xtra
Registered User
Until like a month ago you wanted the canucks to squeak into the playoffs and be first round fodder; why the change of heart ready to admit that the playoffs were the wrong thing for this team?
Confirmed with Link: Canucks trade Sam Gagner to Oilers for Ryan Spooner, one for one, no salary retained.
- Thread starter Fire Benning
- Start date
Until like a month ago you wanted the canucks to squeak into the playoffs and be first round fodder; why the change of heart ready to admit that the playoffs were the wrong thing for this team?
Pastor Of Muppetz
Registered User
- Oct 1, 2017
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Provide a quote where I was pro -playoffs..I said I could care less one way or the other..
edit;,.... this coming from the tanking poster that set up the bogus' playoff ' thread.
More evidence (if any more is needed) that this team can turn any decent player into a worthless minor leaguer. The lucky ones get released back into the league where they often flourish sometimes immediately...
PetterssonSimp
Registered User
- Dec 12, 2008
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Or it’s this managements inability to see how crap a player is, decide its better to bring him in and “see if he can turn it around” which is basically paraphrasing the posters in this thread who didn’t watch Spooner, didn’t follow his transition from Bruin to Ranger to Oiler.
The main problem is this Canucks team should have already passed this “reclamation project” part of this reign. Those are suppose to be the 1-2 year type veterans you bring in while you suck completely. Not after you’ve added your elite draft talent. But then again the draft talent lacks seeing as the Canucks went the first 3 seasons of Benning without a 2nd round pick while filling “age gap”.
Your intense dislike of Benning blinds you to the other weak links in this organization. Now I'm not going to tell you he is a great GM or anything but his job is to acquire the players for this team, not to figure out where they will play on this team or with whom. The sad fact of the matter is that almost every single player that this team has divested itself this year of has played much better in their new location, sometimes instantly. None of them are stars or anything but it makes you wonder how players like Goldy, Boeser, Dahlen or even Guddy would fare elsewhere. I am hopeful that other GM's have noticed this trend and come calling for some of our "crap players" as you call them at the TDL in the hope that they can continue this trend. We have a crap coaching staff both in the NHL and in the AHL. If you're going to castigate JB for anything it should be for his inability to identify the fact that our entire coaching staff, from top to bottom is rubbish.
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AwesomeInTheory
A Christmas miracle
- Aug 21, 2015
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Ryan Spooner: a Really Good Player who has bounced from 4 teams in rapid succession suddenly became a Really Bad Player because he fell victim to Vancouver's carcinogenic touch.
Yeah, not buying it.
Yeah, not buying it.
AwesomeInTheory
A Christmas miracle
- Aug 21, 2015
- 4,230
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Players 'set free' under Benning's tenure, that were players Benning targeted (cue up the ending song from Fast Times At Ridgemont High):
Linden Vey...played 4 games for Calgary in the big leagues and is now in the KHL.
Luca Sbisa...played minimal games for the Golden Knights last year and a whopping 9 games for the Isles this year.
Adam Clendening...bounced from Vancouver to Edmonton to New York to Arizona to Rockford to Columbus.
Ryan Miller...is currently a backup for the Anaheim Ducks.
Radim Vrbata...retired. Had one 20 goal season after leaving the Canucks.
Matt Bartkowski...currently rippin' it up in the AHL.
Emerson Etem...AHL replacement level player, played a season in the Swiss leagues.
Brandon Prust...currently proving us all wrong by tearing up the German league.
Jayson Megna...playing in the AHL.
Thomas Vanek...about the only player 'set free' who looks to be on pace to match his previous years totals.
Sam Gagner...I think we've said everything that needs to be said about him.
Michael Del Zotto...on pace not to 'be significantly better' than he was in Vancouver.
So, you have basically 3 players (Vrbata, Vanek and Gagner, if we're going to be generous about sample sizes) that might fit this theory. One of them is retired, another is looking to keep pace with his Vancouver numbers and a third has a ridiculously small sample size to go off of. The rest of the personnel that have come in over the years aren't much of anything to write home about, but where does the blame for that lie?
Linden Vey...played 4 games for Calgary in the big leagues and is now in the KHL.
Luca Sbisa...played minimal games for the Golden Knights last year and a whopping 9 games for the Isles this year.
Adam Clendening...bounced from Vancouver to Edmonton to New York to Arizona to Rockford to Columbus.
Ryan Miller...is currently a backup for the Anaheim Ducks.
Radim Vrbata...retired. Had one 20 goal season after leaving the Canucks.
Matt Bartkowski...currently rippin' it up in the AHL.
Emerson Etem...AHL replacement level player, played a season in the Swiss leagues.
Brandon Prust...currently proving us all wrong by tearing up the German league.
Jayson Megna...playing in the AHL.
Thomas Vanek...about the only player 'set free' who looks to be on pace to match his previous years totals.
Sam Gagner...I think we've said everything that needs to be said about him.
Michael Del Zotto...on pace not to 'be significantly better' than he was in Vancouver.
So, you have basically 3 players (Vrbata, Vanek and Gagner, if we're going to be generous about sample sizes) that might fit this theory. One of them is retired, another is looking to keep pace with his Vancouver numbers and a third has a ridiculously small sample size to go off of. The rest of the personnel that have come in over the years aren't much of anything to write home about, but where does the blame for that lie?
PetterssonSimp
Registered User
- Dec 12, 2008
- 7,374
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Clearly Gillis! If his teams weren’t so damn good they couldn’t be bad enough to draft high!
Disappointed EP40
Registered User
- Jan 13, 2015
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AwesomeInTheory
A Christmas miracle
- Aug 21, 2015
- 4,230
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Yeah, but if this was an actual thing, we'd be able to look beyond a singular player in Gagner.
We have Del Zotto and Nilsson (and Archibald, too, I suppose.) Not exactly an impressive resume of players playing "much better." If anything, they're more or less the same as they were prior to leaving Vancouver.
I get that this is an attempt to deflect a horrible trade away from management and onto coaching, but I'm really not convinced.
OK I'll bite. Gagner showed up here as a perennial 40 point player (with a bad +/-) who had had a career high 50 points with the BJ's. He came here and in a year slightly shortened by injury he scored at a 35 point pace (I myself expected 40). He was deemed completely unusable by the Canucks for reasons that I can't figure out; what were they expecting out of him? They discard him in the minors with the briefest of call ups (where he got 3 points in 7 games) and then, after being sent down again finally got freed from his chains and traded to Edmonton where in 3 games he has a goal, a GWG and a shootout goal. So despite our best efforts to totally destroy his career he has scored at the NHL level at about a ... 35 point rate this year and the Oilers brass is lauding his "character". How many Canucks this year are likely to get 35 points? What, maybe 5? Del Zotto wasn't great but you have to think he was better than Guddy or Poo but he got banished to the press box (the perfect way to showcase him for a trade, no?) and then traded for a 7th and a boat anchor (Schenn). It took only 12 games of regular play for the horrible Ducks to raise his value to a straight 6th (with no boat anchor). Nilsson got so dicked around here that he got us almost nothing in return and promptly went on a tear with Ottawa (the worst team in the league) and is currently challenging for the #1 job there while we suddenly had our usual rash of injuries that required us to play an 18 year old junior goalie (who got totally ventilated) and spend even more assets to acquire goalies that will probably never play for us. Even Brendan Leipsic, who we couldn't seem to find a place for, has settled in nicely on another awful team, the Kings. And these are just the NHL players; in the AHL we have Palmu (banished to Finland where he was rookie of the year last year), Dahlen (terrific in the SHL but useless here and now traded), plus Lind, Gadjovich and Juolevi (all highly touted at the beginning of the year, all major disappointments so far, although Juolevi's injury mitigates his so far). These failures are not the result of bad GMing they are the result of terrible player management. Almost every game we have a 10 minute span where we get zero shots on goal and our special teams are terrible (especially when you consider that Elias and Brock are on the PP). We have one regulation win in a month. Yet for whatever reason Green, Brown and the Utica crew seem almost immune from criticism, it's almost as if everybody here is so concentrated on their hatred of Benning (who is admittedly no Sam Pollock) and, of course Willie D. (long gone but still brought up in almost every GDT) that they can't see the systemic problems that this franchise is suffering from. I don't get it...
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AwesomeInTheory
A Christmas miracle
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The coach can only do so much, and if this problem extends all the way down to Utica, you need to look at who is running things down there.
It's Ryan Johnson, who is director of player development and the Utica GM.
Who installed Johnson in that position?
Heck, who put the coaches into the positions they're in?
There's a reason why people keep looking to Benning, and, although I am loathe to bring up Mike Gillis, there's a great moment from his tenure where he had to deal with a sitting coach in Alain Vigneault.
What happened? Gillis sat down with Vigneault to discuss coaching and whether he could manage a more up tempo style of play.
If these issues are plaguing the Canucks, like you say, then what is stopping Jim Benning from sitting down and having a talk with the coach that he hired?
The problem is that Green is being expected to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. I have no idea what the hell happened with Gagner -- I'm assuming it was a catastrophic misjudging of the overall forward depth and a belief that Petersson made Gagner expendable -- but the general roster is a Frankenstein's monster of spare parts and low level depth players.
The problems, in my mind, extend back to management, not coaching. Coaching, for example, didn't create the clown show that led to DiPietro getting thrown to the lions. It was an edict from on high that Demko was ready to roll and hey, who cares about the organization's overall goalie depth?
Looking back, it was a pretty short-sighted attempt to try and deflect issues away from the team by trying to bring in another much-heralded prospect and hoping some of that Petersson magic could give the team some positive press. At least, that's how I see it.
Anyway, a lot of this doesn't have much to do with the original discussion. Again, I don't think that coaching had anything to do with Benning pulling the plug on a $4M player who, based on statistics and his previous body of work, is a 'meh' player who is trending in the wrong direction. Coaching isn't going to ruin an already marginal player, and again, I think that this is all smoke and mirrors to deflect away from a generally bad trade that management made and put it onto the coaches.
Especially since Benning went out and traded for Tanner Pearson right after he made the move for Spooner.
It's Ryan Johnson, who is director of player development and the Utica GM.
Who installed Johnson in that position?
Heck, who put the coaches into the positions they're in?
There's a reason why people keep looking to Benning, and, although I am loathe to bring up Mike Gillis, there's a great moment from his tenure where he had to deal with a sitting coach in Alain Vigneault.
What happened? Gillis sat down with Vigneault to discuss coaching and whether he could manage a more up tempo style of play.
If these issues are plaguing the Canucks, like you say, then what is stopping Jim Benning from sitting down and having a talk with the coach that he hired?
The problem is that Green is being expected to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. I have no idea what the hell happened with Gagner -- I'm assuming it was a catastrophic misjudging of the overall forward depth and a belief that Petersson made Gagner expendable -- but the general roster is a Frankenstein's monster of spare parts and low level depth players.
The problems, in my mind, extend back to management, not coaching. Coaching, for example, didn't create the clown show that led to DiPietro getting thrown to the lions. It was an edict from on high that Demko was ready to roll and hey, who cares about the organization's overall goalie depth?
Looking back, it was a pretty short-sighted attempt to try and deflect issues away from the team by trying to bring in another much-heralded prospect and hoping some of that Petersson magic could give the team some positive press. At least, that's how I see it.
Anyway, a lot of this doesn't have much to do with the original discussion. Again, I don't think that coaching had anything to do with Benning pulling the plug on a $4M player who, based on statistics and his previous body of work, is a 'meh' player who is trending in the wrong direction. Coaching isn't going to ruin an already marginal player, and again, I think that this is all smoke and mirrors to deflect away from a generally bad trade that management made and put it onto the coaches.
Especially since Benning went out and traded for Tanner Pearson right after he made the move for Spooner.
me2
Go ahead foot
The systemic problems stem from Benning and management. Once you make that realisation, the veil drops.
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I've been OK with Spooner in his three games. He's had a number of glorious chances to score so far, and obviously possesses some skill and creativity. But also strikes me as a player who struggles with his confidence at times.
Yet watching Spooner out there makes me realize how much the Canucks miss Baertschi.....same type of player and the Canucks just don't have enough skill on the wings.
Yet watching Spooner out there makes me realize how much the Canucks miss Baertschi.....same type of player and the Canucks just don't have enough skill on the wings.
Chimpradamus
Registered User
What a gigantic joke of a trade. Canucks got hosed, big time. Gagner isn't useless, but Spooner is.
mathonwy
Positively #toxic
- Jan 21, 2008
- 19,064
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Utica got hosed. Vancouver got hosed.
It’s almost like this management team is just going through the motions managing the Canucks.
Gagner was playing in Toronto with the AHL Marlies....based on his overall performance in a Canuck uniform over the past two season, that's where he belonged. Spooner was waived by the Oilers and was playing in Bakersfield. Because he was all the Oilers had to show for the Eberle trade, he was doomed in Edmonton.
I don't care what Gagner is doing in Edmonton, he was NEVER going to do for the Canucks so what does it matter? If Spooner sucks, at least he could potentially help out the Comets. So at worst, nuthin' from nuthin' still equals a big nuthin'
Megaterio Llamas
el rey del mambo
Hey, what happened to The Spoonman?
I completely forgot about him in the excitement of the stretch drive
*okay never mind then - it looks like a groin injury
https://www.rotoworld.com/hockey/nhl/player/24875/ryan-spooner
I completely forgot about him in the excitement of the stretch drive
*okay never mind then - it looks like a groin injury
https://www.rotoworld.com/hockey/nhl/player/24875/ryan-spooner
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ProstheticConscience
Check dein Limit
Billy Kvcmu
Registered User
He’s healthy but still not playing
In other words, he’s below Schaller in Green’s eyes.
Lmao, what a f***ing joke
In other words, he’s below Schaller in Green’s eyes.
Lmao, what a f***ing joke
VanillaCoke
Registered User
- Oct 30, 2013
- 25,158
- 11,487
Expect him to be bought out. They were very likely to do the same with Gagner.
No point in allocating a contract spot for him. This summer will get pretty ugly when aqua man sees the money bennning has thrown away.
Spooner buyout, Schaller buyout. Sutter potential retention on a trade, whatever happens with Eriksson but will have paid him $23 million of his $36 by seasons end.
TruGr1t
Proper Villain
- Jun 26, 2003
- 23,074
- 6,693
The fact of the matter is Gagner should have been playing here given the stiffs we dress in the line-up on a nightly basis. Spooner has definitely been even worse.
But chalk it up to Green's odd fascination with defensively mediocre players who are black holes offensively. We can't seem to get enough of them.
But chalk it up to Green's odd fascination with defensively mediocre players who are black holes offensively. We can't seem to get enough of them.
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