Jim Elmer Benning on Sportsnet 650 Today (Jan. 23) around 4 PM

[Michael Dal Swolle]

You may be right. A new GM could probably come in and simply let Brackett and the staff make the picks and that would likely work for a couple of years. But I wouldn't underestimate the impact a GM can make to the team's drafting. Part of the GM's job is to anticipate the changes in the game and instruct his amateur scouts to draft accordingly. A GM's thinking and preferences can directly impact the draft. Take the drafting of Schneider. If Burke was still the GM, Schneider wouldn't have been drafted and we wouldn't have had Luongo. If you look at Gillis' drafts, he went from drafting speed and skill to size in 2011 and 2012. It's not a coincidence that the Canucks drafted Mallet and Hutton. That was a draft where the directive was that it's okay to draft older prospects who have been on a steeper development curve of late. The Canucks have drafted out of the US high school leagues every year since Benning had time to instruct his scouts as to what to look for. This isn't a coincidence. A new GM is very likely going to change the way the Canucks draft and it may or may not produce better results.

1) So some theoretical direction from Benning, which we have no real evidence or indication of, is somehow garnering better drafting results, and this is the reason he should keep his job? Sounds pretty tenuous to me. I'd rather someone who doesn't demonstrably make the team worse with trades and free agent signings.
2) Assuming you mean the USHL, Brackett scouted there for years before his promotion and the Canucks' picking from that league matches up perfectly with the timing of his promotion. Boston and Buffalo drafted a total of 5 USHL players in the combined 13 seasons Benning spent with those two organizations. The increased USHL interest is clearly Brackett, not Benning.

This has been said many times. Brackett went from a part-time scout to the Director of Amateur Scouting. Ya Brackett was "in the organization" but he clearly wasn't highly valued under the previous regime. Don't get me wrong, I give credit to Gillis for making quite a few changes to the scouting staff as well. There has actually been quite a few changes since summer of 2017 on the amateur scouting front.

I talked about this before, Doug Gasper was the Director of Amateur Scouting for Moosejaw before joining the Canucks. The Canucks then drafted Jett Woo. Coincidence? Montalbano worked/works as a scout/the Director of Player Personnel for the Tri-City Storms. The Canucks then drafted Tyler Madden. Coincidence? ultimately the scouts are the ones who have the most impact on who gets selected so I don't think it's as simple as "ya well he hired the guy but he just let the guy he hired pick."

1) Montalbano joined the Canucks July 2017. Tyler Madden was traded to the Tri-City Storm December 2017. They didn't even overlap.
2) Doug Gasper joined the Canucks July 2017. Jett Woo had played a grand total of 6 WHL games at that time.
3) Given the above, it's totally plausible those hires and picks were coincidences unless you have some evidence to suggest otherwise. Every person with a career in amateur hockey is going to have these kinds of connections with many players who go on to be prospects.
3) Cole Cassels had a great D+1 and is playing in Germany. I'd let them make the NHL before you start bragging about these players.
4) If a guy's tenure as a GM has been an unmitigated disaster except for the drafting and it turns he's just rubber stamping over people's work, then yeah, it might actually be that simple.

You're putting words into my mouth. All I said was that Benning is the GM and he's ultimately responsible for the Canucks' drafting record during the time he is the GM. It doesn't matter if he picks whomever he wants to pick or he just lets his scouts pick. If the consensus among his scouts was to pick Juolevi and Benning "vetoed" and picked Tkachuk, would you give him credit? What if the consensus among his scouts was to pick Glass instead of Pettersson, would you give him the same criticism as you would give him credit for in the prior hypothetical?

1) You said nobody around here was calling Jim Benning a scouting guru and challenged me to find a poster who had. You would have to be unreasonably pedantic to pretend that isn't the same thing as saying Benning doesn't get direct credit for the draft selections. I'm not putting words in your mouth at all.

2) Obviously if there was evidence that the scouts wanted inferior players and they were overridden by Benning who insisted on picking players who turned out to be better, Benning would get credit. So far the evidence we have suggests the exact opposite. If there is evidence that Benning was the driving force behind good picks, he gets credit for it. If there's evidence that the driving force was other members of the staff (and that Benning had to be brought on board), then he doesn't get credit. I don't know how much simpler I can make this.

3) You can choose to ignore the process of how these picks and focus on who has "ultimate responsibility" if you want, but it's a simplistic perspective that necessitates willfully ignoring evidence of what's going on below the surface with regards to how important decisions get made for this hockey team. Those of us who actually want to look critically at this team and its decision making processes are going to do a more nuanced analysis.

 

[me2]

Are they? I can think of one: FAN. The rest all think Gillis was crap and relentlessly slam him because drafting. Almost all of them go out of their way to attack Gillis players like Markstrom, Hutton, Biega in every gdt and were clearly not supportive of him as a GM because drafting.

I don't think they are attacking Gillis because of scouting, they are attacking the scouting because they don't like Gillis and their only option of attack is scouting. It is the same with Benning, the want to defend their choice in Benning so they have to find something to rally around, that last resort is scouting. This is tribalism, you see it in politics so much these days.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

was just watching an episode of law and order

and damn, that's eerie as hell

 

[mathonwy]

I don't think they are attacking Gillis because of scouting, they are attacking the scouting because they don't like Gillis and their only option of attack is scouting. It is the same with Benning, the want to defend their choice in Benning so they have to find something to rally around, that last resort is scouting. This is tribalism, you see it in politics so much these days.

They didn't like Gilly in the same kinda way that some people didn't like Obummer?

 

[F A N]

1) So some theoretical direction from Benning, which we have no real evidence or indication of, is somehow garnering better drafting results, and this is the reason he should keep his job? Sounds pretty tenuous to me. I'd rather someone who doesn't demonstrably make the team worse with trades and free agent signings.

I never said he should keep his job. I've said in the past that he deserved to be fired. That doesn't mean I don't think he can stay and do a better job. Again you're attributing words to me that I did not write.

2) Assuming you mean the USHL, Brackett scouted there for years before his promotion and the Canucks' picking from that league matches up perfectly with the timing of his promotion. Boston and Buffalo drafted a total of 5 USHL players in the combined 13 seasons Benning spent with those two organizations. The increased USHL interest is clearly Brackett, not Benning.

Brackett was promoted after the 2015 draft. The Canucks drafted Boeser and Gaudette in 2015. Weisbrod is high on the USHL as well. Clearly Benning promoted and trusted guys who were "interested" in the USHL.

1) Montalbano joined the Canucks July 2017. Tyler Madden was traded to the Tri-City Storm December 2017. They didn't even overlap.

Nope. You are wrong. Montalbano is still Tri-City Storm's Director of Player Personnel so they did overlap.

2) Doug Gasper joined the Canucks July 2017. Jett Woo had played a grand total of 6 WHL games at that time.
3) Given the above, it's totally plausible those hires and picks were coincidences unless you have some evidence to suggest otherwise. Every person with a career in amateur hockey is going to have these kinds of connections with many players who go on to be prospects.

I don't think you understand how things work. Jett Woo was drafted 4th overall in the WHL bantam draft, the year that Gasper was the Assistant Head Scout and just before he was promoted to Director of Amateur Scouting.

1) You said nobody around here was calling Jim Benning a scouting guru and challenged me to find a poster who had. You would have to be unreasonably pedantic to pretend that isn't the same thing as saying Benning doesn't get direct credit for the draft selections. I'm not putting words in your mouth at all.

Umm... what? I never called Jim Benning a scouting guru and I give credit to Benning as the GM of a team that picked Pettersson. I never said that the pick was solely because of him or that he even favoured Pettersson over say Makar. This is just common rationale and logic. What I disputed was your point about Benning having to be "won over" which you showed zero evidence of to support this claim.

2) Obviously if there was evidence that the scouts wanted inferior players and they were overridden by Benning who insisted on picking players who turned out to be better, Benning would get credit. So far the evidence we have suggests the exact opposite.

Okay where is the evidence? For your mind only?

If there is evidence that Benning was the driving force behind good picks, he gets credit for it. If there's evidence that the driving force was other members of the staff (and that Benning had to be brought on board), then he doesn't get credit. I don't know how much simpler I can make this.

Again with this whole "he needs to be brought on board" spiel. It's quite common for GMs to delegate to their scouts the task of compiling a draft list with players in the right order in which they would draft. I'm sure there are instances where a GM went in another direction. There's no evidence that Benning did that. Agreeing with the draft list is hardly being "won over."

3) You can choose to ignore the process of how these picks and focus on who has "ultimate responsibility" if you want, but it's a simplistic perspective that necessitates willfully ignoring evidence of what's going on below the surface with regards to how important decisions get made for this hockey team. Those of us who actually want to look critically at this team and its decision making processes are going to do a more nuanced analysis.

Explain to me your nuanced analysis of how the Canucks conduct the draft based on the "evidence" that you claim that I ignored? Benning took less than a year to decide that Eric Crawford wasn't his guy and he promoted a guy who spent the last 6 years as a part-time scout all the way to the Director of Amateur Scouting. The evidence (articles, Linden, draft videos etc.) suggest that Benning placed a lot of faith in Brackett and ultimately defers to him and the scouting staff. If the recorded draft videos are to be believed, he even lets Brackett decide on whether to trade down. The evidence is that he put a guy he supposedly trusts to run his drafts and let him run it. As GM, he is ultimately responsible for his team's draft record. In my mind, a GM deserves praise for overseeing a team that drafts well and criticism for overseeing a team that drafts horribly. I don't care if he just stood there and let his scouts choose or vetoed his scouts and make the pick he wants except if it's the former and the draft record is bad he should make changes and if it's the latter he should let his scouts do their job.

Many years back, there was a poster who said it takes time to fix the scouting and I said that Gillis could have made changes much quicker. Steve Yzerman hired Al Murray immediately. Benning made changes quickly. Either way, my opinion is that the GM is ultimately responsible for his draft record good or bad.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

It's the GM's job to delegate. If he delegates and listens to the right person, both he and that person get credit. They aren't competing with eachother, they're working together.

 

[Ryp37]

It's the GM's job to delegate. If he delegates and listens to the right person, both he and that person get credit. They aren't competing with eachother, they're working together.

He seems to defer to rather than delegate going off the draft videos

 

[me2]

It's the GM's job to delegate. If he delegates and listens to the right person, both he and that person get credit. They aren't competing with eachother, they're working together.

So who get the "credit" for the

bad trading
bad management
bad UFA signings
bad contracts
bad evaluation

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

So who get the "credit" for the

bad trading
bad management
bad UFA signings
bad contracts
bad evaluation

I put JB's tenure into two phases..The 'compete on the fly' era..(2014-16)..and the rebuild era (2017-)...Not going to deny that there were mistakes made during the first half of his time here...but I believe that he was under a 'mandate' to try and ice a completive team while the Sedins were still here..

Post TDL 2017,..I've liked pretty much all of his moves..Here we are ,he's transitioned the team to a young core..Hired great staff (coach and DOS),and we're sitting here with $37.2M in capspace ,and ready for the next phase.

 

[RandV]

Explain to me your nuanced analysis of how the Canucks conduct the draft based on the "evidence" that you claim that I ignored? Benning took less than a year to decide that Eric Crawford wasn't his guy and he promoted a guy who spent the last 6 years as a part-time scout all the way to the Director of Amateur Scouting.

Crawford was fired because he was part of the old Gillis clique with Gillman/Henning/and one more I forgot. I'm sure this was less about the drafting and more about sacking the old kings generals. Considering that reporting from the time suggested they stuck to their own little group through that year and were all fired together.

And I'm not going to take credit away from Benning for promoting Brackett, but it's kind of ridiculous to suggest "he clearly wasn't highly valued under the previous regime". He was new on the job so he wasn't going to be immediately promoted to head scout, and the difference between what I did above and what you have here is the difference between supported and baseless speculation. If the prior regime didn't value him he wouldn't have had the job.

Also I'd agree with you that the general tilt from Benning/Weisbrod is towards college players. With Crawford (who really didn't have much time to run the show) the focus was more on the OHL.

 

[Ryp37]

I put JB's tenure into two phases..The 'compete on the fly' era..(2014-16)..and the rebuild era (2017-)...Not going to deny that there were mistakes made during the first half of his time here...but I believe that he was under a 'mandate' to try and ice a completive team while the Sedins were still here..

Post TDL 2017,..I've liked pretty much all of his moves..Here we are ,he's transitioned the team to a young core..Hired great staff (coach and DOS),and we're sitting here with $37.2M in capspace ,and ready for the next phase.

lmao

 

[me2]

I put JB's tenure into two phases..The 'compete on the fly' era..(2014-16)..and the rebuild era (2017-)...Not going to deny that there were mistakes made during the first half of his time here...but I believe that he was under a 'mandate' to try and ice a completive team while the Sedins were still here..

Post TDL 2017,..I've liked pretty much all of his moves..Here we are ,he's transitioned the team to a young core..Hired great staff (coach and DOS),and we're sitting here with $37.2M in capspace ,and ready for the next phase.

Where would this team be if Benning was not terrible and succeeded in his plan to limp into the 2017 playoffs?

Screwed. If Benning succeeded with his hair brained schemes we would not have Pettersson. We only have him because Benning is an idiot, Benning would rather have made the playoffs and gotten whipped in the 1st round than draft Pettersson.

this is the 1st year they were not committed to the playoffs.

 

[Pip]

I put JB's tenure into two phases..The 'compete on the fly' era..(2014-16)..and the rebuild era (2017-)...Not going to deny that there were mistakes made during the first half of his time here...but I believe that he was under a 'mandate' to try and ice a completive team while the Sedins were still here..

Post TDL 2017,..I've liked pretty much all of his moves..Here we are ,he's transitioned the team to a young core..Hired great staff (coach and DOS),and we're sitting here with $37.2M in capspace ,and ready for the next phase.

This ain’t it fam

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Where would this team be if Benning was not terrible and succeeded in his plan to limp into the 2017 playoffs?

Screwed. If Benning succeeded with his hair brained schemes we would not have Pettersson. We only have him because Benning is an idiot, Benning would rather have made the playoffs and gotten whipped in the 1st round than draft Pettersson.

this is the 1st year they were not committed to the playoffs.

Disagree...we are coming up on 3 years where they have not committed to the playoffs (since the 2017 TDL)..They haven't made any 'playoff push moves' since then ....Also.,JB has not called them 'a playoff team' since then

 

[Michael Dal Swolle]

I never said he should keep his job. I've said in the past that he deserved to be fired. That doesn't mean I don't think he can stay and do a better job. Again you're attributing words to me that I did not write.

1) I said I thought Benning should be replaced if all he is doing with regards to scouting is not vetoing good selections suggested by others. You cautioned me by saying a new GM could change the draft process in a way that could produce worse results. I don't know how that can be interpreted other than you meaning to say Benning shouldn't be fired on that basis.
2) This isn't a response to my point. If the most that can be said for Benning's contribution to the amateur scouting is that he is giving some sort of direction which we have no clear indication of, the rest of his body of work as GM doesn't warrant him continuing to hold his job. It appears we may be in agreement on this.

Brackett was promoted after the 2015 draft. The Canucks drafted Boeser and Gaudette in 2015. Weisbrod is high on the USHL as well. Clearly Benning promoted and trusted guys who were "interested" in the USHL.

Again, my understanding is that Brackett was a USHL scout for years. He was promoted to Director of Amateur Scouting just over a month after the 2015 Draft. It's not a stretch to imagine he had a significant impact on those two picks. Benning had not demonstrated an affinity for the USHL prior to that time. You think what you want but I think it's pretty clear where the USHL lean is coming from.

And to be honest, I'm not sure I buy that there's been some huge organizational benefit to picking more from the USHL. It seems like most teams are increasingly focusing there. It's not like good players aren't available from other leagues, even in later rounds.

Nope. You are wrong. Montalbano is still Tri-City Storm's Director of Player Personnel so they did overlap.

I don't think you understand how things work. Jett Woo was drafted 4th overall in the WHL bantam draft, the year that Gasper was the Assistant Head Scout and just before he was promoted to Director of Amateur Scouting.

You are correct on Montalbano. You'll have to clarify what you mean re Gasper. You haven't addressed my point that people with these kinds of jobs in minor hockey are going to have these kinds of connections to many players who go on to become prospects. I don't see how any of this plays into your larger point.

Umm... what? I never called Jim Benning a scouting guru and I give credit to Benning as the GM of a team that picked Pettersson. I never said that the pick was solely because of him or that he even favoured Pettersson over say Makar. This is just common rationale and logic. What I disputed was your point about Benning having to be "won over" which you showed zero evidence of to support this claim.

Okay where is the evidence? For your mind only?

The evidence is the initial quote from the article that this entire conversation is predicated on. You can dispute whether this is indicative of what I think it is but you can't pretend nothing has been put forward.

Again with this whole "he needs to be brought on board" spiel. It's quite common for GMs to delegate to their scouts the task of compiling a draft list with players in the right order in which they would draft. I'm sure there are instances where a GM went in another direction. There's no evidence that Benning did that. Agreeing with the draft list is hardly being "won over."

This isn't a response to my point, so I have nothing to add.

Explain to me your nuanced analysis of how the Canucks conduct the draft based on the "evidence" that you claim that I ignored? Benning took less than a year to decide that Eric Crawford wasn't his guy and he promoted a guy who spent the last 6 years as a part-time scout all the way to the Director of Amateur Scouting. The evidence (articles, Linden, draft videos etc.) suggest that Benning placed a lot of faith in Brackett and ultimately defers to him and the scouting staff. If the recorded draft videos are to be believed, he even lets Brackett decide on whether to trade down. The evidence is that he put a guy he supposedly trusts to run his drafts and let him run it. As GM, he is ultimately responsible for his team's draft record. In my mind, a GM deserves praise for overseeing a team that drafts well and criticism for overseeing a team that drafts horribly. I don't care if he just stood there and let his scouts choose or vetoed his scouts and make the pick he wants except if it's the former and the draft record is bad he should make changes and if it's the latter he should let his scouts do their job.

Many years back, there was a poster who said it takes time to fix the scouting and I said that Gillis could have made changes much quicker. Steve Yzerman hired Al Murray immediately. Benning made changes quickly. Either way, my opinion is that the GM is ultimately responsible for his draft record good or bad.

If my grandmother became the GM this year and just took whoever Judd Brackett said at the 2019 Draft, from the "ultimate responsibility" perspective she would be doing a good job. That would obviously be a silly take.

If all Benning can say for the scouting is that he promoted someone already in the organization and deferred to his judgment, I think its simplistic to say this should weigh heavily in his favour just because the "ultimate responsibility" falls to him. I acknowledge there's a basis for giving him some credit but I don't think it's a strong one and I don't think it outweighs the big pile of negatives he brings.

 

[Bleach Clean]

I put JB's tenure into two phases..The 'compete on the fly' era..(2014-16)..and the rebuild era (2017-)...Not going to deny that there were mistakes made during the first half of his time here...but I believe that he was under a 'mandate' to try and ice a completive team while the Sedins were still here..

Post TDL 2017,..I've liked pretty much all of his moves..Here we are ,he's transitioned the team to a young core..Hired great staff (coach and DOS),and we're sitting here with $37.2M in capspace ,and ready for the next phase.

How preposterous do you think it is to white wash 2.5 years of a 5 year body of work? When you answer that question, maybe then you'll begin to understand just how little stock one should put into your selection bias above.

Also, based upon that selection bias, you like:

- About 2 years of the worst winning percentage in the NHL.
- Re-signing Gudbranson to a 3 year contract.
- Re-signing Pouliot.
- The Vanek for Motte deal.
- Signing Nilsson for 2.5m AAV.
- Signed three 4th liners for stupid AAVs.
- Traded Nilsson for a very marginal return.
- Traded Del Zotto for a pathetic return.

That's part of the work you like.

Amazing really.