the bad and good moves independent of where we see this ship headed.

 

[MS]

I think a lot of us have been metaphorically kicked in the private area so often by this regime that we have become kinda numb to the day to day pain and can detach a little enough to see both the bad and good moves independent of where we see this ship headed.

Like, I'm always evaluating whether I'm right or wrong in my takes on stuff.

If I start being consistently wrong on moves that work out great for Benning and the team ... I'll need to evaluate whether I have biases that are making me come to incorrect conclusions.

But after evaluating literally hundreds of moves for 8 years, if anything history has shown me than I've actually been too lenient on Benning and overestimated how well moves would turn out rather than the opposite.

 

[Melvin]

Like, I'm always evaluating whether I'm right or wrong in my takes on stuff.

If I start being consistently wrong on moves that work out great for Benning and the team ... I'll need to evaluate whether I have biases that are making me come to incorrect conclusions.

But after evaluating literally hundreds of moves for 8 years, if anything history has shown me than I've actually been too lenient on Benning and overestimated how well moves would turn out rather than the opposite.

It's amazing that people don't get this.

My biggest misses since Benning has arrived:

* Thinking Schaller was a decent signing.
* Thinking MDZ was a good signing.
* Giving the benefit of the doubt on Gudbranson.
* Agreeing with not giving Tanev a 3 year contract.

In 8 years I can't think of a time where I went against Benning and was wrong. It's incredible actually. By sheer law of averages it should have happened a few times by now. But assuming that what he does is incorrect is actually the most reasonable thing you can do right now. Like, The biggest mark against Tucker Poolman (for example) is that Benning likes him. That's just a basic Bayesian reasoning. If you simply assume that defenders acquired by Benning are bad without looking at anything else, you will be basically at 100%.

"If Benning likes him, he probably sucks" sure sounds like BiAS AgINAtST BENignNG but it's actually a completely reasonable argument at this stage. We have mountains of evidence that players Benning likes are bad at hockey. It might be the most predictive metric in the sport right now.

 

[MS]

It's amazing that people don't get this.

My biggest misses since Benning has arrived:

* Thinking Schaller was a decent signing.
* Thinking MDZ was a good signing.
* Giving the benefit of the doubt on Gudbranson.
* Agreeing with not giving Tanev a 3 year contract.

In 8 years I can't think of a time where I went against Benning and was wrong. It's incredible actually. By sheer law of averages it should have happened a few times by now. But assuming that what he does is incorrect is actually the most reasonable thing you can do right now. Like, The biggest mark against Tucker Poolman (for example) is that Benning likes him. That's just a basic Bayesian reasoning. If you simply assume that defenders acquired by Benning are bad without looking at anything else, you will be basically at 100%.

"If Benning likes him, he probably sucks" sure sounds like BiAS AgINAtST BENignNG but it's actually a completely reasonable argument at this stage. We have mountains of evidence that players Benning likes are bad at hockey. It might be the most predictive metric in the sport right now.

100%

Likewise, things like overestimating Gudbranson and Eriksson (didn't like either move, but thought the players would be OK, at least to start) are some of my biggest misses. Biggest miss of all was siding with Benning on the Juolevi pick (although that's amateur scouting and way more of an unknown, and probably underestimated Hoglander on the flipside). Overestimated how good Schmidt would be.

I was wrong about the Motte deal and have re-evaluated how I look at late round pick value and certain types of moves since then (was one of the only people who was OK with the value on the Gaudette trade as a result). I highly criticized the Miller trade (liked the player, hated the stupid risk for short-term job saving) and it's worked out decently but the scenario I warned about (getting Pollocked and trading a lottery pick while missing the playoffs) came incredibly close to happening. I'm struggling to think of other times my take on a pro scouting/roster move of any significance ended up substantially wrong. Someone like Roussel was briefly better than I expected but the contract overall turned out exactly how I expected.

I'm pretty comfortable with that record. And yeah, just blindly stating 'Benning did it so it's bad' to literally everything he's done would have led to a remarkable success rate in evaluating his tenure.

People live in this fantasyland where everything has a middle ground, like coming in half way between Bernie Sanders and neo-Nazis is 'fair'. It's kind of the same here. Some things are bad pretty much all the time. Some people do bad things pretty much all the time. When someone does 90% of things badly, saying they did 50% or 60% of things badly isn't a fair or accurate position.

 

[Hit the post]

It's amazing that people don't get this.

My biggest misses since Benning has arrived:

* Thinking Schaller was a decent signing.
* Thinking MDZ was a good signing.
* Giving the benefit of the doubt on Gudbranson.
* Agreeing with not giving Tanev a 3 year contract.

In 8 years I can't think of a time where I went against Benning and was wrong. It's incredible actually. By sheer law of averages it should have happened a few times by now. But assuming that what he does is incorrect is actually the most reasonable thing you can do right now. Like, The biggest mark against Tucker Poolman (for example) is that Benning likes him. That's just a basic Bayesian reasoning. If you simply assume that defenders acquired by Benning are bad without looking at anything else, you will be basically at 100%.

"If Benning likes him, he probably sucks" sure sounds like BiAS AgINAtST BENignNG but it's actually a completely reasonable argument at this stage. We have mountains of evidence that players Benning likes are bad at hockey. It might be the most predictive metric in the sport right now.

Sweet jeebus did that guy ever suck.

Even Gubranson has a small stretch of games where he didn't look THAT bad. Same with Loui Eriksson. Sutter had a solid season or two (forget just stretch of games).

But Schaller? Complete trash. I wonder if he ever had even TWO good shifts in a row during his time as a Canuck?

 

[AwesomeInTheory]

The Shinkaruk trade I think was another one that folks might've been wrong on, although I think it was split between people who felt it was too early to give up on him (me) vs the player that was targeted.

The Ryan Miller signing I had viewed as being needless and risky as I figured he'd be on the IR a lot.

 

[MS]

Sweet jeebus did that guy ever suck.

Even Gubranson has a small stretch of games where he didn't look THAT bad. Same with Loui Eriksson. Sutter had a solid season or two (forget just stretch of games).

But Schaller? Complete trash. I wonder if he ever had even TWO good shifts in a row during his time as a Canuck?

The Schaller signing is an amazing one because there are actually multiple degrees of Benning's inability to evaluate hockey players in play.

I'd almost guarantee that one of the big reasons he was signed is because he stepped up to fight Gudbranson in a game against us the previous season. Benning's terrible mis-evaluation of Gudbranson therefore caused a secondary mis-evaluation of a player involved in play against Gudbranson.

 

[MS]

The Shinkaruk trade I think was another one that folks might've been wrong on, although I think it was split between people who felt it was too early to give up on him (me) vs the player that was targeted.

The Ryan Miller signing I had viewed as being needless and risky as I figured he'd be on the IR a lot.

Miller aged a bit better than I expected and he grew on me a bit as a person through his time here but the general gist of mine and others' take was correct in the bigger picture :

Not required on a team that had quality cheap goaltending in place.
Bad use of cap space on a team that needed bigger holes filled elsewhere.
Bad fit as an old signing on a team that should be going younger.
Unlikely to be anything better than a middling starter based on his age, and likely to suffer injury problems.

All of that proved pretty much dead on. Basically we spent $18 million on a guy who spent 3 years blocking younger backups who were outperforming him (on a bad team that should have been prioritizing development) and who delivered a total of zero playoff games won.

 

[Melvin]

I think part of the reason I was okay with Schiller was because it came right after the atrocious Beagle and Roussel signings and after spending all day beating up on Benning for those terrible signing I felt like I needed to say something nice about something, so was like hey maybe this is good. It’s like what you say about the faux middle ground and how if anything I’ve been too lenient. I get accused of blindly hating benning so much that I actually still try to throw him a bone sometimes and I shouldn’t. He sucks and everything he does is bad.

 

[Bleach Clean]

this is sort of correct. my view is that the problem with the team is the owner interfering with the team like a spoiled 8 year old playing with toys. i have not really changed that view, although i also ran out of patience with benning some years ago. i see benning as a symptom not the disease. i also think benning's actual competence is a lot higher than you guys do, but i still think he has made key mistakes and has long ago exceeded the rope any gm should have to make good even if he has achieved some success. he should be fired for seven years of meh, and also for being associated with the brutal mishandling of the offseason last year when tanev and marky went. i believe the reason he has a job is that so many of the team's mistakes were not his mistakes such that aquaman cannot hold him accountable, and also the fact that aquaman cannot hire the "name" his ego requires to replace him because nobody with a reputation will accept his interference.

i think you guys waste vast amounts of energy criticizing benning when most of the time it is the ownership direction you are criticizing. you lose perspective by failing to keep distinct the team direction that drives a decision and the decision. you lose the plot completely by trying so hard to make benning look bad, which in my view just provides cover for aquaman. if you were looking at this thing as i do, you would see patterns emerge independent of benning, such as the compulsive need to spend to the cap every year, which predates benning, and the related equally compulsive need to always chase the ufa market to find new toys, preferably with reputations. nonis was fired for trying to retain autonomy and not chase a player aquaman wanted. gillis was prevented from changing the team direction or making trades, and forced to accept torts in a fruitless effort to squeeze more out of a finished core and then fired as a scapegoat.

an example would be poolman. poolman for 4 years at that salary is a reckless gamble for the team that a gm with autonomy and a realistic mandate to take his time to build this team would not make. but if you assume, as i do, that, benning was ordered to field a team as competitive as possible this year and to fix the d this year and to sign free agents to do it, poolman is not a bad gamble compared to the alternatives. ditto for oel. obviously a dangerous unnecessary gamble if you as a gm have autonomy, but if you assume the mandate i assume, actually a pretty resourceful way for benning to take his best shot to immediately improve the team, and he extracted a lot out of arizona to do it.

does that make benning a bad gm? it does in the sense that he has compromised his autonomy and integrity to hang onto his dream job. but i actually think the canucks front office he has built is pretty competent and does lots of things right. so i will always wonder what benning would do if aquaman just went fishing. not that benning deserves that chance at this stage, but i still think he is not the caricature of a bad gm so many people irrationally cling to here as an explanation for all the canuck's woes.

one last issue. i am first and foremast a fan. if benning's gambles pay off this year, it will secure aquaman's role and ownership style for another decade, which i think by and large is toxic for the team. this offseason is the first time i have seen signs aquaman may lose his grip on the team and the instance of his family, and it may be the last chance for his brothers to oust him with luigi getting older. that would be huge if it happened, and would give the team a chance to be run on a proper professional footing instead of as some rich spoiled kid's toy. but as a fan i will still cheer and celebrate if aquaman's pigheaded gambles pay off and even give the guy credit.

Judging Benning via the lens of ownership mandate is fine. Everyone knows Aqua is pulling the strings. However, let's not confuse direction for action. When a certain move is made, it's still Benning providing the cost-benefit. He's still advising Aqua. In other words, the puppet is still doing the work... and he's done a terrible job of it regardless of the master.

Next, nobody is trying hard to make Benning look bad. It's two things:
1) This is just the sum total of many critiques gathered over time, the majority of them being negative and
2) He's been more or less condemned on HF Van. Most posters have reached their threshold of bad moves with him. This is the result.

To use the Poolman point as an example: How many times do you think Benning has been given marching orders to make the team competitive or to fix the defense? How many times has he tried and failed? Poolman is just another example of said same.

The OEL gamble was terrible. A desperate GM taking on maybe the 5th or 6th worst contract in the league.

One of the thinnest front offices in the league. Rumours swirling about their incompetence. "The front office he has built is pretty competent".

In a way, you have reiterated that you still think Benning is competent and resourceful. That he does not deserve the critique levied against him. This is 7+ years in, and this is exactly why I questioned Peen's interpretation of your position. Nothing has really changed your perception of him as GM, you've instead shifted blame to Aqua.

They are both terrible, not just Aqua.

 

[F A N]

We apparently had a progressive new regime virtually signed and in place (right down to the new AGMs) before bad advice from out-of-touch idiots like Courtnall and Griffiths caused ownership to change course and go with this stupid Sedin solution and keep Benning. So change is possible in the current system.

Isn't my information to give in detail but I wouldn't be repeating it if I didn't totally trust the source and if it didn't line up with some other (seemingly unrelated) subsequent events. Make of it what you will, I guess.

What I can say is that it was very obvious that they were close to making a change. The Courtnall and Griffiths consults should tell us that pretty unequivocally. That they'd gone pretty far on other options shouldn't be a huge leap.

C'mmon MS. I think this is the first time you ever claimed having "insider knowledge." Give us more info.

 

[racerjoe]

Miller aged a bit better than I expected and he grew on me a bit as a person through his time here but the general gist of mine and others' take was correct in the bigger picture :

Not required on a team that had quality cheap goaltending in place.
Bad use of cap space on a team that needed bigger holes filled elsewhere.
Bad fit as an old signing on a team that should be going younger.
Unlikely to be anything better than a middling starter based on his age, and likely to suffer injury problems.

All of that proved pretty much dead on. Basically we spent $18 million on a guy who spent 3 years blocking younger backups who were outperforming him (on a bad team that should have been prioritizing development) and who delivered a total of zero playoff games won.

But I have been told Benning is learning and he wouldn’t make the mistake again of paying an over priced passed his prime goalie more than he is worth based on his name again.

Side note what happened to our backup last year?