Management Thread. For a Few Dollars More: Gunslinger Edition, Pt II

[Hit the post]

I was unhappy when Gillis took over. I was pleasantly wrong. But he had very few high draft picks, and was justified in trading draft picks to improve the team. We very nearly won our coveted Cup. The problem was the inability to accept that we had little in pipeline, and the wish to keep "being competitive" with an aging core. And JB has been horrible at accepting this, probably because to keep his job he had to keep telling Aqua Weinie that we were just a LE or a Beagle away from being right back there.

A few hundred years later thing are looking decent with a solid core and some stuff in the pipeline.

(to clarify - Gillis didn't really have a decent draft pick that he missed on. His only early pick was Horvat).

Actually I’d argue Gillis didn’t go ‘all in’ enough during his time here (during his window). He dealt only one 1st round pick (at that was a late in the first round pick). Same number as a GM tasked with rebuilding a team.

 

[CantStoptheBrock]

I didnt like Gillis at first either.

In retrospect he is easily our best GM.

His downfall was also his greatest asset, his analytical approach to everything. He waited to have enough data on his scouting staff before revamping it. At that point it was already too late.

His revamp sucked as well. The 2013 draft that Eric Crawford ran was a disaster apart from the Horvat pick. When Benning entered the picture, the scouting system was still a disaster, with no evaluation basis for comparing players to other players.

As always the real "but Gillis" is the belief still pandered around here that one of the worst drafting GM's in NHL history should have led a rebuild. With Tortorella as coach! The horror, the horror...

 

[4Twenty]

His revamp sucked as well. The 2013 draft that Eric Crawford ran was a disaster apart from the Horvat pick. When Benning entered the picture, the scouting system was still a disaster, with no evaluation basis for comparing players to other players.

As always the real "but Gillis" is the belief still pandered around here that one of the worst drafting GM's in NHL history should have led a rebuild. With Tortorella as coach! The horror, the horror...

Weird then that the 2014 draft Eric Crawford also ran is the best draft since Benning took over.

What do you mean by no evaluation basis?

Was 2013 worse than 2016?

 

[CantStoptheBrock]

Weird then that the 2014 draft Eric Crawford also ran is the best draft since Benning took over.

What do you mean by no evaluation basis?

Was 2013 worse than 2016?

First point is not even close. If you watch the behind the scenes of the 2014 draft, you can already see Eric Crawford being marginalized. He looks incredibly awkward: .
I don't want to play the game of who drafted who, but the Demko and Tryamkin picks go completely against the Gillis era draft philosophy.

There was an article out around the time that Brackett took over about how prior to him, there was no evaluative metric of comparing draft prospects between scouts, so it was just chaos. Brackett and Benning established an evaluative system that enabled the scouting department to more directly compare players. Can't find the article, but I'm sure other people remember it as well.

 

[4Twenty]

First point is not even close. If you watch the behind the scenes of the 2014 draft, you can already see Eric Crawford being marginalized. He looks incredibly awkward: .
I don't want to play the game of who drafted who, but the Demko and Tryamkin picks go completely against the Gillis era draft philosophy.

There was an article out around the time that Brackett took over about how prior to him, there was no evaluative metric of comparing draft prospects between scouts, so it was just chaos. Brackett and Benning established an evaluative system that enabled the scouting department to more directly compare players. Can't find the article, but I'm sure other people remember it as well.

So he neutered the director of scouting with less than a month on the job? That goes counter to his words but I guess those weren’t on company letterhead. I’m not going to make comments on people appearing awkward in front of a camera.

Seems strange the same scouts and system behind improved processes in 2012 led to improved processes in 2014.


I don’t recall any such article.

Bringing up but Gillis or but drafting is pretty hilarious. Somebody told me we need to drop 2014-2017 on here recently but we’re going over press releases from 2013? By a GM who was fired.

The “improved” drafting looks to me like improved draft position.

I’ll await you finding that article.

 

[CantStoptheBrock]

The “improved” drafting looks to me like improved draft position.

Categorically false. Take out top 10 picks if you want to 'level' the playing field: Brock Boeser, Thatcher Demko, Adam Gaudette, and Jared McCann are all far better players objectively than anything Gillis ever drafted in those spots. Moreover, there's decent potential for a few of Jack Rathbone, Michael Dipietro, Kole Lind, Nils Hoglander, Tyler Madden, Jett Woo, Nikita Tryamkin, Aidan McDonough to only add to that superiority.

I have to include prospects/players traded away by the Canucks because without that condition Gillis wouldn't have drafted a single NHL player outside the top-10. His list is pretty pathetic regardless: Kevin Connauton and Ben Hutton. Might make a nice top pairing in the German league next season.

 

[MS]

Categorically false. Take out top 10 picks if you want to 'level' the playing field: Brock Boeser, Thatcher Demko, Adam Gaudette, and Jared McCann are all far better players objectively than anything Gillis ever drafted in those spots. Moreover, there's decent potential for a few of Jack Rathbone, Michael Dipietro, Kole Lind, Nils Hoglander, Tyler Madden, Jett Woo, Nikita Tryamkin, Aidan McDonough to only add to that superiority.

I have to include prospects/players traded away by the Canucks because without that condition Gillis wouldn't have drafted a single NHL player outside the top-10. His list is pretty pathetic regardless: Kevin Connauton and Ben Hutton. Might make a nice top pairing in the German league next season.

Why did Mike Gillis draft better than Jim Benning when Benning was running Boston's drafting?

Benning couldn't scout his way out of a paper bag and should be thanking his lucky stars that Judd Brackett saved his ass. And that Trevor Linden overruled him on Pettersson vs. Glass.

 

[MS]

I think we both aren't really even disagreeing at this point. We both understand the comparison wasn't to be taken literally and was based on stylistic qualities, and we both agree that it had 0 impact on Juolevi's development.

My point is that it was a dumb/unnecessary comparison that can be lumped in with a bunch of similar dumb/unnecessary comparisons that make Benning look giddy over overrated players.

It's not a big deal and if you follow the exchanges to the source, no one made a big deal of it. It's the people taking so much offence to those who laughed at it that made this snowball, but whatever, this isn't a hill I really care to die on.

It's the sort of stupid thing that stupid people say.

There is no upside to making a stupid comparison like this. All you're doing is a) setting the player up for failure with unreasonable expectations and b) opening the door to make yourself look stupid when it doesn't happen, as it obviously wasn't going to.

But you have dumb people who think they're the smartest guys in the room and are trying to sell how smart they are. Much like when the ignoramus Weisbrod decided that 'Mark Jankowski IS Joe Nieuwendyk!'

 

[CantStoptheBrock]

Why did Mike Gillis draft better than Jim Benning when Benning was running Boston's drafting?

Benning couldn't scout his way out of a paper bag and should be thanking his lucky stars that Judd Brackett saved his ass. And that Trevor Linden overruled him on Pettersson vs. Glass.

When you have to rely on internet conspiracy theory to make your point, it degrades it.

Benning's role in Boston's drafting is ambiguous. He was assistant GM, not director of scouting like he was in Buffalo, where he put together one of if not the best drafting records during that time period. Did he suddenly lose that touch, or was he required to take on other duties with Boston that lessened his involvement in the drafts?

The Boston website at the time listed this as Benning's job:

Jim serves as an advisor to General Manager Peter Chiarelli on all matters pertaining to player evaluation, trades and free agent signings, in addition to assisting the General Manager in overseeing all individuals in their specific duties for the Bruins.

If you watch Behind the B, you can see Benning heavily involved in pro scouting, so he must have sure been doing a lot of work if he was also directing all of their amateur scouting.

 

[canuckking1]

In an all Canadian Division, expectations should be Conference finals or Bust. Benning needs to take advantage of this window covid has opened for us. We'll never have an easier path to a conference finals/Cup than this one.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

When you have to rely on internet conspiracy theory to make your point, it degrades it.

Benning's role in Boston's drafting is ambiguous. He was assistant GM, not director of scouting like he was in Buffalo, where he put together one of if not the best drafting records during that time period. Did he suddenly lose that touch, or was he required to take on other duties with Boston that lessened his involvement in the drafts?

The Boston website at the time listed this as Benning's job:



If you watch Behind the B, you can see Benning heavily involved in pro scouting, so he must have sure been doing a lot of work if he was also directing all of their amateur scouting.

Given his scouting background and how assistant GMs are often involved in the scouting/drafting process, I see no reason why he wouldn't have a big influence there.

Even if we don't speculate on his influence on drafting/scouting, the results from Boston/Vancouver aren't very encouraging. He's on record for pushing the Seguin trade, and he double downed on mistakes like Bartkowski, Spooner, and Eriksson. He gets fixated on players that aren't very good and then refuses to change his mind.

 

[MS]

When you have to rely on internet conspiracy theory to make your point, it degrades it.

Benning's role in Boston's drafting is ambiguous. He was assistant GM, not director of scouting like he was in Buffalo, where he put together one of if not the best drafting records during that time period. Did he suddenly lose that touch, or was he required to take on other duties with Boston that lessened his involvement in the drafts?

This argument has been so thoroughly destroyed here on so many occasions I'm not going to bother re-doing it in detail. Use the search function. When presented with the wall of evidence plus consulting with Boston fans, even Pastor of Muppets admitted Benning was running the drafts there, and that guy never admits he was wrong on anything.

Chiarelli was a marketing guy with zero scouting background. Jim Benning was a former NHL head scout and the only person in their management team with scouting experience. News articles identify him as running the amateur scouting arm of the organization. He was the media point man for their drafts, explaining draft picks. He was their lead management guy at international tournaments. He was running draft interviews. And their drafting absolutely sucked ass with him running it. Worse than what Gillis did here.

The Boston website at the time listed this as Benning's job:



If you watch Behind the B, you can see Benning heavily involved in pro scouting, so he must have sure been doing a lot of work if he was also directing all of their amateur scouting.

This is a hilarious argument that doesn't make the point you think it's making.

Benning couldn't influence Boston's terrible amateur scouting in Boston when he had some pro scouting responsibilities as well, but somehow is massively influencing Vancouver's drafting while adding all of the responsibilities of a GM to that? Really?

 

[CantStoptheBrock]

Given his scouting background and how assistant GMs are often involved in the scouting/drafting process, I see no reason why he wouldn't have a big influence there.

I agree that he had an influence, but it's still a contaminated sample for me versus the more pure sample of his Buffalo days, which is very good.

Even if we don't speculate on his influence on drafting/scouting, the results from Boston/Vancouver aren't very encouraging. He's on record for pushing the Seguin trade, and he double downed on mistakes like Bartkowski, Spooner, and Eriksson. He gets fixated on players that aren't very good and then refuses to change his mind.

You're ignoring all the excellent signings and trades that Boston made with Benning as advising AGM, ones that led to him becoming a Stanley Cup champion.

 

[CantStoptheBrock]

This argument has been so thoroughly destroyed here on so many occasions I'm not going to bother re-doing it in detail. Use the search function. When presented with the wall of evidence plus consulting with Boston fans, even Pastor of Muppets admitted Benning was running the drafts there, and that guy never admits he was wrong on anything.

Chiarelli was a marketing guy with zero scouting background. Jim Benning was a former NHL head scout and the only person in their management team with scouting experience. News articles identify him as running the amateur scouting arm of the organization. He was the media point man for their drafts, explaining draft picks. He was their lead management guy at international tournaments. He was running draft interviews. And their drafting absolutely sucked ass with him running it. Worse than what Gillis did here.

No evidence gets no reply from me, sorry. It's not my job to make your argument for you. I'll stick with the pure sample of his Buffalo days as an evaluation. And I have a very hard time seeing how a GM who drafted one significant NHL player (Bo Horvat) drafted better than anyone.

This is a hilarious argument that doesn't make the point you think it's making.

Benning couldn't influence Boston's terrible amateur scouting in Boston when he had some pro scouting responsibilities as well, but somehow is massively influencing Vancouver's drafting while adding all of the responsibilities of a GM to that? Really?

His main responsibilities as listed on Boston's website (see, I provide evidence, unlike you) were advising on trades, free agent signings and player personnel decisions.

And yes, Benning's main management priority in Vancouver has been revolutionizing the Canucks' drafting, which has been "remarkable" to use the descriptor deployed by Harman Dayal in his analysis of the Canucks' drafting under Benning, even taking into account draft position.

In Boston, he was clearly more involved in building the team into a Stanley Cup champion.

 

[MS]

No evidence gets no reply from me, sorry. It's not my job to make your argument for you. I'll stick with the pure sample of his Buffalo days as an evaluation. And I have a very hard time seeing how a GM who drafted one significant NHL player (Bo Horvat) drafted better than anyone.


His main responsibilities as listed on Boston's website (see, I provide evidence, unlike you) were advising on trades, free agent signings and player personnel decisions.

And yes, Benning's main management priority in Vancouver has been revolutionizing the Canucks' drafting, which has been "remarkable" to use the descriptor deployed by Harman Dayal in his analysis of the Canucks' drafting under Benning, even taking into account draft position.

In Boston, he was clearly more involved in building the team into a Stanley Cup champion.

The evidence has been provided in truckloads here in the past. Use the search button. @Melvin provided about 10 different news articles indicating how deeply Benning was involved in Boston's drafting. I've provided articles that outright state that Benning was running the scouting arm of Boston's organization.

You were involved in these discussions in the past and I'm not wasting my time digging all of this up again. This argument is dead and buried and destroyed. Again, even PoM went from vigorously arguing against it to grudgingly admitting it was true once presented with the mountain of evidence and clarifying with Boston fans how their organization was run.

 

[bandwagonesque]

The evidence has been provided in truckloads here in the past. Use the search button. @Melvin provided about 10 different news articles indicating how deeply Benning was involved in Boston's drafting. I've provided articles that outright state that Benning was running the scouting arm of Boston's organization.

You were involved in these discussions in the past and I'm not wasting my time digging all of this up again. This argument is dead and buried and destroyed. Again, even PoM went from vigorously arguing against it to grudgingly admitting it was true once presented with the mountain of evidence and clarifying with Boston fans how their organization was run.

What conclusion do you think we should draw from the fact that during his tenure with the Sabres as Director of Amateur Scouting from 1998 to 2004, Benning presided over what was probably the best sustained period of drafting, particularly in later rounds, of any team in NHL history?

Buffalo Sabres Draft History at hockeydb.com

 

[MS]

What conclusion do you think we should draw from the fact that during his tenure with the Sabres as Director of Amateur Scouting from 1998 to 2004, Benning presided over what was probably the best sustained period of drafting, particularly in later rounds, of any team in NHL history?

Buffalo Sabres Draft History at hockeydb.com

There are a lot of moving parts there :

1) Frankly, amateur scouting is mostly luck and draft position. The whole notion of anyone being a 'superscout' is patently rubbish.

2) That was 20 years ago, and we have a lot more recent evidence.

3) Most of those years were a really weird time where Buffalo was broke and doing their scouting entirely by video and not paying to have scouts on the road, so the results were created in a very different environment.

4) Benning inherited a staff built by the hugely respected Jack Bowman (Scotty's brother) when Bowman died unexpectedly. They had already chundered out 10 500-game NHLers in the 4 drafts prior to Benning taking over. I think it's fair to say that what happened under Benning was a continuation more than any sort of change or turnaround.

__________

And again, 20 years ago.

We have a ton of evidence since then. We saw what happened in Boston, where he couldn't draft his way out of a paper bag when running the scouting arm of that organization - worst drafting in the NHL. And we've seen him here, where he wanted Juolevi/Glass with top-5 picks in consecutive drafts. And outside of picks that we know were heavily Brackett influenced (Pettersson + USHL guys) our drafting has continued to suck. And to me, 15-20 years of crappy results more than trumps a few good years two decades ago in a very different time.

And quite frankly, all you really need to do is look at his pro scouting. The notion that someone who thinks that Luca Sbisa and Erik Gudbranson are top-4 NHL defenders and who can't even evaluate who is a good player in the here and now for NHL players right in front of him could be some sort of Rainman who 'sees the future' and can accurately project 17 y/o kids is just nonsense. As I've said many times, it's thinking someone who has to count on their fingers to figure out 3x3 could grasp nuclear physics.

 

[4Twenty]

Categorically false. Take out top 10 picks if you want to 'level' the playing field: Brock Boeser, Thatcher Demko, Adam Gaudette, and Jared McCann are all far better players objectively than anything Gillis ever drafted in those spots. Moreover, there's decent potential for a few of Jack Rathbone, Michael Dipietro, Kole Lind, Nils Hoglander, Tyler Madden, Jett Woo, Nikita Tryamkin, Aidan McDonough to only add to that superiority.

I have to include prospects/players traded away by the Canucks because without that condition Gillis wouldn't have drafted a single NHL player outside the top-10. His list is pretty pathetic regardless: Kevin Connauton and Ben Hutton. Might make a nice top pairing in the German league next season.

Did you find that article ? The one that documented the revamped scouting.

I don’t count chickens before they hatch. That’s just a list of names.

Anyways GM’s have the least impact on drafting. The but drafting but Gillis game in 2020 is a really sad.

 

[4Twenty]

Dudes who post the Benning raising the cup pic aren’t Canuck fans. They’re Benning fans.

It’s like posting the photo of Chara doing in Rogers arena.

 

[Didalee Hed]

I agree that he had an influence, but it's still a contaminated sample for me versus the more pure sample of his Buffalo days, which is very good.


You're ignoring all the excellent signings and trades that Boston made with Benning as advising AGM, ones that led to him becoming a Stanley Cup champion.

Dudes who post the Benning raising the cup pic aren’t Canuck fans. They’re Benning fans.

It’s like posting the photo of Chara doing in Rogers arena.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I agree that he had an influence, but it's still a contaminated sample for me versus the more pure sample of his Buffalo days, which is very good.

I'll take the more recent sample size in Boston and his abysmal record of drafting there.

You're ignoring all the excellent signings and trades that Boston made with Benning as advising AGM, ones that led to him becoming a Stanley Cup champion.

This is about as relevant as saying Jay Beagle won a Cup so he's a valuable player going forward.
This picture is gross knowing it came at the expense of the Canucks winning the Cup. A really poetic summarization of HF Benning taking priority over HF Canucks.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

First point is not even close. If you watch the behind the scenes of the 2014 draft, you can already see Eric Crawford being marginalized. He looks incredibly awkward: .
I don't want to play the game of who drafted who, but the Demko and Tryamkin picks go completely against the Gillis era draft philosophy.

There was an article out around the time that Brackett took over about how prior to him, there was no evaluative metric of comparing draft prospects between scouts, so it was just chaos. Brackett and Benning established an evaluative system that enabled the scouting department to more directly compare players. Can't find the article, but I'm sure other people remember it as well.

Ray Ferraro discusses it here..start at 7.10
Ferraro: Fine line between being selfless in front office and trying to outshine everyone else

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

The evidence has been provided in truckloads here in the past. Use the search button. @Melvin provided about 10 different news articles indicating how deeply Benning was involved in Boston's drafting. I've provided articles that outright state that Benning was running the scouting arm of Boston's organization.

You were involved in these discussions in the past and I'm not wasting my time digging all of this up again. This argument is dead and buried and destroyed. Again, even PoM went from vigorously arguing against it to grudgingly admitting it was true once presented with the mountain of evidence and clarifying with Boston fans how their organization was run.

He was heavily involved (as you demonstrated)., but was he 'responsible ' for it..?..I'm not convinced..As Chiarellis right hand man, there is just no way he would have had the time to be a DOS and an AGM simultaneously.

 

[4Twenty]

Ray Ferraro discusses it here..start at 7.10
Ferraro: Fine line between being selfless in front office and trying to outshine everyone else

He absolutely did not reference disfunction or chaos. Just that Jim was having a meeting with the scouts to target what he wants them to. Certainly nothing about an evaluative process.

plus the time referenced is September 2014. Judd wasn’t promoted until July 2015.

also how much did Linden have to do with it. We get told all the time his mandate controlled the team. Did Trevor factor in here to?

 

[4Twenty]

He was heavily involved (as you demonstrated)., but was he 'responsible ' for it..?..I'm not convinced..As Chiarellis right hand man, there is just no way he would have had the time to be a DOS and an AGM simultaneously.

Uhm. The radio link you just promoted above talked about Jim wanting to be more involved in the scouting. How come he’s able to GM and scout but not AGM and be the main man in scouting?