Management Thread | Inconceivable Edition

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Continue.


Also, a warning;

There is no thread of HFBoards where users are allowed to editorialize on the validity of other peoples’ perspectives or opinions. Debate topics with people, but the non-stop criticism of “Benning haters” or “Benning fans” or “toxic fandom” or “cultural rot needs to end, and it needs to end now.

There’s culprits on both sides of this issue. Knock it off, or some of you will be taking vacations from the site.

Click to read more...

 

[4Twenty]

Man I hate when the thread gets closed right after I post. Care to add it here.


Should be protocol to bring the last 5 or 10 posts into the next thread. Thanks.

 

[sting101]

I've never seen a season where a GM's offseason mistakes come back to bite him so hard and so fast. (Shutout by marky, hasty by toffoli)

The real icing on the cake is next year we'll still be capped out despite 13ish mil falling off the books in Edler, Sutter, Pearson because we need to resign Hughes and Petey. So we may have an even worse team with the same cap hit (though I'm betting we buy out Loui in his last year)

It's possible if Pettersson and Hughes want to be the next Marner and Karlsson i guess.

Maybe im being a hopeless optimist here but Petey will have to light the league on fire for me to think he deserves more than Matt Barzal or Sebastian Aho. He may be the best and most talented player up front but he hasn't even shown he's better than JT Miller yet over a season. We'll see how it goes i'm not on the doomsday prophecy train nor do i think Petey is Gretzky so unless something changes dramatically i would suspect 7 to 8 million is the range. If he keeps this crap up we will have bigger problems.

As far as Hughes. It's really hard to say. He's such a unique player and Makar and Heiskanen will have some bearing but as i said with Petey lets see how this goes. He's already minus 6 and a minus 16 in 76 games over last and this year. He's been awful defensively and it's been known to happen in sophomore years that as the league studies how to disrupt his game and break him down he may regress significantly. This fanbase has already seen the attacking approach teams have taken to get to him before letting him taking open ice. He's so small he will always have challenges handling his own end. I think this should be reflected in his contract but we'll see how he and his agent feel about such things. Personally i would bridge him and could see something around 6.5 unless he explodes or suddenly learns how to play plus defense.

Demko who knows? As of right now he's gonna struggle to get a raise. Realistically i like him and think he gets 3-4 range.

As far as adding players of quality. We're gonna have to wait for the Luongo Eriksson money for the most part unless Seattle does us a favor. If some of our young guys dont take steps forward it's a moot point anyway. Why add UFAs when the new GM can wait evaluate and address it as the core enters the prime.

 

[sting101]

Man I hate when the thread gets closed right after I post. Care to add it here.


Should be protocol to bring the last 5 or 10 posts into the next thread. Thanks.

420 Canuck 1:23:21

 

[4Twenty]

Hughes is PPG. Points get you paid. If that continues he’s basically a 75 point Dman in his first two seasons. Imagine Bo being worth $5.5m after 40-50 points and being in the race for the league leading minus but the kid putting up record breaking points is worth $1m more on a bigger cap.


With Pettersson I can’t see why he’d sign for less than Aho. I don’t expect the kid with the 0.9ppg in his career to date to not be close to that. It’s been 6 games. He’s hit posts and missed gimme 2 on 0’s. Points will come.

The “luongo Eriksson money” not the beagle, Roussel, Ferland, Myers. Transparent as it gets with that kind of omission.


seems weird we want to knock our star young players and pick apart some minor deficiencies that you likely wouldn’t see had the team been full of the better players they were forced to lose.

Hughes never looked like this next to Tanev. It’s hard to look a star next to an 4 point per season AHLer.

 

[Jack Burton]

Last thread closed and I just wanted to respond to @y2kcanucks

I moved on from Trams 5 seconds after he bolted for Russia.

But lets be honest here, their's still lots of dinosaur GMs left in this league and if he decides to return to the NHL the I have no doubt his agent will find him a spot.

 

[StreetHawk]

It's possible if Pettersson and Hughes want to be the next Marner and Karlsson i guess.

Maybe im being a hopeless optimist here but Petey will have to light the league on fire for me to think he deserves more than Matt Barzal or Sebastian Aho. He may be the best and most talented player up front but he hasn't even shown he's better than JT Miller yet over a season. We'll see how it goes i'm not on the doomsday prophecy train nor do i think Petey is Gretzky so unless something changes dramatically i would suspect 7 to 8 million is the range. If he keeps this crap up we will have bigger problems.

As far as Hughes. It's really hard to say. He's such a unique player and Makar and Heiskanen will have some bearing but as i said with Petey lets see how this goes. He's already minus 6 and a minus 16 in 76 games over last and this year. He's been awful defensively and it's been known to happen in sophomore years that as the league studies how to disrupt his game and break him down he may regress significantly. This fanbase has already seen the attacking approach teams have taken to get to him before letting him taking open ice. He's so small he will always have challenges handling his own end. I think this should be reflected in his contract but we'll see how he and his agent feel about such things. Personally i would bridge him and could see something around 6.5 unless he explodes or suddenly learns how to play plus defense.

Demko who knows? As of right now he's gonna struggle to get a raise. Realistically i like him and think he gets 3-4 range.

As far as adding players of quality. We're gonna have to wait for the Luongo Eriksson money for the most part unless Seattle does us a favor. If some of our young guys dont take steps forward it's a moot point anyway. Why add UFAs when the new GM can wait evaluate and address it as the core enters the prime.

Term matters. Case in point look at the 2008 draft. They turned 30 in 2020. So despite not being drafted Tanev would have been a 2008 draftee. Same as Doughty, AP, Karlsson, Jossi, etc. People are Leary seeing AP get 7 years.
So if that is the case then you try to avoid the 6/7 year term coming off elc. Which takes the player to like 29 or so when contract 2 ends.

so if Petey or Hughes opt for bridge deals then they are 25/26 when they sign contract 3 which takes them to 33/34. This you are not buying years where there is a decline.

bur this is all big picture and long term.

2003 draft class turned 35 in 2020. How many of them would you want for 2 more seasons at a high cap hit?

 

[Peen]

I miss when Weisbrod used to post on here

 

[VanJack]

Last thread closed and I just wanted to respond to @y2kcanucks

I moved on from Trams 5 seconds after he bolted for Russia.

But lets be honest here, their's still lots of dinosaur GMs left in this league and if he decides to return to the NHL the I have no doubt his agent will find him a spot.

If Jethro's legendary ability at assessing NHL d-men is true to form, Tryamkin will indeed bolt to another organization and become a legit top-four d-man in the Colton Parayko-Zdeno Chara mold.

Do you really have confidence that Benning knows more about drafting-acquiring actual NHL d-men that a lot of those other 'dinosaur GM's you describe? When it comes to GM's, a dinosaur is still better than a sloth.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Term matters. Case in point look at the 2008 draft. They turned 30 in 2020. So despite not being drafted Tanev would have been a 2008 draftee. Same as Doughty, AP, Karlsson, Jossi, etc. People are Leary seeing AP get 7 years.
So if that is the case then you try to avoid the 6/7 year term coming off elc. Which takes the player to like 29 or so when contract 2 ends.

so if Petey or Hughes opt for bridge deals then they are 25/26 when they sign contract 3 which takes them to 33/34. This you are not buying years where there is a decline.

bur this is all big picture and long term.

2003 draft class turned 35 in 2020. How many of them would you want for 2 more seasons at a high cap hit?

The Canucks should absolutely be looking to lock up Hughes and Pettersson for 7 or 8 years right now. No bridge deals. 7-8 year contracts to your two best players which takes them to about 30, and that is essentially the remaining years of our window. Only problem is, thanks to the stupid contracts Benning signed, and the lack of an actual rebuild, we don't have the pieces or the ability to acquire the pieces to turn this team into a contender. If we fire Benning now and replace him with someone intelligent it will still take 3 years or so to dump all the garbage Benning has stuck us with, and replace them with useful pieces if we're lucky.

This is what happens when you commit to an incompetent idiot GM for 7 years.

 

[Didalee Hed]

That last thread was noticeably abandoned by the DPRK Benning party after the hot start to the season

 

[sting101]

Term matters. Case in point look at the 2008 draft. They turned 30 in 2020. So despite not being drafted Tanev would have been a 2008 draftee. Same as Doughty, AP, Karlsson, Jossi, etc. People are Leary seeing AP get 7 years.
So if that is the case then you try to avoid the 6/7 year term coming off elc. Which takes the player to like 29 or so when contract 2 ends.

so if Petey or Hughes opt for bridge deals then they are 25/26 when they sign contract 3 which takes them to 33/34. This you are not buying years where there is a decline.

bur this is all big picture and long term.

2003 draft class turned 35 in 2020. How many of them would you want for 2 more seasons at a high cap hit?

agree 100%

This is part of the reason why i'm not advocating for the max term deals some are around here. And to add to that you need to keep players motivated and injuries can derail careers. 7/8 yr contracts paying for projection and ending at 29 is not good.

Or the Leaf deals which are the worst in the league to date when they get max money up front, max money in AAV and max flexibility for the UFA years. Beyond stupid and would be suicide to emulate in any way.

Matt Barzal just took 7 million and at this point is every bit the player Petey is for the Canucks for the Islanders. That's your comp. Work from that and Aho a very similar player and find compromise. The media can go f themselves with the TO comps and frankly if their agents want to go that way were in trouble and wont end well.

 

[4Twenty]

Yeah I don’t think it’s wise to be projecting 22 year olds to 35/36.

To me in an ideal world you fix the costs for 8 years on the two stars to age 30. That’s your line in the sand. If this group is going to win it’ll be before they’re 30 not after. Not everyone is the Sedin’s.

Problem is the spending to this point is too bloated to afford the AAV on what an 8 year deal would look like.

I do think Hughes as a 10.2C will sign a bridge. I’d still like to try and get Pettersson on an 8 year.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

n00b management. Learned on the job and 7 years later are still making the same mistakes, so not really learning on the job - just remaining incompetent and being bad at their jobs.

 

[sting101]

Yeah I don’t think it’s wise to be projecting 22 year olds to 35/36.

To me in an ideal world you fix the costs for 8 years on the two stars to age 30. That’s your line in the sand. If this group is going to win it’ll be before they’re 30 not after. Not everyone is the Sedin’s.

Problem is the spending to this point is too bloated to afford the AAV on what an 8 year deal would look like.

I do think Hughes as a 10.2C will sign a bridge. I’d still like to try and get Pettersson on an 8 year.

what makes you think you get a better deal locking in UFA years?

 

[MS]

The cap rising would’ve just made salaries increase anyways. No way you’re seeing Toffoli at $4m if there’re is $85m to spend.

The flat cap effects every team so it’s an absolutely piss poor excuse and had the team actually rebuilt, hoarded picks/prospects, limited free agent deals to 1-2 years they actually could’ve been a team to take advantage of the flat cap.

I think that roster in that tweet is kind of unfair but I do think it’s fair to project lineups without the free agent contracts of ‘18 and ‘19.

Beagle, Roussel, Baertschi, Myers, Ferland, and Benn gives you $21m.

Yeah you still have junk like Eriksson and Sutter but you don’t have a roster full of it.

Yeah, that was what I was trying to do when I was saying every team has $10 million in bad contracts and you should probably work that into the roster. No team has a perfect payroll structure. But no other team is spending anything close to 40% of their cap space on garbage, either.

The Eriksson and Sutter contracts ... bad as they are, at least they sort of fit into a plan the team was trying to execute at the time and made a little bit of sense on that front. The stupid contracts given out in the 2017-2019 offseasons simply have no excuse and never should have happened under any even marginally competent administration. And it's totally fair game to post what a roster would look like without those.

 

[kanuck87]

It's possible if Pettersson and Hughes want to be the next Marner and Karlsson i guess.

Maybe im being a hopeless optimist here but Petey will have to light the league on fire for me to think he deserves more than Matt Barzal or Sebastian Aho. He may be the best and most talented player up front but he hasn't even shown he's better than JT Miller yet over a season. We'll see how it goes i'm not on the doomsday prophecy train nor do i think Petey is Gretzky so unless something changes dramatically i would suspect 7 to 8 million is the range. If he keeps this crap up we will have bigger problems.

As far as Hughes. It's really hard to say. He's such a unique player and Makar and Heiskanen will have some bearing but as i said with Petey lets see how this goes. He's already minus 6 and a minus 16 in 76 games over last and this year. He's been awful defensively and it's been known to happen in sophomore years that as the league studies how to disrupt his game and break him down he may regress significantly. This fanbase has already seen the attacking approach teams have taken to get to him before letting him taking open ice. He's so small he will always have challenges handling his own end. I think this should be reflected in his contract but we'll see how he and his agent feel about such things. Personally i would bridge him and could see something around 6.5 unless he explodes or suddenly learns how to play plus defense.

Demko who knows? As of right now he's gonna struggle to get a raise. Realistically i like him and think he gets 3-4 range.

As far as adding players of quality. We're gonna have to wait for the Luongo Eriksson money for the most part unless Seattle does us a favor. If some of our young guys dont take steps forward it's a moot point anyway. Why add UFAs when the new GM can wait evaluate and address it as the core enters the prime.

So having said all of that, exactly how bright is this franchise's future if we're hesitant to lock in our two best young players to contracts befitting of those with elite status?

Either they're stars and we sign them to big contracts, screwing up our cap situation or they're not stars and our future is screwed. Either way, we're screwed. Our management is terrible. Have at it.

 

[Peen]

Yeah, that was what I was trying to do when I was saying every team has $10 million in bad contracts and you should probably work that into the roster. No team has a perfect payroll structure. But no other team is spending anything close to 40% of their cap space on garbage, either.

The Eriksson and Sutter contracts ... bad as they are, at least they sort of fit into a plan the team was trying to execute at the time and made a little bit of sense on that front. The stupid contracts given out in the 2017-2019 offseasons simply have no excuse and never should have happened under any even marginally competent administration. And it's totally fair game to post what a roster would look like without those.

That’s why we need new management asap.

Literally the only shit contract we have going past next season is Myers now that Ferland’s career is done.

These years are write offs but we need someone smart before we have capspace again. I don’t want to see them give $6m to a 30+ blake coleman.

 

[4Twenty]

what makes you think you get a better deal locking in UFA years?

What do you mean better deal? I think it’s a better strategy. It might cost this current teams cap space in the short term because of previous bad spending but I think taking 22-30 is better for the team.

I don’t think the leafs deals would’ve been nearly as egregious if they bought 8 years.

 

[MS]

That’s why we need new management asap.

Literally the only shit contract we have going past next season is Myers now that Ferland’s career is done.

These years are write offs but we need someone smart before we have capspace again. I don’t want to see them give $6m to a 30+ blake coleman.

Absolutely. It's still salvageable to rescue some of the window for this core if they boot this management group and get someone in here who can make good decisions.

Thankfully 'TOFFOLI SCORED 5 GOALS AND MARKSTROM SHUT US OUT!' seems to be the thing that has finally resonated with the casuals to make them realize that Benning is an absolute pillock.

 

[sting101]

So having said all of that, exactly how bright is this franchise's future if we're hesitant to lock in our two best young players to contracts befitting of those with elite status?

Either they're stars and we sign them to big contracts, screwing up our cap situation or they're not stars and our future is screwed. Either way, we're screwed. Our management is terrible. Have at it.

There is another answer?

How about we take the uncertain financial future cautiously so we don't get fried in case someone stagnates or gets hurt which derails things or (horrifically) another Pandemic happens? And i have to emphasize the gets hurt concern....Hughes and Petey are small fragile bodies.

And if we have to pay a bit more because at 26 these guys are elite and deserve it then so be it.

 

[kanuck87]

There is another answer?

How about we take the uncertain financial future cautiously so we don't get fried in case someone stagnates or gets hurt which derails things or (horrifically) another Pandemic happens? And i have to emphasize the gets hurt concern....Hughes and Petey are small fragile bodies.

And if we have to pay a bit more because at 26 these guys are elite and deserve it then so be it.

So you're not sure, at this point, if Petey and Hughes are worth committing long-term and big money to? For what it's worth, I don't completely disagree with you, but if that's the case, our future looks very uncertain then. All of the hopes and dreams of this franchise were basically pinned to these two and now we're not sure if they're even worthy of such a status.

 

[MarkMM]

That’s why we need new management asap.

Literally the only shit contract we have going past next season is Myers now that Ferland’s career is done.

These years are write offs but we need someone smart before we have capspace again. I don’t want to see them give $6m to a 30+ blake coleman.

What are the chances that Ferland tries to come back next season, or even the season after? What certainty do we need to commit to contracts that bake in his cap relief?

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

The Canucks are the worst defensive team in the NHL right now, and have given up 3+ goals every game. Just too many games where they give up too many shots and too many chances. This was a problem last year too, where we gave up 40+ shots a game almost as much as Detroit and Ottawa. If it weren't for Markstrom the team would of been a bottom 5 defensive team last year.

Defence has been a problem for all of Benning's tenure. The canucks have finished 20th or worst in 4 of 6 years. 2015 and 2019 where they finished 19th and 18th. They are the 5th worst defensive team over the entirety of Benning's time here. The only teams worse during that time are Ottawa, Detroit, Edmonton and Buffalo.

I don't know if what the bigger cause for this was. Targeting the wrong defencemen or coaching, but both are the responsibility of management.

 

[Peen]

Absolutely. It's still salvageable to rescue some of the window for this core if they boot this management group and get someone in here who can make good decisions.

Thankfully 'TOFFOLI SCORED 5 GOALS AND MARKSTROM SHUT US OUT!' seems to be the thing that has finally resonated with the casuals to make them realize that Benning is an absolute pillock.

I thought about the bolded a few days ago.

There were about six years of prior evidence that this management group (Linden, Benning, Weisbrod) were and still are stupid because of continuous failure in understanding opportunity cost; but, the thing that takes it over the top is getting destroyed by the guys we lost 10 times each this season.

Surprises me how many people even just a year ago weren’t willing to acknowledge that the Myers, Ferland, Miller, and Toffoli deals were obvious job saving “I don’t give a f*** if these moves go bad” moves.