Does Jim Benning deserve a contract extension

[CuriousGeorge]

Jim "Worst GM" Benning.

**** him, fire his ass.

 

[MS]

I'd bet anything if Gillis had stuck around one more year and got to add the 2014 draft under his belt he would have dropped this ridiculous label. The GM alone doesn't do the drafting, the core issue is that we had a horrible scouting group left over from the Burke/Nonis era, and Gillis mistake was in taking too long to start fixing it. Once it did get fixed up though it didn't really have enough time to establish itself, as the Crawford led group only got in what two drafts? And out of that we got Horvat, Hutton, and Gaunce.

Now I like Judd Bracket, and one thing you can say for Benning is we haven't gone back to Burke/Nonis era drafting, but I don't really see Bracket being as much an improvement over Crawford to justify swapping Gillis for Benning.

Bingo.

This notion that the GM 'runs' the draft and picks most of the players is one of the dumbest misconceptions here. Again, there's a video on CDC from 2014 where Benning doesn't even know what league Tryamkin was playing in when they drafted him. He'll definitely have some input but the notion of a 'great drafting GM' is just hogwash. Good picks come from having a good staff.

 

[RobertKron]

I say extend him. Lou Lamoriello early years as a Devils GM was horrendous too. But they didn't give up on him, he made some mistakes as everyone would.

Under Jb's leader ship, drafting has vastly improved, some bad trades, he also made some good trades.

I say extend him.

Didn't he immediately deliver the devils their first winning season in franchise history?

 

[y2kcanucks]

Didn't he immediately deliver the devils their first winning season in franchise history?

Literally his first season as GM the Devils went from missing the playoffs to the ECF.

Comparing Jim Benning to Lou Lamoriello is just weird.

 

[RandV]

Lou Lamoriello slipped up when the cap era started. Right off the bat he started with a couple of bad UFA contracts blowing the teams cap space and settled in to being a second rate team that would put up 100+ points in the regular season but be out in the 1st, sometimes 2nd, round of the playoffs. Before that though he'd always been a top GM.

 

[Dissonance]

Literally his first season as GM the Devils went from missing the playoffs to the ECF.

Comparing Jim Benning to Lou Lamoriello is just weird.

Admittedly one of Lamoriello's very first moves was gifting us Kirk McLean and Greg Adams in exchange for Patrik Sundstrom.

But yes, Lamoriello was a very good GM almost from the start — even with the weird Fetisov stuff and some coaching turmoil — and in his third season pulled off one of the all-time great NHL trade heists by sending Tom Kurvers to Toronto for the pick that would become Scott Niedermayer. And then stole Claude Lemieux a year later. Benning has done nothing like that.

----

Basically, all GMs make a mix of good and bad moves, but ideally what you'd like to see is a reasonable proportion of great moves to good moves to poor moves. Benning has made virtually no great moves (maaaybe the Burrows trade), a very small handful of good moves, and then a whole slew of awful moves.

I'm not sure there's anyone in the league with a worse ratio, apart from perhaps Joe Sakic. It really shouldn't be hard to find someone better.

 

[Wilch]

Is this really a question? If Francesco Aquilini had half a brain and isn't a dumb trust fund baby, he would've either not hired these idiots or fired them a season in.

 

[lush]

Would love to see Benning back to run our drafts, but nothing more. I'm not completely in the camp of people who want to fire the whole management team. I'd rather add more pieces to it if that is at all possible. I think we all know it's not really possible, these guys have big ego's and probably can't make it work. I also doubt Aquilini would pay for a larger management team... so yeah, probably just easier to to drive him and his son down to the Amtrak station

 

[TruKnyte]

Who's available?

 

[y2kcanucks]

Who's available?

Kyle Dubas
Julien Brisebois
Dean Lombardi
Don Maloney

 

[Krnuckfan]

Who's available?

Who cares? I'd take just about anyone over this dim witted moron.

 

[Wo Yorfat]

Would love to see Benning back to run our drafts

What?

 

[MikeK]

Can we get a "No *** way" on the poll?

Seriously, I gave him credit last TDL day because he didn't soil the bed like the years before but on a whole he's been a terrible GM and this entire management team is the worst we've ever had. That's saying a lot because we've seen some bad times in our history. The damage these idiots have done will still be visible 10 years from now.

Hard no from Me.

 

[Jack Tripper]

i can't stand it when people give a list of benning draft picks, as though another individual in his position wouldn't have drafted any players with the picks the canucks have had in the past few years

every nhl organization gets 7 draft picks per year for free, unless they trade them away (which benning has been more than happy to do), and the majority of top prospects in these organizations will be players drafted in the first and second rounds

what's he done to maximise the canucks situation? restock the prospect pool beyond the picks that a struggling team would naturally acquire? it's frankly pathetic that the canucks keep finishing in the basement of the nhl and can't make the top 3 prospect rankings within their own division

 

[valkynax]

i can't stand it when people give a list of benning draft picks, as though another individual in his position wouldn't have drafted any players with the picks the canucks have had in the past few years

every nhl organization gets 7 draft picks per year for free, unless they trade them away (which benning has been more than happy to do), and the majority of top prospects in these organizations will be players drafted in the first and second rounds

what's he done to maximise the canucks situation? restock the prospect pool beyond the picks that a struggling team would naturally acquire? it's frankly pathetic that the canucks keep finishing in the basement of the nhl and can't make the top 3 prospect rankings within their own division

Prospects who are closer and closer to bust: NO it's too early to bust them they are still young!


Prospects who's not close to be in NHL yet: YEAH these guys will be top 6 nhlers for sure!


meh, what can you do right?

 

[y2kcanucks]

Would love to see Benning back to run our drafts, but nothing more. I'm not completely in the camp of people who want to fire the whole management team. I'd rather add more pieces to it if that is at all possible. I think we all know it's not really possible, these guys have big ego's and probably can't make it work. I also doubt Aquilini would pay for a larger management team... so yeah, probably just easier to to drive him and his son down to the Amtrak station

So we can screw up more high draft picks?

 

[BobbyJazzLegs]

yes he does

 

[BobbyJazzLegs]

Sure JV's a relative bust at 5 but I don't believe that was all Jimbo's doing

This roster was absolute trash behind the Sedins. Kesler screwed us.

Once again, most of you can't see the forest for the trees.

Wah wah wah Tkachuk scored some points. Benning can't say words properly. Big flippin deal.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Sure JV's a relative bust at 5 but I don't believe that was all Jimbo's doing

This roster was absolute trash behind the Sedins. Kesler screwed us.

Once again, most of you can't see the forest for the trees.

Wah wah wah Tkachuk scored some points. Benning can't say words properly. Big flippin deal.

Kesler didn't force us to trade for Bonino and Sbisa. And then Bonino for Sutter in turn.

 

[Hit the post]

Kesler didn't force us to trade for Bonino and Sbisa. And then Bonino for Sutter in turn.

Kesler made Benning sign Eriksson. It is never the fault of Benning.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Sure JV's a relative bust at 5 but I don't believe that was all Jimbo's doing

This roster was absolute trash behind the Sedins. Kesler screwed us.

Once again, most of you can't see the forest for the trees.

Wah wah wah Tkachuk scored some points. Benning can't say words properly. Big flippin deal.

We're now getting into Benning's fourth season. He's had time to recover from big bad Kesler's trade demand.

Oh, and have a look at the roster. It's still trash and all the best players on it were still acquired by former GMs.

 

[BobbyJazzLegs]

Kesler didn't force us to trade for Bonino and Sbisa. And then Bonino for Sutter in turn.

What the hell were we gonna do with Bonino?

When was Murray ever gonna give up Theodore/Vatanen etc. Every single one of you wanted EMERSON ETEM.

Loui's expensive but he'll bounce back to some extent. Won't matter unless we win the lottery a couple of times in the next 3 years.


Forest.

 

[mathonwy]

What the hell were we gonna do with Bonino?

When was Murray ever gonna give up Theodore/Vatanen etc. Every single one of you wanted EMERSON ETEM.

Loui's expensive but he'll bounce back to some extent. Won't be the end of the world unless we win the lottery a couple of times in the next 2 years.

Keep his 1.9M salary and utilize his center abilities to feed Radim as well as all of the other wingers we currently have.

He's no Balls Mahoney but he's aight.

 

[BobbyJazzLegs]

We're now getting into Benning's fourth season. He's had time to recover from big bad Kesler's trade demand.

Oh, and have a look at the roster. It's still trash and all the best players on it were still acquired by former GMs.

how may that have been achieved exactly?

 

[BobbyJazzLegs]

Keep his 1.9M salary and utilize his center abilities to feed Radim as well as all of the other wingers we currently have.

He's no Balls Mahoney but he's aight.

contender for sure