This season rivals 2016 for overall organizational incompetence, no doubt. Anyone left on the Benning bandwagon or saying he is learning from his mistakes will just never get it.
Going back to the trade deadline last season, the Canucks have hit rock-bottom.
- Trading a 2nd and Madden for 17 games of Toffoli.
- Letting Toffoli walk without any contact even though he was vocal about wanting to stay. Signing Virtanen instead.
- Having Toffoli sign a very reasonable deal in Montreal, place top 5 in goals league wide, and torch the Canucks all season.
- Signing Holtby to an inflated, multi-year contract after coming off a season being arguably the worst starter in the league.
- Letting loyal players in Tanev and Stetcher walk after letting them twist in the wind with no contact from the Canucks.
- Having players publically discuss their disappointment surrounding the off-season moves.
- Chasing one of the worst contracts in the league in OEL which was reported to include this year's first round pick which would have been a total disaster. Luckily, Benning was saved from himself.
- Not picking until the 4th round of the draft with an already thin prospect pool.
- Having one of the worst starts in the league requiring Aquilini to go public to end speculation surrounding Benning's termination.
- Benning's bizarre, incoherent press conference stating he 'Ran out of time' and is 'Living day-to-day'. Claiming the teams is 2 years away from being a Stanley Cup contender (lol).
- Pulling Gaudette mid-practice with a positive Covid result and continuing to finish the practice.
- Having the roster ravaged by Covid as bad as any team in North American professional sports.
- Complete silence from Canucks management and Ownership on the NHL plans for rescheduling forcing player JT Miller to go public voicing his concerns.
- Trading Gaudette at his lowest value for virtually no return after not playing him in a position to succeed to increase his value.
- Signing Pearson to a multi-year extension after a calendar year of replacement level play rather than returning some value to the team at the deadline. Giving Pearson verbal confirmation he will be protected in the expansion draft.
- Trading Benn and collectively downgrading our 4th round pick to a 5th and 6th. No real positive gain at the deadline which has become par for the course over the past 7 years.
- Silence in response to the Virtanen allegations forcing lame-duck Green to answer to the media.
- Once again having tens of millions of dollars in wasted cap space not even on the roster including the Taxi squad, Utica, LTIR and cap penalties.
- Finishing as one of the worst teams in the league yet again and likely last place in the Northern Division.
This is all just off the top of my head. I am sure there is more garbage sprinkled in there.
The Covid stoppage last spring also saved what could have been a slide out of the playoffs leaving no first round pick this season. Markstrom and Tanev had gone down for the remainder of the season and they were starting to get into a funk. Imagine playing out this season without a lottery pick to show for it?
Also, Schmidt falling in his lap prevented an already thin back-end from being a total disaster. Schmidt has not played up to his contract this season however the Blueline would be very ugly if he was not on the team.
Crazy to see just how much rope Benning has been given. Any other reasonably competent organization would have sacked Benning years ago. To add insult to injury we have the local media going to bat for the team every single day telling us how rosey everything is.