GM Benning the key to Canucks record

[BobbyJazzLegs]

Ya he really shouldn't be putting up this many points by the look of his play i.e. nothing outstanding, just workmanlike - but he keeps racking em up.

 

[MS]

The fact that the anti-Benning crowd needs to engage in such ridiculous hyperbole to make their case speaks volumes.

Garrison is a #1 defenceman...Miller's contract is a 'nightmare'...Santorelli is 'absolutely outstanding'...

Do you honestly believe that comparing Bonino, Vey and Santorelli is equivalent to comparing Sedin and Panik?

Nobody is saying Garrison is a #1 defender. He's always been an excellent #3 and continues to be.

Miller's contract is a nightmare - he's the 2nd-oldest starting goalie in the NHL, his numbers are starting to fall off a cliff, we're stuck with him for almost 3 more years, and we're probably going to lose our better younger goalie as a result.

And yeah, Santorelli is absolutely outstanding. A 50 ES/SH point/82 GP player who is a plus player defensively and can play anywhere in your lineup is a MASSIVE asset. He's a top-50 forward in the NHL.

It's amazing that people still can't grasp how good Santorelli is.

Yeah, Santorelli is a comparable-level player to Daniel Sedin right now (and I'm a Sedin supporter), and yeah, Vey and Panik are in exactly the same situation.

 

[opendoor]

Forgot who said it here first...Santo is like the swiss army knife of hockey players...doesn't do anything great but one is able to shove anywhere in the lineup without being the "dead weight" on the line (including specialty teams) - either at center on on wing.

You try to make room for these kinds of players.

Yep. Center and defense are the two most important places to have depth and the Canucks let some of that go in order to add it on the wing and in goal.

Keeping a guy who can play both center and wing, not look out of place in the top or bottom 6, and who's defensively responsible while on a short term contract for Matthias/Dorsett money should've been a no-brainer if the team is trying to have success now.

 

[Drop the Sopel]

And yeah, Santorelli is absolutely outstanding. A 50 ES/SH point/82 GP player who is a plus player defensively and can play anywhere in your lineup is a MASSIVE asset. He's a top-50 forward in the NHL.

It's amazing that people still can't grasp how good Santorelli is.

Nick Bonino is all those things as well and yet he's somehow a 'redundant asset' in your books. How in blue hell is one of these guys a MASSIVE asset, while the other is being described as a redundant asset?

You're saying the Canucks shouldn't have targeted Bonino because Santo could have made him redundant. Yet now that the Canucks have Bonino, you don't feel Santo is redundant in any way whatsoever. Am I the only one that see's how ludicrous this is?

If I told you the Canucks have no use for Santorelli right now because of Nick Bonino, what would you say to that?

Hopefully that helps.

 

[PM]

All this new management has shown me so far is that they still don't have a clear direction. If we are going to try and compete, great, re-sign Santarelli, don't trade a top-4 dman for late 2nd and I'm happy. If we are going to rebuild, great, don't sign Miller, don't target Bonino, don't trade two 3rd rounders for a 4th liner and a AHL defensemen. Either of these I would be perfectly happy with. This middling combination of both however has left us with less picks and a team that looks like it will be lucky to get a few wins in the first round.

 

[MS]

Nick Bonino is all those things as well and yet he's somehow a 'redundant asset' in your books. How in blue hell is one of these guys a MASSIVE asset, while the other is being described as a redundant asset?

You're saying the Canucks shouldn't have targeted Bonino because Santo could have made him redundant. Yet now that the Canucks have Bonino, you don't feel Santo is redundant in any way whatsoever. Am I the only one that see's how ludicrous this is?

All of my posts in this thread have been under the assumption that the most likely situation had we kept Santorelli was that Bonino would still have been acquired but that Vey would not have.

Having said that, yeah, if we could have kept Santorelli as the #2 center and targeted Vatanen instead, this roster looks a lot better right now. I don't believe I called Bonino a 'redundant asset' (and that wouldn't be how I feel about him if I did) but he's definitely less desirable than Vatanen right now for this team.

Bonino is an excellent player and I've been very complementary of him this year. But to think that the mis-evaluation of Santorelli hasn't snowballed down the roster and made this team worse is naive.

A roster with both Santorelli and Bonino would be terrific.

 

[Alan Jackson]

All of my posts in this thread have been under the assumption that the most likely situation had we kept Santorelli was that Bonino would still have been acquired but that Vey would not have.

Having said that, yeah, if we could have kept Santorelli as the #2 center and targeted Vatanen instead, this roster looks a lot better right now. I don't believe I called Bonino a 'redundant asset' (and that wouldn't be how I feel about him if I did) but he's definitely less desirable than Vatanen right now for this team.

Bonino is an excellent player and I've been very complementary of him this year. But to think that the mis-evaluation of Santorelli hasn't snowballed down the roster and made this team worse is naive.

A roster with both Santorelli and Bonino would be terrific.

If there was a mis-evaluation of Santorelli, it was one made by 29 other clubs and the previous regime here.

I like Santorelli as a player, and I would have liked to have kept him, but let's not pretend there wasn't at least some risk to signing this player. Until the Canucks signed him, he was playing his way out of the League.

If Gillis had re-signed Santorelli at any point last season, we wouldn't be having this debate, and for the entire blame to fall on Benning is a little unfair.

 

[Lundface*]

Nick Bonino is all those things as well and yet he's somehow a 'redundant asset' in your books. How in blue hell is one of these guys a MASSIVE asset, while the other is being described as a redundant asset?

You're saying the Canucks shouldn't have targeted Bonino because Santo could have made him redundant. Yet now that the Canucks have Bonino, you don't feel Santo is redundant in any way whatsoever. Am I the only one that see's how ludicrous this is?

If I told you the Canucks have no use for Santorelli right now because of Nick Bonino, what would you say to that?

Hopefully that helps.

I don't believe Bonino was redundant, I believe burning a 2nd to get Vey while letting Santorelli walk away to play for peanuts elsewhere was foolish.

Santorelli's versatility would have been key this season. He's an upgrade on Richardson as a 3rd line center. He's an upgrade on Burrows at wing on the 2nd. He's a player, and Benning seems to have horribly undervalued him. I'm also shocked at how people still think he's some journey man. The pace he plays at is not something that he's going to suddenly lose..he always had the talent, but he now understands what it will take for him to utilize it.

Benning also neglected to add any depth to the defence. This is compounded by the fact that he thought downgrading from Garrison to Sbisa wasn't a big deal. There's also that fact that neither he or Desjardins (as he even admitted) knew what they had in Tanev...and now he may have to pay through the nose to keep him long term.

Not a fan of the Miller contract either. Salary and term are too high, I understand sacrificing one to get the other, but not both.

Overall, Benning neglecting to add to the defence was poor management. It doesn't help that we're trading 3rd round picks for project defencemen instead of fixing the immediate problem (at the very least trade for usable depth ffs). For a management team that says they want to compete now, the moves they've made/and neglected to make on defence have been unacceptable.

 

[Drop the Sopel]

But to think that the mis-evaluation of Santorelli hasn't snowballed down the roster and made this team worse is naive.

This team with Santorelli is better. It's the notion the Canucks don't need both players I took exception to. IMO they could use both of those guys, as well as Vey. Though Vey's value is more about the long term than what he is right now as a rookie trying to find his way.

As far as the mis-evaluation of Mike Santorelli, I put that at the feet of Gilman and Henning more so than Benning. Benning didn't see Santorelli's only good NHL season, whereas the former 2 were front and centre. As we know, management decisions are in large part made as a group and it makes you wonder how hard those guys fought to keep Santorelli in the mix. If the reports are true it was up to Gilman to negotiate this deal, it further points to a questionable judge of talent from the old guard IMO.

As far as Vatanen goes, I don't think he's a guy that was ever going to be on the table. Murray was desperate to improve their PP and that wasn't likely to happen without Vatanen there. IMO the players the Canucks would have been looking at in Bonino's place were the likes of Etem, Rakell, Palmieri, Silverberg.

 

[MS]

This team with Santorelli is better. It's the notion the Canucks don't need both players I took exception to. IMO they could use both of those guys, as well as Vey. Though Vey's value is more about the long term than what he is right now as a rookie trying to find his way.

As far as the mis-evaluation of Mike Santorelli, I put that at the feet of Gilman and Henning more so than Benning. Benning didn't see Santorelli's only good NHL season, whereas the former 2 were front and centre. As we know, management decisions are in large part made as a group and it makes you wonder how hard those guys fought to keep Santorelli in the mix. If the reports are true it was up to Gilman to negotiate this deal, it further points to a questionable judge of talent from the old guard IMO.

As far as Vatanen goes, I don't think he's a guy that was ever going to be on the table. Murray was desperate to improve their PP and that wasn't likely to happen without Vatanen there. IMO the players the Canucks would have been looking at in Bonino's place were the likes of Etem, Rakell, Palmieri, Silverberg.

If Jim Benning didn't watch damn near every Canuck game from last season before making changes to the roster, he isn't doing his job. 'He didn't see Santorelli' is no excuse. And what Gillis would have done is completely irrelevant.

Benning is the GM. He was handed a player who was absolutely outstanding last year and wanted to re-sign for a very small amount relative to his impact. He chose not to re-sign him. That falls on him, entirely.

We've been told by the pro-Benning people what a great job he did to negotiate a valued part of Anaheim's team out of there in Bonino. Why couldn't he have done the same with Vatanen, who was a much less important part of last year's team? And it isn't like Bonino wasn't a huge part of their PP.

 

[MS]

Benning also neglected to add any depth to the defence. This is compounded by the fact that he thought downgrading from Garrison to Sbisa wasn't a big deal. There's also that fact that neither he or Desjardins (as he even admitted) knew what they had in Tanev...and now he may have to pay through the nose to keep him long term.

Not a fan of the Miller contract either. Salary and term are too high, I understand sacrificing one to get the other, but not both.

Overall, Benning neglecting to add to the defence was poor management. It doesn't help that we're trading 3rd round picks for project defencemen instead of fixing the immediate problem (at the very least trade for usable depth ffs). For a management team that says they want to compete now, the moves they've made/and neglected to make on defence have been unacceptable.

Yeah, the defensive moves just made no sense.

It was pretty obvious that we had a lousy mix last year, and we needed a skill upgrade (especially a RHS skill upgrade) there. Plus you *always* need a #5 guy capable of sliding into bigger minutes when you get inevitable injuries.

Instead we get a no-talent stiff in Sbisa who exacerbates our biggest weakness, and leave ourselves with no flexibility when Hamhuis gets hurt.

End result, our 2nd pairing goes -10 in a 7-game stretch and we go into a slump. Oops. Just imagine if we lost Tanev ...

 

[Drop the Sopel]

He's a player, and Benning seems to have horribly undervalued him.

Benning was one of 30 general managers that weren't willing to give Santorelli a multi-year contract offer. And let's not forget the Canucks were one of the few teams that were actually willing to offer Santorelli anything. Never mind Benning wasn't even in Vancouver to see Santo play hockey last season.

I also don't understand how Vey can be seen as a completely redundant asset when you look at the complete void of young skill on the team and in the AHL. Not to mention the Canucks desperately needed more RH shots up front, and Vey has filled a big need here.

If it's so easy to find guys like Vey, why isn't there a player on the roster that Gillis brought in that is under the age of 29 that is producing like he is? I can't even recall the last young forward we brought in that looked as good as Fey, that we didn't use a top 10 pick to acquire.

Vey has shown progression from the start of the season until now and with the stagnation/regression of so many of the young pro forwards in the system and on the team, his presence is that much more crucial moving forward.

 

[Drop the Sopel]

Yeah, the defensive moves just made no sense.

It was pretty obvious that we had a lousy mix last year, and we needed a skill upgrade (especially a RHS skill upgrade) there. Plus you *always* need a #5 guy capable of sliding into bigger minutes when you get inevitable injuries.

You knew the Canucks needed to take some money from left side defense and allocate it elsewhere - that's why you pushed so hard for Alex Edler to be waived. Instead, they opted to keep Edler and parlay Garrison's cap space into a forward and the asset used in the deal was flipped for more skill up front.

With the gift of hindsight, what route do you go, your way, or Benning's?

The Canucks did need a skill upgrade and that's why Benning pushed hard for Christian Ehrhoff. Unfortunately, as a team coming off the season like they just had, you're going to be in tough trying to recruit free agents, and they fell short in their pursuit of the skilled puckmover and PP quarterback.

And let's not forget Ryan Stanton looked more than capable of being a bottom pairing left side dman that could step into the top 4 when injuries hit. Unfortunately for us, he's regressed and it's hurt the team. Had he played like last season, or god forbid even improve, the team would be fine right now.

The Canucks had about 5 significant holes that needed to be filled this offseason and didn't get all of them addressed. I sure hope I'm not the only one that isn't surprised all these weaknesses weren't addressed in 1 summer...

 

[Drop the Sopel]

Benning is the GM. He was handed a player who was absolutely outstanding last year and wanted to re-sign for a very small amount relative to his impact. He chose not to re-sign him. That falls on him, entirely.

If you want to let Gilman/Henning off the hook here, that's up to you. Based on the reports that it was Gilman negotiating to keep Santo in Vancouver, I don't think I can.

Benning didn't choose not to re-sign Santorelli. The Canucks tried to get him under contract and Santorelli opted to go to Toronto. Hard to argue with that decision too when you look at the personnel of the respective teams. If you have to sign a short term, show-me contract, you make sure it's in an environment where you have the best chance to produce. Easy to see why the high flying Leafs would be seen as a much more desirable situation than the offensively starved Canucks.

How many teams valued Santorelli higher than Benning did? 1? 2? Let's not lose sight of the fact he was only one of 30 GM's not willing to give him term.

 

[StIllmatic]

I still can't understand the thinking in signing Miller to that ridiculous contract and not resigning Santorelli. I like the acquisition of Vey, but not at the cost of Garrison. The only real moves I like by Benning are the Vrbrata signing, the Dorsett trade (although I was on of the people that thought the third rounder was overpayment), and I am in favour of the Vey trade (not to be confused with trading Garrison for a second). I also don't mind the Kesler trade given circumstance (two team list with only one team wanting him.) Kesler's value was higher, but it was a tough situation and Benning/Linden seemed eager to get rid of him sooner rather than later.

All in all, the Miller contract and letting Santorelli walk leave me without confidence in Benning's and Linden's ability to build a contender. Hoping they can regain it soon though. Bonino and Dorsett were nice pieces. Vey could become one if he builds his defensive game up and adds strength.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

If you want to let Gilman/Henning off the hook here, that's up to you. Based on the reports that it was Gilman negotiating to keep Santo in Vancouver, I don't think I can.

Benning didn't choose not to re-sign Santorelli. The Canucks tried to get him under contract and Santorelli opted to go to Toronto. Hard to argue with that decision too when you look at the personnel of the respective teams. If you have to sign a short term, show-me contract, you make sure it's in an environment where you have the best chance to produce. Easy to see why the high flying Leafs would be seen as a much more desirable situation than the offensively starved Canucks.

How many teams valued Santorelli higher than Benning did? 1? 2? Let's not lose sight of the fact he was only one of 30 GM's not willing to give him term.

That is not true. Santorelli asked for term, which Benning refused to offer, so he went to the market to see what his alternatives were. By the time he could have circled back, we already had Vey, Dorsett and Miller locked up, making it unlikely we even tabled the original offer a second time. That is why Santo went to Toronto.

 

[Drop the Sopel]

That is not true. Santorelli asked for term, which Benning refused to offer, so he went to the market to see what his alternatives were. By the time he could have circled back, we already had Vey, Dorsett and Miller locked up, making it unlikely we even tabled the original offer a second time. That is why Santo went to Toronto.

When Benning was asked about Santo after he already acquired Vey, Bonino, Miller and Dorsett he said he was still looking to keep him in Vancouver.

Santorelli opted to go to Toronto.

 

[Barney Gumble]

That is not true. Santorelli asked for term, which Benning refused to offer, so he went to the market to see what his alternatives were. By the time he could have circled back, we already had Vey, Dorsett and Miller locked up, making it unlikely we even tabled the original offer a second time. That is why Santo went to Toronto.

Should've called up Sestito and said "sorry but we're going to have to send you to the Comets" to free up a forward roster spot. Additional cap space used up by Santo wouldn't be that significant for the "insurance" he would've given us up front.