Player Discussion What do we have in J.T. Miller? | Part 2

[Flik]

Miller has been awesome and a wonderful addition to the team. I was not super thrilled with the price we paid to trade for him and the huge amount of risk involved with the 1st rounder we traded.

However, I am super stoked that luck finally fell in our favour for once.

I feel like this trade was the anti-typical Canucks luck.

 

[mriswith]

exactly. if you conclude the odds are strongly against something occurring, and the thing occurs, should you not reflect carefully upon whether you had the odds wrong before you start railing against an inconstant universe?

it's very convenient to blame all your bad takes on luck.

Why doesn't this apply to Bennings tenure from 2014-2019 where all of the signings and trades unluckily bombed and we were woefully unlucky due to injuries every year? Who could predict Sbisa and Gudbranson shouldn't have been trade centrepieces or re-signed to bad contracts? Who could predict Eriksson would be a terrible signing? Who could predict Ferland and Myers were bad contracts? Who could predict ad nauseam his entire 2014-2019 tenure?

I agree with you that it is very convenient to blame all of someones bad takes on luck.

That's the key right there. With Markstrom and a relatively healthy lineup, the Canucks were leading the division. So when you're discussing "timing" and "process" of the trade you have to consider and project just how competitive the team could be with Markstrom playing 55-60 games and with the addition of Miller. Just because you and some others have a different perception of where the team was at doesn't mean your perception is the correct one. So if you were judging the trade based on the incorrect perception of the team then of course you would be questioning the timing and process of the trade.

Before the season, Benning haters were saying the Canucks need a top 10-15 offense and top 10 PP and Markstrom need to play the way he did to end last season for the Canucks to have a chance at making the playoffs. Well the Canucks had a top 10 offense and top 5 PP and Markstrom did play like a top 10 goalie.

As with every other year, relying on a healthy lineup doesn't work. Benning has been surprised every year that important players get injured.

If you're only good enough to make the playoffs with everyone healthy, you're not good enough to make the playoffs.

Markstrom going down was a fatal blow to the season, but we had actually been extremely lucky with injuries up to that point in the season as we had a very low number of missed games by impact players - and this is definitively luck when you compare that against any other year of the last decade. That luck was in the process of regressing to the mean when the season ended.

Additionally, they had a butter soft schedule to start the season and a brutal schedule to end the season. So not only does the soft schedule get weighted 20% more heavily than it should but they also skip those hard games, and they skip them right at the moment they are most decimated by injuries and fatigue.

That is potentially a HUGE point swing solely as the result of a black swan event that has nothing to do with (predictable) injuries, rookies, Markstrom, etc.

I also think it's predictable that relying on a rookie coming from college hockey and a skinny sophomore who gets abused with impunity to carry your team will crash and burn halfway/two thirds of the way through the season.

The one way you are right is that everyone here was saying that things needed to go perfectly for us to make the playoffs. And lo and behold, everything went perfectly including (strictly for the nhl standings) covid, and we managed to squeak in by the smallest of margins. I don't think that is good process and timing. I definitely don't think it's justifies mocking critics of the trade like the canucks twitter and aqua did.

 

[Bleach Clean]

I don't know. That question is above my pay grade.

I think you should understand that I'm no fan of Benning and I think we probably need a different GM to shepherd this team to contender status - A GM that can navigate us through our cap difficulties and re-tool and recoup value on the fly as our players price themselves off the roster.

But at the same time, I don't think I'm playing Devil's advocate to say that his move (however desperate and misguided it looked at the time), ended up being the correct one.

As for the difference between the 11th pick and the 20th (where we're at now), that it hinged on a 2 game swing, that's just the natue of the playoffs. The difference between success and failure is often an inch here, a second there, having that one extra forward who can score that one extra greasy goal.

The differences in our interpretation are very slight, but they are there.

I have admitted that the move ended up being fine to good. That is, the result is good despite a wonky plan.

This year, a great many factors had to break right for us to conclude that Benning 'saw this all along':
1. 10 players would have career years.
2. Hughes was going to be #1/#2 Dman out of the gate.
3. Markstrom would have an even better performance.
4. Miller was going to be a 1st line player.
5. Pettersson, Boeser and Horvat would stay at least level or improve.

After all of that, the team has to be close enough in the end for 2 games to decide their fate... 2 games.

Benning just may be a fortune teller. He may have had the crystal ball to see all of this coming. It's possible. Or, he's just an out-of-his-depth GM that had things break right for him this year. You be the judge.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

"Two years ago Benning survived the firing of team president Trevor Linden, largely because his assessment of the Canucks was more aligned with the Aquilinis than Linden’s. Loosely stated, Benning felt the Canucks were close to winning. Linden thought they were still four years away."..Ed Willes.,Province

"He’s made egregious miscalculations in free agency and his trade record isn’t exactly stellar but this year’s deal to land J.T. Miller was a game-changer for the Canucks."..Ed Willes, Province

Ed Willes: Benning marks six years as Canucks’ GM. Are finest days still to come?

 

[mriswith]

"Two years ago Benning survived the firing of team president Trevor Linden, largely because his assessment of the Canucks was more aligned with the Aquilinis than Linden’s. Loosely stated, Benning felt the Canucks were close to winning. Linden thought they were still four years away."..Ed Willes.

What does winning mean in this context? Winning the cup as contenders?

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

What does winning mean in this context? Winning the cup as contenders?

I'm assuming that after Quinn Hughes was drafted..He felt like he finally had the necessary components to make a legitimate run at the playoffs....Not winning the cup.

edit:..I've included the link.

 

[krutovsdonut]

It is, but that's not what is happening here.

The facts were all there:

- 4 years of the 2nd worst record in the league.
- The GM's biggest trades were all pro-scouting errors.
- Team finished 9th worst in 2019.
- 25th in GA/GP and 16th in GF/GP.

If you said a GM traded a future potential unprotected 1st given that backdrop, I would ask you when he was being handed his walking papers?

Now, if you have different facts to the case that you can present that will outline the context as being somehow markedly different than that, I'm all eyes/ears. If you don't, then I think that maybe you should reflect on how you perceive things?

As well, assess the credit (re: bad takes) you give to the HF VAN Benning Detractors (HFBD) that have been proven correct about his tenure for the majority of it.

and if i assess a team with a clearly emerging core arising from a multi year rebuild in july 2019 i see a reasonably common nhl gamble to bring in a quality top 6 veteran to stabilize and help that core.

the only question was whether the price paid was too high and he picked the right player. benning calculated his team was now good enough to carry the freight and miller was the right player.

he was right. you were wrong. your "facts" to the contrary amount to claiming "the team sucked because benning sucked so it could not improve enough to justify the trade".

i disagree. he took an educated gamble. one i disagreed with but understood. as it turned out, benning was right and i was wrong. his team was good enough to make such a trade worthwhile, and miller was a player worth the price. that was apparent all season.

you admitting benning was right and you were wrong is not something i ever expect to hear from you, but it is true.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Why doesn't this apply to Bennings tenure from 2014-2019 where all of the signings and trades unluckily bombed and we were woefully unlucky due to injuries every year? Who could predict Sbisa and Gudbranson shouldn't have been trade centrepieces or re-signed to bad contracts? Who could predict Eriksson would be a terrible signing? Who could predict Ferland and Myers were bad contracts? Who could predict ad nauseam his entire 2014-2019 tenure?

anyone who had ever watched a team rebuild could predict many of his moves would fail.

anyone who watches baseball understands the concept of a sporting activity where getting it right even 33% of the time is very good.

so i'd say most sensible people would understand that the canucks were going to suck for a while and many benning moves would fail.

anyone who took into account the untradeable sedins aging out and the involved ownership wanting a marketable "competitive" team spending to the cap year after year, would understand this particular suck session of a rebuild might be prolonged and painful.

that's my take. i didn't expect benning to make it out the other end of the rebuild when he was hired. i actually thought we'd spend more time in limbo trying to prop up the sedins than we did. if i'd known how our lottery luck would turn out i would have bet against it.

 

[Bleach Clean]

and if i assess a team with a clearly emerging core arising from a multi year rebuild in july 2019 i see a reasonably common nhl gamble to bring in a quality top 6 veteran to stabilize and help that core.

the only question was whether the price paid was too high and he picked the right player. benning calculated his team was now good enough to carry the freight and miller was the right player.

he was right. you were wrong. your "facts" to the contrary amount to claiming "the team sucked because benning sucked so it could not improve enough to justify the trade".

i disagree. he took an educated gamble. one i disagreed with but understood. as it turned out, benning was right and i was wrong. his team was good enough to make such a trade worthwhile, and miller was a player worth the price. that was apparent all season.

you admitting benning was right and you were wrong is not something i ever expect to hear from you, but it is true.

Apparently, admitting the trade turned out fine to good was not enough for you?

Can you provide examples of this "reasonably common NHL gamble"? From these examples, we will see how closely they align with what Benning did here.

My facts outline the base context of the trade. This is what Miller was added to. It's not a claim, that's what was. If you're saying that's not what was, please explain what the context was at the time?

I'm looking for you to provide some data, not rhetoric.

 

[F A N]

I agree with you that it is very convenient to blame all of someones bad takes on luck.

As with every other year, relying on a healthy lineup doesn't work. Benning has been surprised every year that important players get injured.

If you're only good enough to make the playoffs with everyone healthy, you're not good enough to make the playoffs.

Markstrom going down was a fatal blow to the season, but we had actually been extremely lucky with injuries up to that point in the season as we had a very low number of missed games by impact players - and this is definitively luck when you compare that against any other year of the last decade. That luck was in the process of regressing to the mean when the season ended.

But they weren't just good enough to make the playoffs with everyone healthy, they were, like you said, leading the division in January.

As a GM, you can make moves to improve your team's depth to diminish the impact of injuries. Tanev usually misses a chunk of games so the Canucks' big acquisition over the summer was a right side Dman. Dmen who can play both sides were also added. But practically speaking, every GM has to rely on their star players staying healthy. It would be silly to suggest that a GM shouldn't be making moves to surround Petey and Horvat with capable wingers to play with because what if Markstrom gets injured and plays less than 50 games?

Additionally, they had a butter soft schedule to start the season and a brutal schedule to end the season. So not only does the soft schedule get weighted 20% more heavily than it should but they also skip those hard games, and they skip them right at the moment they are most decimated by injuries and fatigue.

That is potentially a HUGE point swing solely as the result of a black swan event that has nothing to do with (predictable) injuries, rookies, Markstrom, etc.

I also think it's predictable that relying on a rookie coming from college hockey and a skinny sophomore who gets abused with impunity to carry your team will crash and burn halfway/two thirds of the way through the season.

A point in Game 1 is worth the same as a point in game 82.

And what the hell are you talking about about Hughes and Petey? Are you saying their game fell off a cliff halfway/two thirds of the way through the season?

The one way you are right is that everyone here was saying that things needed to go perfectly for us to make the playoffs. And lo and behold, everything went perfectly including (strictly for the nhl standings) covid, and we managed to squeak in by the smallest of margins. I don't think that is good process and timing. I definitely don't think it's justifies mocking critics of the trade like the canucks twitter and aqua did.

Every GM is making moves based on their projection of their team. Of course you have to hope for some good luck in the team being in good health and having some bounces go their way. We as fans are commenting based on projections as well. But they are just projections. JT Miller playing like a point per game 1st line winger and Hughes playing like a franchise #1 Dman changes the projections.

Last season, after seeing what Petey was capable of, we discussed if our projections for making the playoffs should be moved up. And why not? The impact of a franchise #1 C cannot be understated.

It's easy to say well you're relying on things to fall perfectly into place but you got to have the capability in the first place. The Blues had a midseason turnaround and enjoyed good health on their way to a Stanley Cup victory last season. Things went perfectly for them to end the season including having some calls go their way. Would they have won a Cup if the goalie that they waived at the beginning of the season got picked up by another team? There are many reasons to doubt that.

When the Kings won their first Cup they sneaked in as the 8th seed.

 

[mriswith]

anyone who had ever watched a team rebuild could predict many of his moves would fail.

anyone who watches baseball understands the concept of a sporting activity where getting it right even 33% of the time is very good.

so i'd say most sensible people would understand that the canucks were going to suck for a while and many benning moves would fail.

anyone who took into account the untradeable sedins aging out and the involved ownership wanting a marketable "competitive" team spending to the cap year after year, would understand this particular suck session of a rebuild might be prolonged and painful.

that's my take. i didn't expect benning to make it out the other end of the rebuild when he was hired. i actually thought we'd spend more time in limbo trying to prop up the sedins than we did. if i'd known how our lottery luck would turn out i would have bet against it.

I don't understand how that answers the question though? You're basically saying management is allowed to bomb 90% of the time because their job is hard, but fans with way less information available to them must be right 100% of the time or else it's just too convenient to blame luck?

Yes our ownership is a bigger problem than Benning because they constantly interfere in the overall strategy, and they have a hilariously dysfunctional relationship where the owner wants to compete immediately and doesn't want to rebuild despite reality, and the GM thinks his team can compete but they actually suck, so we accidentally complete a rebuild despite both gm and owner trying to compete, but that doesn't change the acquisition targets or price paid.

In some ways ownership and managements relationship reminds me of the simpsons episode where Burns goes to the doctor:

 

[krutovsdonut]

Apparently, admitting the trade turned out fine to good was not enough for you?

Can you provide examples of this "reasonably common NHL gamble"? From these examples, we will see how closely they align with what Benning did here.

My facts outline the base context of the trade. This is what Miller was added to. It's not a claim, that's what was. If you're saying that's not what was, please explain what the context was at the time?

I'm looking for you to provide some data, not rhetoric.

conceding the trade turned out alright and but then blaming it on luck is kind of a half assed admission, donchathink? i'd like you to see you admit that benning made an educated gamble and was correct and you were wrong.

and i have pointed out to you before that you constantly steer every discussion into a homework assignment. you have provided no data to support your viewpoint that i can see in your posts so i find the request obnoxious. i am not your errand boy. if you have a positive point refuting mine to make, make it, and bring your own data if you like. otherwise, let's agree to disagree and you go have a nice day.

 

[krutovsdonut]

I don't understand how that answers the question though? You're basically saying management is allowed to bomb 90% of the time because their job is hard, but fans with way less information available to them must be right 100% of the time or else it's just too convenient to blame luck?

or you have missed positives and overemphasized and misconstrued negatives to come up with a 90% failure rate.

if you want to maintain to the bitter end that the management team that assembled the young entertaining competitive team with a promising core currently on the ice is 90% incompetent, i guess it's a free country, but you're not fooling anyone.

 

[F A N]

you constantly steer every discussion into a homework assignment... i am not your errand boy.

ad hominem!

 

[mriswith]

or you have missed positives and overemphasized and misconstrued negatives to come up with a 90% failure rate.

if you want to maintain to the bitter end that the management team that assembled the young entertaining competitive team with a promising core currently on the ice is 90% incompetent, i guess it's a free country, but you're not fooling anyone.

??

I'm just trying to follow your logic here, I'm not even making an argument yet. I'm riffing off your numbers where you said 33% success is very good, doesn't really matter to me whether you pick a 70/80/90% miss rate for Benning, it's all the same for the purposes of what we're talking about.

Which is that your argument doesn't make sense to me because it seems like double standards that management can have an extremely low success rate and fans have to be right every time. I don't understand that.

I'm just trying to understand why this quote from you applies to fans but not management:

exactly. if you conclude the odds are strongly against something occurring, and the thing occurs, should you not reflect carefully upon whether you had the odds wrong before you start railing against an inconstant universe?

it's very convenient to blame all your bad takes on luck.

I really like our young entertaining team and I like Miller and think the trade has turned out to be a win. I don't think the process behind the trade was good unless there's a new talent evaluator behind it who wasn't part of pre-Pearson trades, and I don't think our leadership can manage the cap well enough to turn us into a contender but all of this isn't relevant to what we're talking about. I'm trying to understand how your thought process here works.

 

[krutovsdonut]

??

I'm just trying to follow your logic here, I'm not even making an argument yet. I'm riffing off your numbers where you said 33% success is very good, doesn't really matter to me whether you pick a 70/80/90% miss rate for Benning, it's all the same for the purposes of what we're talking about.

Which is that your argument doesn't make sense to me because it seems like double standards that management can have an extremely low success rate and fans have to be right every time. I don't understand that.

I'm just trying to understand why this quote from you applies to fans but not management:



I really like our young entertaining team and I like Miller and think the trade has turned out to be a win. I don't think the process behind the trade was good and I don't think our leadership can manage the cap well enough to turn us into a contender but all of this isn't relevant to what we're talking about. I'm trying to understand how your thought process here works.

i said 33% execution was excellent in baseball to make the point perfection and excellence are not the same thing.

i didn't state a statistical target number for fail for nhl team rebuilding with an antsy owner and an aging out core with two aging superstars.

i just said plenty of fail will happen. and it did.

 

[Bleach Clean]

I don't know. That question is above my pay grade.

I think you should understand that I'm no fan of Benning and I think we probably need a different GM to shepherd this team to contender status - A GM that can navigate us through our cap difficulties and re-tool and recoup value on the fly as our players price themselves off the roster.

But at the same time, I don't think I'm playing Devil's advocate to say that his move (however desperate and misguided it looked at the time), ended up being the correct one.

As for the difference between the 11th pick and the 20th (where we're at now), that it hinged on a 2 game swing, that's just the natue of the playoffs. The difference between success and failure is often an inch here, a second there, having that one extra forward who can score that one extra greasy goal.

To preface : It doesn't matter to me if you are fan of Benning or not. I'm only looking at the move and the context of when it was made. This could be Jeff Gorton trading a future 1st after being 4 years in the basement. The criticism would be the same: Probability is not on the side of such a move.

It's the same argument used against advanced stats. When an unlikely outcome occurs on the least likely side of the ledger, people point to the initial odds being incorrect. They don't realize that the least likely outcome was always accounted for in the overall assertion.

Example: LA is the top possession team in 2012. As a result, they are given 60%-65% winning odds against any team they face. They are the 8th seed. They topple VAN and proceed to win the cup. Each dice roll landed on the 65% side of the ledger.

Fast forward to 2013, and they are still favoured per the stats, but they lose to CHI in the WCF. Were the odds wrong or did the dice land on the 35% side of the ledger? Advocates of probability know this.

This is no different. If you can show me that the probability for a playoff appearance was with the Canucks upon making the Miller trade, I'm all for it. Let's see it. If not, then you have to acknowledge the probability of the situation at the time and assume that Benning is not an idiot savant in this case.

 

[Diversification]

To preface : It doesn't matter to me if you are fan of Benning or not. I'm only looking at the move and the context of when it was made. This could be Jeff Gorton trading a future 1st after being 4 years in the basement. The criticism would be the same: Probability is not on the side of such a move.

It's the same argument used against advanced stats. When an unlikely outcome occurs on the least likely side of the ledger, people point to the initial odds being incorrect. They don't realize that the least likely outcome was always accounted for in the overall assertion.

Example: LA is the top possession team in 2012. As a result, they are given 60%-65% winning odds against any team they face. They are the 8th seed. They topple VAN and proceed to win the cup. Each dice roll landed on the 65% side of the ledger.

Fast forward to 2013, and they are still favoured per the stats, but they lose to CHI in the WCF. Were the odds wrong or did the dice land on the 35% side of the ledger? Advocates of probability know this.

This is no different. If you can show me that the probability for a playoff appearance was with the Canucks upon making the Miller trade, I'm all for it. Let's see it. If not, then you have to acknowledge the probability of the situation at the time and assume that Benning is not an idiot savant in this case.

Benning is no savant of any sort. But he placed a big bet on the possibility that the team was on the cusp and just needed to consolidate their top6 to do it.

It just so happens that he was correct this time and there was probably no statististical justification for it.

But it doesn’t change the fact that he happened to be correct and I think that begs the question if you’re being intellectually honest: why was he correct? Was it a statistical anomaly and there’s nothing wrong with your assessment or your understanding of where the team was? Or that maybe you can’t gauge the progress of a young and developing team using possession stats, that their progress at that stage can be wildly non-linear because star players usually blossom rapidly in their early twenties.

I have to admit that this season has made me revisit some of my assumptions about what I understand about building a team.

 

[Bleach Clean]

conceding the trade turned out alright and but then blaming it on luck is kind of a half assed admission, donchathink? i'd like you to see you admit that benning made an educated gamble and was correct and you were wrong.

and i have pointed out to you before that you constantly steer every discussion into a homework assignment. you have provided no data to support your viewpoint that i can see in your posts so i find the request obnoxious. i am not your errand boy. if you have a positive point refuting mine to make, make it, and bring your own data if you like. otherwise, let's agree to disagree and you go have a nice day.

I do tend to revert to the facts of a discussion, yes. It's a failing when dealing with posters who don't want to discuss the facts, I know, but we must address them, unfortunately. Here they are again in case you missed them the first time:

The facts were all there:

- 4 years of the 2nd worst record in the league.
- The GM's biggest trades were all pro-scouting errors.
- Team finished 9th worst in 2019.
- 25th in GA/GP and 16th in GF/GP.

And so given that backdrop, if the GM to this club traded a future 1st rounder, would you consider that rational? Yes or no? If you think yes, then please provide data that suggests that the context to the trade was not as above. Such as, they had excellent underlying numbers despite their poor traditional stats. Or, that Hughes was tracking like a top pairing lock based upon his USHL play. Just something to suggest Benning saw what no one else could see.

When you do that, then I'm going to ask you: Was this magic third eye of Benning somehow shut the previous 4 years?

Overall, if an accurate admission is not to your liking, I can't help you. I do think many factors had to break right for the Canucks to lock a spot, the least of which is having 10 players have career years. That's a pretty fair assessment, I think.

He won the trade, he just needed a lot of help to do it.

 

[Bleach Clean]

Benning is no savant of any sort. But he placed a big bet on the possibility that the team was on the cusp and just needed to consolidate their top6 to do it.

It just so happens that he was correct this time and there was probably no statististical justification for it.

But it doesn’t change the fact that he happened to be correct and I think that begs the question if you’re being intellectually honest: why was he correct? Was it a statistical anomaly and there’s nothing wrong with your assessment or your understanding of where the team was? Or that maybe you can’t gauge the progress of a young and developing team using possession stats, that their progress at that stage can be wildly non-linear because star players usually blossom rapidly in their early twenties.

I have to admit that this season has made me revisit some of my assumptions about what I understand about building a team.

Of course it's always good to test and re-test one's method of evaluation.

You bring up a key point: If there was no statistical justification for expecting the team to make the gains they had, and we can't gauge the wildly non-linear progression of star players, why are we then assuming the opposite for Benning here?

Benning is somehow capable of gauging the wildly non-linear development of his star players.

Benning is somehow able to accurately predict his team's playoff chances with the addition of Miller.

If anyone believes those two statements, then I think we have to move to what he was saying about his team's in the 4 prior years and where they finished. What happened there? Did he have the wrong percentages in his brain during those years?

Anybody thinking that Benning made the right call at the time based upon the result alone is welcome to that thinking. It's a leap, IMO, but each poster is welcome to make that leap. I just hope those same posters can reconcile this with Benning's performance in the previous 4 years... Without putting on an Olympic level gymnastic performance in their own minds.

 

[RandV]

I do tend to revert to the facts of a discussion, yes. It's a failing when dealing with posters who don't want to discuss the facts, I know, but we must address them, unfortunately. Here they are again in case you missed them the first time:

The facts were all there:

- 4 years of the 2nd worst record in the league.
- The GM's biggest trades were all pro-scouting errors.
- Team finished 9th worst in 2019.
- 25th in GA/GP and 16th in GF/GP.

I've more or less avoided the Miller discussion all year, but another factor was just simply the lack of any sort of negotiating when completing the trade. Tampa facing a cap crunch said they wanted a 1st and a 3rd for him, in my opinion probably looking at a team like Colorado who was in the market, and you have to keep in mind that 1st rounders have vastly different value depending on the team. Benning comes in with what has a high chance of being a lotto pick and just says 'okay' to the up front asking price, where as your average GM probably could have negotiated that down to something between at best just our 2nd that draft (Hoglander) to at most a single lottery protected 1st.

Now normally I don't mind the type of approach Benning made, it's okay to 'pay extra' to get a specifically targeted player if you think he's just what your team needs. But this is an approach Benning has taken pretty much from day 1 starting with Linden Vey, has been their for pretty much every big deal and until Miller the target has been from flat out wrong to inconsequential every time. It shows that while they picked the right target this time, unlike Sutter and Gudbranson who they paid more or less the same price for, after all these years Benning has never actually improved on the process.

Now looking back at Miller himself, while he turned out better than expected he was certainly a good target to go after and you'd have to expect he'd do quite well here. He struggled the prior season in Tampa getting relegated to the 3rd line but this was a young player who had previously shown he could be a 20 goal 50 point player. Take him into Vancouver where you're going to give him top line minutes with the insanely talented Elias Pettersson, and it should have been expected that he could be a 30-30-60 player. The team wouldn't be as good but you could play Baerstchi or Goldobin there all season and they'd probably pot 20 goals.

 

[F A N]

Benning comes in with what has a high chance of being a lotto pick

High chance of lotto pick according to who? Before Petey won rookie of the year Benning haters predicted that the Canucks were at least 2-3 years away from playoff contention. After Petey proved himself to be a franchise #1 C did the timeline remain the same? The Canucks were clearly on the rise and had 2 years to make the playoffs for that pick not to be a lotto pick and you know Benning will make moves to improve the team in the near future.

 

[Diversification]

If anyone believes those two statements, then I think we have to move to what he was saying about his team's in the 4 prior years and where they finished. What happened there? Did he have the wrong percentages in his brain during those years?

Anybody thinking that Benning made the right call at the time based upon the result alone is welcome to that thinking. It's a leap, IMO, but each poster is welcome to make that leap. I just hope those same posters can reconcile this with Benning's performance in the previous 4 years... Without putting on an Olympic level gymnastic performance in their own minds.

Here's how I reconcile it: The parameters of the trade were that the addition of JT Miller to the team would lead to a playoff spot either this year or the next. This was not a terrible bet. Boeser and EP were Calder candidates the preceding years and the team was slowly improving. It's not without risk, but it's not insane either. At core, what many posters balked at was the cost of a 1st rounder because they erroneously assessed that the team desperately needed this pick to add a missing piece. There was a great deal of concern that without said piece, the team was doomed to mediocrity.

But several things were revealed this season that not only made that bet pay off, but pay off early and beyond what was reasonably expected: Benning hit an inside straight flush on the river when QH showed he could step in and play like a top pairing dman right off the hop. As an unintended consequence, QH took a lot of pressure off of Tanev who was able to stay healthy with more cascading benefits down the lineup. JT Miller was way better than advertised showing instant chemistry with EP and adding a much needed smart, physical dimension to what would be known as the lotto line.

So in my mind the wildly non-linear improvement was a result of elements there were already present. It set the stage for a lot of internal improvement that synergized with the addition of Hughes, Miller, and to a lesser extent Myers. Those types of things are difficult to model with statistics. I think they can only be recognized by an understanding of how a group of young players can rapidly improve and an understanding of the parts that were already in place. Do I credit Benning with that level of vision? Not really, but like a historian can trace the origins of the first World War past the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, I can in retrospect look at the team and reconcile how a really good team can come together without carefully laying out pieces one-by-one. That's what I meant when I said that this year's team has challenged some of my pre-conceived notions.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Here's how I reconcile it: The parameters of the trade were that the addition of JT Miller to the team would lead to a playoff spot either this year or the next. This was not a terrible bet. Boeser and EP were Calder candidates the preceding years and the team was slowly improving. It's not without risk, but it's not insane either. At core, what many posters balked at was the cost of a 1st rounder because they erroneously assessed that the team desperately needed this pick to add a missing piece. There was a great deal of concern that without said piece, the team was doomed to mediocrity.

But several things were revealed this season that not only made that bet pay off, but pay off early and beyond what was reasonably expected: Benning hit an inside straight flush on the river when QH showed he could step in and play like a top pairing dman right off the hop. As an unintended consequence, QH took a lot of pressure off of Tanev who was able to stay healthy with more cascading benefits down the lineup. JT Miller was way better than advertised showing instant chemistry with EP and adding a much needed smart, physical dimension to what would be known as the lotto line.

So in my mind the wildly non-linear improvement was a result of elements there were already present. It set the stage for a lot of internal improvement that synergized with the addition of Hughes, Miller, and to a lesser extent Myers. Those types of things are difficult to model with statistics. I think they can only be recognized by an understanding of how a group of young players can rapidly improve and an understanding of the parts that were already in place. Do I credit Benning with that level of vision? Not really, but like a historian can trace the origins of the first World War past the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, I can in retrospect look at the team and reconcile how a really good team can come together without carefully laying out pieces one-by-one. That's what I meant when I said that this year's team has challenged some of my pre-conceived notions.

Great post...Bennings wish list had always been a good puck moving D man, who could play on the PP.......QH answered all of his prayers.

Credit to Benning for having the foresight, to make the Miller trade, and the other UFA signings in 2019..His timing was spot on, even though most fans balked at the price of a 1st (myself included) ...These moves accelerated the squad to a new level.

Good GM'ing right there...imo...If we had gone the safe route last year (made the pick, no trades or signings)...the conversation would be distinctly different from what it is right now.

 

[GetFocht]

What do we have? An absolute stud.

Benning took the risk and signalled to the team it's time to load up for the playoffs and it paid off ten fold.

You only win big in life with risk.