Management Thread. A Fist Full of Dollars: Gunslinger Final Edition, Pt IlI

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Didalee Hed

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Sep 14, 2019
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Jim Benning, if nothing else, really is giving us something to look back on and laugh our old asses off, sometime 20 years down the road when the idiot owner finally runs out of patience.
 

CantStoptheBrock

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Jun 26, 2020
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I'm not sold on Benning going up to the podium wanting Glass at all...I think the organization 'as a whole' had mutually agreed on EP way back in the process'.. (a healthy process)...Things were copacetic at that time in the organization, and even after the heated debates, all happily agreed that the 'process' worked.

The Linden authoritarian 'overruled' bit is manufactured crap...Some media has discussed the the whole drafting of EP saga, and it has generated clicks, and radio airplay..None of the legit sports media have confirmed an 'overruling ' as fact.
Agreed. While some posts paint Pettersson as the obvious pick now, he wasn't (and neither was Hughes for that matter, just check the HF Van draft thread). It's actually incredibly rare for a top-5 pick to be selected out of a European junior league with no pro games under their belt. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single one, though I'm welcome to being corrected. It was a ballsy pick, and the "autonomy" given to the scouts by Linden was likely just the go-ahead to risk such franchise-changing draft capital on a relative unknown. As always, it's a good look for Benning that the critiques are now conducted on speculative grounds, rather than concrete ones.

As for Benning's scouting prowess, I'll go with Harman Dayal's concrete analysis of Jim's scouting record which concluded it was "remarkable," even taking into account draft position. What a turn-around for our scouting system from the worst in the league, and I'm surprised some posts are bitter rather than happy about that.
 
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MS

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Agreed. While some posts paint Pettersson as the obvious pick now, he wasn't (and neither was Hughes for that matter, just check the HF Van draft thread). It's actually incredibly rare for a top-5 pick to be selected out of a European junior league with no pro games under their belt. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single one, though I'm welcome to being corrected. It was a ballsy pick, and the "autonomy" given to the scouts by Linden was likely just the go-ahead to risk such franchise-changing draft capital on a relative unknown. As always, it's a good look for Benning that the critiques are now conducted on speculative grounds, rather than concrete ones.

What a load of hogwash and a completely invented narrative that has nothing to do with the actual facts.

Why was Trevor Linden calling out executives who are 'dangerous because they haven't seen the players play enough' in the context of the Pettersson pick?

Also, Pettersson wasn't playing in a Euro jr. league so you don't even have your basic facts correct.

As for Benning's scouting prowess, I'll go with Harman Dayal's concrete analysis of Jim's scouting record which concluded it was "remarkable," even taking into account draft position. What a turn-around for our scouting system from the worst in the league, and I'm surprised some posts are bitter rather than happy about that.

The last 15 years of Jim Benning overseeing scouting operations for NHL teams have been an unmitigated disaster outside of picks directly associated with Judd Brackett.
 

CantStoptheBrock

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What a load of hogwash and a completely invented narrative that has nothing to do with the actual facts.

Why was Trevor Linden calling out executives who are 'dangerous because they haven't seen the players play enough' in the context of the Pettersson pick?

Also, Pettersson wasn't playing in a Euro jr. league so you don't even have your basic facts correct.

The last 15 years of Jim Benning overseeing scouting operations for NHL teams have been an unmitigated disaster outside of picks directly associated with Judd Brackett.
OK, a second-tier European league, happy? It doesn't change the basis of my point whatsoever, which you completely ignore because it doesn't fit your constructed narrative.

Your reading of the Linden interview is impossible to respond to because you frame all the quotes inside your narrative, just like your addition of "over-ruling" to Linden's story. He was "calling out" executives? To be honest, I have only seen selected excerpts from the interview, and have yet to see a transcript, so I'm not going to rely on your over-interpretation of what has been said.

Finally, you are giving sole responsibility for good picks to Brackett, Benning's appointed, mentored and guided scouting director. It's slightly ridiculous. If Brackett had been a complete disaster, I'm sure you wouldn't be negating Benning's responsibility for those picks.
 

MS

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OK, a second-tier European league, happy? It doesn't change the basis of my point whatsoever, which you completely ignore because it doesn't fit your constructed narrative.

Your reading of the Linden interview is impossible to respond to because you frame all the quotes inside your narrative, just like your addition of "over-ruling" to Linden's story. He was "calling out" executives? To be honest, I have only seen selected excerpts from the interview, and have yet to see a transcript, so I'm not going to rely on your over-interpretation of what has been said.

Finally, you are giving sole responsibility for good picks to Brackett, Benning's appointed, mentored and guided scouting director. It's slightly ridiculous. If Brackett had been a complete disaster, I'm sure you wouldn't be negating Benning's responsibility for those picks.

Haven't even heard the interview or seen the full text, but have an opinion on it which is massively lopsided toward Benning. Sounds about right.

No point even debating this further. We know why you're here and what your agenda is.
 

CantStoptheBrock

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Haven't even heard the interview or seen the full text, but have an opinion on it which is massively lopsided toward Benning. Sounds about right.

No point even debating this further. We know why you're here and what your agenda is.
There's nothing in the interview that implicates Benning whatsoever from what I've seen excerpted, so no defence is really necessary. Thanks for sharing your transcript of the interview.

Overall, agreed that there's no point in debating this further. It's a realm of ambiguity and speculation, rife for narratives to be drawn. Conversely, I'm surprised there aren't more posts about acquiring a top 10-15 defenceman in the game for a 3rd round pick, but that's boring I guess, in being real.
 

MS

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There's nothing in the interview that implicates Benning whatsoever from what I've seen excerpted, so no defence is really necessary. Thanks for sharing your transcript of the interview.

Overall, agreed that there's no point in debating this further. It's a realm of ambiguity and speculation, rife for narratives to be drawn. Conversely, I'm surprised there aren't more posts about acquiring a top 10-15 defenceman in the game for a 3rd round pick, but that's boring I guess, in being real.

Lol, it’s my duty to provide you with a transcript of an interview from February that has been discussed since then and that you haven’t seen or read but have no trouble pontificating on?

This is even more embarrassing than usual for you. Starting with not knowing what league Pettersson was playing in when drafted.
 

Pastor Of Muppetz

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There's nothing in the interview that implicates Benning whatsoever from what I've seen excerpted, so no defence is really necessary. Thanks for sharing your transcript of the interview.

Overall, agreed that there's no point in debating this further. It's a realm of ambiguity and speculation, rife for narratives to be drawn. Conversely, I'm surprised there aren't more posts about acquiring a top 10-15 defenceman in the game for a 3rd round pick, but that's boring I guess, in being real.
...and even then he got upset, and put it down to 'dumb luck', and Benning being "Forrest Gump'..?...He wouldn't have an agenda would he?
 

MS

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...and even then he got upset, and put it down to 'dumb luck', and Benning being "Forrest Gump'..?...He wouldn't have an agenda would he?

Benning literally had bungled his entire offseason and was on about Plan F when McCrimmon phoned him up and offered him a top defender for a mid-round pick.

Like, it was pretty obviously a lucky bailout from a really bad situation. Full marks for knowing a good deal when he saw one, but if their intended plan had come to fruition we'd have acquired OEL for a pile of assets on one of the worst contracts in the NHL. Or signed Tyson Barrie, a move even you thought made zero sense. Thankfully he took a lower offer from Edmonton.
 

Frankie Blueberries

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Let’s be real, Benning’s best moves are the ones that didn’t happen as they fell through, but he wanted to make (trade 23rd overall pick in 2015 for Lucic, tried to sign Lucic, had interest in trading for Subban, Karlsson, and OEL when all would age terribly and eat up tons of cap).
 

CantStoptheBrock

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Benning literally had bungled his entire offseason and was on about Plan F when McCrimmon phoned him up and offered him a top defender for a mid-round pick.
Benning hadn't bungled his off-season at all. He held firm with a lowball OEL offer, and didn't get sucked into giving bad deals to Tanev or Markstrom. He waited patiently to capitalize on a situation like the Schmidt one (what people have been demanding for him to do). McCrimmon phoned him up... why?

Just to get you on the record for posterity, would you have signed Tanev or Markstrom to those deals? I think they'll help Calgary for a year or two, but after that, they look horrific, and don't fit at all Vancouver's plan.
 

CherryToke

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OEL being a target at all is the problem.. But of course bungled brained Benning didn't see any problem with it since he skates real fast and rips the puck
 

Frankie Blueberries

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@F A N regarding your post from the last thread:
Ah. Common sense. Did you argue that "common sense" dictates that Benning should have control over the scouts from the top down and influence on their picks with his scouting experience instead of giving Brackett the autonomy that he wanted?

-

Let me put it to you another way, Benning was hired as Assistant GM of Boston with no other prior executive experience aside from being a scout. Why do you think he was hired by Boston? What do you think his strengths and qualities were at the time to get the job as AGM with Boston? This is all common sense.
 

Hodgy

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Feb 23, 2012
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Clearly, Benning said that there was work to be done on this roster...He put expectations on himself, and hoped for the best..He didn't guarantee anything.

Why are you talking about guaranteeing a result? Did you not even bother reading my post? No GM is going to guarantee results in the future, and the fact that Benning literally means nothing because literally no one would do this.

The shitty years (the first 3) were not planned, they were trying to make the playoffs, and rebuild simultaneously...It was a failure...On the Sedins final year 2017-18,(or after that) I only recall Benning saying they were going to be 'competitive' ( not a playoff team ,let alone one of the top teams)..Link the source to those comments from a few years ago.

Who cares what Benning said two to three years ago? The discussion was about you vastly misrepresenting the quote I posted, and now you are off on some irrelevant tangent. Plus, should we be applauding Benning for not stating that we would be competing with top teams in years 4 and 5 after being like the worst team in the NHL for years 2 and 3? Like, as stupid as Elmer is, even he would have realized how delusional that would have been. [/QUOTE]

Of course, Benning tried to put on a positive face for the fans and media (what else did you expect him to say?)...The Sedins were rapidly deteriorating, and there wasn't any impact talent coming up through the ranks (you don't fix a decades worth of atrocious drafting in 2-3 years)....Benning,Linden and ownership knew this, thats why they never went completely 'all in'..Louie Eriksson was the last major UFA signing, until Myers 2 years later..

This is just an incredibly ridiculous interpretation of that quote. Benning literally prefaces the quote with realistically, and then sets out what is a very reasonably expectation. None of the revisionist crap you are spewing is going to change this.

Just like the Senators,Ducks,Red Wings,Kings situations now....The Canucks were in that situation 4 years ago..The piper had to be paid until they could build up their prospect pool..Looking at those Canuck rosters 2015-18, I had no delusions of those teams.

See above. This is very clearly not aligned to what Benning said. Benning literally uses the term realistically and you are bending over backwards to state that he actually didn’t mean realistically at, but was just lying to everyone.
 

CantStoptheBrock

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Jun 26, 2020
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The evaluations that Benning communicates to the fans (primarily those who pay for season tickets) does not constitute a 1:1 relation with the organization's internal evaluations. The fact that this needs to be said over and over again is exhausting. Some posts treat Benning's remarks like their Biblical scriptures to pour over, rather than marketing blurbs to Joe Schmo who's wondering if he should take his kids to the game this year, or buy them a Canuck jersey for Christmas. I think if Benning did know the degree to which his each and every remark is dissected here, he would buy a new security system for his house.
 

Hodgy

Registered User
Feb 23, 2012
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There's nothing in the interview that implicates Benning whatsoever from what I've seen excerpted, so no defence is really necessary. Thanks for sharing your transcript of the interview.

Overall, agreed that there's no point in debating this further. It's a realm of ambiguity and speculation, rife for narratives to be drawn. Conversely, I'm surprised there aren't more posts about acquiring a top 10-15 defenceman in the game for a 3rd round pick, but that's boring I guess, in being real.

Jesus Christ. You haven’t even heard the interview in it’s entirety but yet you are dismissing it?
 

Bojack Horvatman

IAMGROOT
Jun 15, 2016
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Linden giving the scouts the autonomy to draft Pettersson is not a conspiracy theory. Linden himself said that this is what happened.

There is a difference between crackpot, baseless conspiracy theories from a blog, and information that came from a high ranking whistleblower, even if it can't be proven 100%. It's the difference between the Clinton body count, and that the NSA had records to everybody's phone records. Linden giving autonomy to pick Pettersson belongs with the latter.
 
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Frankie Blueberries

Allergic to draft picks
Jan 27, 2016
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Linden giving the scouts the autonomy to draft Pettersson is not a conspiracy theory. Linden himself said that this is what happened.

There is a difference between crackpot, baseless conspiracy theories from a blog, and information that came from a high ranking whistleblower, even if it can't be proven 100%. It's the difference between the Clinton body count, and that the NSA had records to everybody's phone records. Linden giving autonomy to pick Pettersson belongs with the latter.

Yeah but I don’t like it so it must not be true. I have spent too much time supporting Benning to acknowledge any faults.

/thread
 

CantStoptheBrock

Registered User
Jun 26, 2020
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Jesus Christ. You haven’t even heard the interview in it’s entirety but yet you are dismissing it?
I'm dismissing the narrative that Linden over-ruled Benning who didn't want Pettersson. I've read all the the curated excerpts, and there's been nothing in them that implies this reading without a lot of over-interpretation and fan fiction. It has been amusing to watch Linden shift from incompetent fool to HF Vancouver saviour though, depending on the role in the narrative he has to play.

I listened to the interview. As I expected, there's a whole lot of misrepresentation. First of all, it's Sat Shah who introduces the precious word "autonomy" with an innocuous question, and Linden gives an innocuous response about it being important to give all departments in the organization autonomy. Then there's the giving Brackett autonomy remark, which I've explained my interpretation of on the first page. Unfortunately, it's just as valid as your interpretation because the remarks are so vague. At the end of the day, a GM bears ultimate responsibility for the picks made under their tenure. End of story.

There's no "calling out of executives" as another post retrofitted it for the narrative. Linden says: "people who have only seen a couple games of a player can be dangerous," which most likely refers to other scouts given the context he was speaking in.
 
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F A N

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Aug 12, 2005
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@F A N regarding your post from the last thread:
Ah. Common sense. Did you argue that "common sense" dictates that Benning should have control over the scouts from the top down and influence on their picks with his scouting experience instead of giving Brackett the autonomy that he wanted?

-

Let me put it to you another way, Benning was hired as Assistant GM of Boston with no other prior executive experience aside from being a scout. Why do you think he was hired by Boston? What do you think his strengths and qualities were at the time to get the job as AGM with Boston? This is all common sense.

Let me put it to you another way. Benning was NOT hired as Assistant GM of Boston with no other prior executive experience aside from being a scout. He was hired as Director of Player Personnel and was then promoted to AGM. The Director of Amateur Scouting for the Bruins at the relevant times happened to be the GM's friend and earlier hire. Common sense dictates that Benning had little to no control over him. You think Crawford had the authority to fire Brett Henning or Brackett had the authority to fire Brandon Benning without getting approval from above?

It is simply common sense that new roles = new responsibilities. Weisbrod's NHL resume reads that of a scout and Brackett technically reported to him. Given his background scouting the USHL and NCAA and as a Director of Collegiate Scouting for Boston, is it common sense that Weisbrod influenced all USHL and NCAA picks? I think most of us believe that Weisbrod did not exert such influence and authority just like Gilman didn't influence the draft even though he was responsible for overseeing the Canucks' amateur scouting staff. In the years past, Benning frequently deferred to Brackett including deciding whether to trade down.

Again, Weisbrod has been the team's AGM and Brackett did technically report to him. But there are zero reports of Weisbrod actually influencing the draft except fan fiction that the Canucks had zeroed in on Hughes because of him. If you watch the behind the scenes videos surrounding the draft, Weisbrod was more deferential than influential., Benning, on draft day, doesn't even ask Weisbrod for his opinion. He looks at Wall when he's considering trading down and then to Brackett.

"I guess common sense isn't your forté?"
 

Frankie Blueberries

Allergic to draft picks
Jan 27, 2016
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Let me put it to you another way. Benning was NOT hired as Assistant GM of Boston with no other prior executive experience aside from being a scout. He was hired as Director of Player Personnel and was then promoted to AGM. The Director of Amateur Scouting for the Bruins at the relevant times happened to be the GM's friend and earlier hire. Common sense dictates that Benning had little to no control over him. You think Crawford had the authority to fire Brett Henning or Brackett had the authority to fire Brandon Benning without getting approval from above?

It is simply common sense that new roles = new responsibilities. Weisbrod's NHL resume reads that of a scout and Brackett technically reported to him. Given his background scouting the USHL and NCAA and as a Director of Collegiate Scouting for Boston, is it common sense that Weisbrod influenced all USHL and NCAA picks? I think most of us believe that Weisbrod did not exert such influence and authority just like Gilman didn't influence the draft even though he was responsible for overseeing the Canucks' amateur scouting staff. In the years past, Benning frequently deferred to Brackett including deciding whether to trade down.

Again, Weisbrod has been the team's AGM and Brackett did technically report to him. But there are zero reports of Weisbrod actually influencing the draft except fan fiction that the Canucks had zeroed in on Hughes because of him. If you watch the behind the scenes videos surrounding the draft, Weisbrod was more deferential than influential., Benning, on draft day, doesn't even ask Weisbrod for his opinion. He looks at Wall when he's considering trading down and then to Brackett.

"I guess common sense isn't your forté?"

Jesus christ, you missed the entire point. Benning's background was 13 years of scouting and he was only Director of Player Personnel for 1 year with the Bruins, and then replaced Gorton as AGM.

The fact that you are somehow contesting that Benning was brought into Boston due to his scouting background, and that he likely played a huge role working with the scouts in Boston, goes against all common sense and reasoning. The facts are all there, I'm surprised it's this hard for you to connect the dots.
 

Peen

Rejoicing in a Benning-free world
Oct 6, 2013
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The only thing that matters is the outcome!

It doesn't matter that Barrie turned down our offer for less money in Edmonton and that we would have had a guy who fits terribly instead of Schmidt because we ended up with our plan E - literally.

Also 6x1=5
 
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