18/19 MGMT thread VIII

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Pastor Of Muppetz

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Oct 1, 2017
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Vanek lead the Sabres in Goals 5 seasons off 8,
4 time in points.
2008 he lead the League with most Hattricks, lead the League 2007 in +/- 2009 with 20 Power Play Goals.
Was until 2013 the Leader in PenaltyShots in % all time.
With 5 trys he still is.
He was a franchise Player, kessel with toronto the same.
To me..both are complimentary 'elite' players... but to each his own I guess.....It goes in 3 tiers... 1)Generational..2)Franchise...3) Elite...

If Kessel and Vanek are/were franchise players, then half of the elite players would be franchise players...There would probably currently be about 50 in the league.
 
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Askel

By the way Benning should be fired.
Apr 19, 2004
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So now its a semantik discussion on what a Franchise player is. The problem is that if you dont accept that Vanek once was a franchise player then you cant say Petterson is franchise player now. Buffalo gave up on Briere and Drury but not on Vanek when their great team imploded.

Vanek was valued as a dominant player, but he never became what he was supposed to be. Maybe Pettersson doesn't improve from this year either (I think he will but you cant predict the future).

BTW
Benning & co has done a fine job drafting except for missing on top 6 picks. Is that good?
 

Bleach Clean

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Aug 9, 2006
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The franchise player talk is a red herring.

Draft conversion overall, which includes draft quality, is the primary baseline with which to judge the draft. Once that's in the bag, then trades and then signings are evaluated. Focusing on a semantic argument of one very uncontrollable and minute portion of the draft gets you nowhere when judging Benning's overall body of work. It's meant to take you away from the discussion that actually matters.
 

Melvin

21/12/05
Sep 29, 2017
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The conversation has predictably veered towards drafting because it's the only area where Benning can be shown to be average. It's only one aspect of management though.

PoM has outlined 50 games of play and the drafting of EP and BB as his main arguments for viewing Benning as an average GM. That baseline is absurd. It ignores 3 years of the worst team play, which he says was necessary (what?). It also ignores Benning's larger body of work for trades and signings.

He knows. It's been explained to him thousands of times.

Benning is "average at drafting" in the same way that I am "average at coin flipping." it's not a skill. This too has been demonstrated a thousand times over.
 

topched88

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Jan 21, 2007
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As much as I’d love to move elder, my realistic hopes for the deadline is we unload sutter and guddy. I think at those point both haven’t quite gotten to the point of negative value even though they should, but If we could pick up anything for them that would be awesome
 

TruGr1t

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Jun 26, 2003
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The conversation has predictably veered towards drafting because it's the only area where Benning can be shown to be average. It's only one aspect of management though.

PoM has outlined 50 games of play and the drafting of EP and BB as his main arguments for viewing Benning as an average GM. That baseline is absurd. It ignores 3 years of the worst team play, which he says was necessary (what?). It also ignores Benning's larger body of work for trades and signings.

Not only is that baseline absurd, but you could do that for basically every team in the league. The discussions on Benning often lack the context by looking at the Canucks roster in some sort of vacuum. I'd say Benning has achieved the bare minimum, relative to his peers, you'd hope someone could manage in 5 years as the GM of a NHL team (i.e. not completely screwed up our first round picks, only somewhat). If you only take the work at the NHL level he's in the running for worst in the league.
 

Hodgy

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He knows. It's been explained to him thousands of times.

Benning is "average at drafting" in the same way that I am "average at coin flipping." it's not a skill. This too has been demonstrated a thousand times over.

Ya, but you were apparently wrong on something totally irrelevant to this, so you are also wrong on this. It’s as simple as that with PoM.
 

The Drop

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Jul 12, 2015
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Drafting EP and Boeser was excellent. I don’t think anyone argues this.

But those 2 picks don’t make Benning a good drafter when he’s missed on picks in Juolevi, Virtanen and McCann.

That’s inexcusable.

Hughes also looks like a good pick but what else is there? Gaudette doesn’t look like an everyday NHLer. At least not yet.
Demko, the jury is still out.

Bennings picks beyond the first round have played 118 total games for the Canucks. That’s from 28 players he’s drafted and 79 of those are Tryamkin.


Since 2014......
 

Melvin

21/12/05
Sep 29, 2017
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Drafting EP and Boeser was excellent. I don’t think anyone argues this.

But those 2 picks don’t make Benning a good drafter when he’s missed on picks in Juolevi, Virtanen and McCann.

That’s inexcusable.

Hughes also looks like a good pick but what else is there? Gaudette doesn’t look like an everyday NHLer. At least not yet.
Demko, the jury is still out.

Bennings picks beyond the first round have played 118 total games for the Canucks. That’s from 28 players he’s drafted and 79 of those are Tryamkin.


Since 2014......

A guy rolls a die 5 times and twice he manages to roll a six, so people say he's good at rolling dice.

Mind-numbing.

Pettersson was my choice in the 2017 draft, even before the lottery results. I guess I'm qualified to be GM. Cool.
 

member 290103

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Drafting EP and Boeser was excellent. I don’t think anyone argues this.

But those 2 picks don’t make Benning a good drafter when he’s missed on picks in Juolevi, Virtanen and McCann.

That’s inexcusable.

Hughes also looks like a good pick but what else is there? Gaudette doesn’t look like an everyday NHLer. At least not yet.
Demko, the jury is still out.

Bennings picks beyond the first round have played 118 total games for the Canucks. That’s from 28 players he’s drafted and 79 of those are Tryamkin.


Since 2014......

All this praise for Benning's drafts....does anyone realize that in reality this is not as a result of Benning's talent evaluation skill, but rather that of his scouts? If you go to the draft day videos, Benning is openly questioning what different players bring to the table as early as the second round. You can put the first round on Benning as I am sure he actively scouts these players, but he doesnt have time to travel around and evaluate guys being taken outside of this first round.

We can praise Benning for electing to employ good scouts or for not terminating Judd Bracket, but I don't know if you can go further than that with regard to drafts.

Areas where Benning has had a large degree of influence (pro scouting, coaching, trades, contract negotiation), have shown that he basically has no clue what he is doing.
 
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xtra

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The funny thing is these benning bros say oh you might have picked tkachuk and ehlers over oj and jake but you were wrong on ep, (whom I had at the same 5/6 area but wanted glass cause he’s bigger than the 168 pounds ep was)

Of course the fact that I’m sitting on my computer watching clips and getting more picks right than Benning the super scout who goes to all the games means nothing,

Or maybe I’m also a super scout. Wait actually if benning getting one pick right at 5=super scout it must make me a super duper scout.
 
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Jyrki21

2021-12-05
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Also, the Canucks’ drafting hasn’t actually been anything exceptional under Benning. I’m still waiting for some reason to believe it has..? Is it still because a couple CHL scorers fell to him at roughly appropriate spots in the 2017 draft (and then failed to impress in the pros)? Like I honestly don’t get what magic he supposedly had unless the thinking is other GMs were deliberately picking players they thought were worse than Lind/Gadjovich/Rathbone or whatever because of some Benning voodoo, and Benning wasn’t... since fans were proclaiming this draft some sort of victory right away. Otherwise I don’t get how you can do that.

And what about any other draft is actually so magical? I see poor first-round selections and an attempt to trade the Boeser pick for Milan Lucic.
 

BerSTUzzi

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Jan 24, 2006
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Also, the Canucks’ drafting hasn’t actually been anything exceptional under Benning. I’m still waiting for some reason to believe it has..? Is it still because a couple CHL scorers fell to him at roughly appropriate spots in the 2017 draft (and then failed to impress in the pros)? Like I honestly don’t get what magic he supposedly had unless the thinking is other GMs were deliberately picking players they thought were worse than Lind/Gadjovich/Rathbone or whatever because of some Benning voodoo, and Benning wasn’t... since fans were proclaiming this draft some sort of victory right away. Otherwise I don’t get how you can do that.

And what about any other draft is actually so magical? I see poor first-round selections and an attempt to trade the Boeser pick for Milan Lucic.


All true but the one good thing this group has done is promote Brackett. He isn’t a guru but he has changed their targets from a Mackenzie to a Palmu. Fail or not that is a great change from checker with warts to skill with warts.

The Madden/Gaudette targets of taking a undeveloped body, skill and work ethic over production is smart.
 
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Hit the post

I have your gold medal Zippy!
Oct 1, 2015
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All true but the one good thing this group has done is promote Brackett. He isn’t a guru but he has changed their targets from a Mackenzie to a Palmu. Fail or not that is a great change from checker with warts to skill with warts.

The Madden/Gaudette targets of taking a undeveloped body, skill and work ethic over production is smart.
Doesn't hurt that you have an extra 5th round pick to work with (with the actual Canucks 5th rounder [a higher pick] that year, they selected another guy - Carl Neil who I believe they didn't even bother offering him a contract). Good thing Gillis left Benning another pick to work with.
 

Phenomenon13

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Oct 10, 2011
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Drafting well is hard imo. Tampa Bay is a team that has actually demonstrated skill in this area.

Getting 1-2 guys in the draft shouldn't be super hard if you have competent scouts.

Benning biggest problems is his vision for the team. He has a unrealistic perspective of the team and I feel is too emotionally invested in certain players which is a common weakness but can't be one that a good gm has.

Look at Yzerman in regards to Lecavalier and st. Louis. Two legends of the lightning franchise and both were shipped out. Benning is all about loyalty to the Sedins and the veterans. How he can't tell em to tank. In that regard, he failed as a gm in his primary duty to put the franchise first.
 

F A N

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Aug 12, 2005
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All this praise for Benning's drafts....does anyone realize that in reality this is not as a result of Benning's talent evaluation skill, but rather that of his scouts? If you go to the draft day videos, Benning is openly questioning what different players bring to the table as early as the second round. You can put the first round on Benning as I am sure he actively scouts these players, but he doesnt have time to travel around and evaluate guys being taken outside of this first round.

We can praise Benning for electing to employ good scouts or for not terminating Judd Bracket, but I don't know if you can go further than that with regard to drafts.

Areas where Benning has had a large degree of influence (pro scouting, coaching, trades, contract negotiation), have shown that he basically has no clue what he is doing.

The drafts are certainly not a result of Benning's talent evaluation skill. He's one voice in the room and he doesn't seem to be the type to veto his scouts and make the call unless it's close, which shouldn't surprise anyone.

A GM can, however, influence the draft in a big way in terms of asking his scouts to identify players with certain skillsets, valuing certain skillsets/traits over others, overhauling the scouting staff, including bringing in a new director of amateur scouting, allowing the team to draft Russians, wanting to draft goalies using a high pick etc. These things can make a difference. For example, Gillis' "moneypuck" philosophy of not dismissing older prospects who were on a seemingly steep development curve led the Canucks to draft Mallet but also Hutton. Meanwhile, Benning, Weisbrod, and Brackett rate the USHL highly and you see the Canucks draft players like Gaudette and Madden who they thought had underachieved at the USHL level.

Part of the GM's job is to evaluate his staff. I expected Benning to properly evaluate his scouting staff and it looks like he did and made the changes he wanted to make. Gillis did too and made changes but by his and Gilman's admittance they made changes a bit late.

In the same vein, a GM may actually not have a bigger influence on pro scouting as he does on the amateur side. Teams do have a pro scouting staff as well. When Gillis was GM, he relied heavily on Eric Crawford who was initially his director of pro scouting.
 

Motte and Bailey

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Jun 21, 2017
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Benning can’t get credit for his good drafting because his amateur scouts are responsible

Benning deserves all the blame for bad trade/FA targets because his pro scouts aren’t responsible

What?
 

MS

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Benning can’t get credit for his good drafting because his amateur scouts are responsible

Benning deserves all the blame for bad trade/FA targets because his pro scouts aren’t responsible

What?

AMATEUR SCOUTING AND PRO SCOUTING ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

Pro scouting is literally a GM’s main job. It’s why Benning has the huge white board in his office. They might send the pro scouts out to do some extra work on a player the GM is interested in, but for every team in the NHL it flows pretty much entirely through the GMs office.

Amateur scouting is run by the head scout and his staff. The GM may lay down some guidelines but NHL GMs don’t have time to be watching USHL games in the middle of an NHL season. There are countless quotes from GMs over the years explaining this. Benning didn’t even know what league Tryamkin was playing in when we drafted him.

That anyone could still not understand this is mind boggling.
 
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Ryan Miller*

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Benning is perhaps the most active amateur scouting GM in the league. Mark Spector notes that he wishes the Oilers could find a Benning clone. Perception of this management team is becoming very positive around the league.
 
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