You're going way back to the drafts of 2006 to prove a point. about the Blues...Since that time the Canucks were an elite team for a number of years ,and were a game away from winning the SC..We also had got key players later in the draft (Edler,Bieksa,Schneider) around 2003-4
Yeah, and I had fully acknowledged that okay, that may be a little unfair. I also pointed to other drafts under Armstrong as an indication of a continuation of that process. Again, look at the Taresenko draft.
The point I was making is that the Blues have a long history of valuing draft picks and getting value out of those picks, which is something that folks have advocated for in these threads.
Bringing up the Blues as an example of a team that has stayed mostly solid while being critical of Benning critics who felt they were denied “the process” is a little silly because those same critics are basically advocating for what the Blues are doing.
I'm not pooh poohing the' process' at all...I'm fully aware of the cycles of core players (and how many years they can sustain it) ..and the realistic 'down time'...Look at the Kings,Hawks,Senators
Right, but you can also look at teams like the Sharks, the Blues or the Rangers who seem to enjoy long term success or very brief “down” periods. Hell, even the Red Wings enjoyed long term success and have only recently have really started to fall off.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see ongoing and continued success.
The issue is with the methodology (or “process”) and how different management strategies can dictate how things can go.
Again, I feel the Blues are a strong example of what critics of management want to see in their own franchise. Feel free to disagree.
I pointed out the Blues of being an example of a team that never really tanked...or won the lottery..demonstrating that the 'process' of rebuilding a team is not linear..There are many ways to skin a cat.
I would argue, though there are different approaches, that it is hard to take short cuts and you’re opening yourself to greater risk than taking more measured or slower approaches.
Risk averse folks, whom I think a lot of the management critics are, are going to favour someone like Gillis who could be described as being methodical. Sometimes to his detriment, as it took way too long for him to overhaul the amateur scouting, as a single example.
Benning has opted for high risk/reward scenarios with a lot of his moves. If it works, it can pay off and you’ll look like a genius, but as we all know around here it is really hard to evaluate talent, and it is something I’ve personally have been really critical of Benning for because he was billed as a top evaluator of talent and I’m not seeing that with his amateur and pro personnel moves. Yes, Pettersson, Hughes and Boeser are good picks, but I’m expecting better overall depth results from him and savvier pro personnel decisions. Things like Sbisa, Eriksson and Gudbranson are all understandable mistakes for a GM to make, but 3 huge misreads from someone who is apparently better at evaluating talent is pretty bad in my mind.
That’s why things like asset management, stock piling draft picks and making good use of cap space are harped on endlessly here. They’re all methods of hedging your bets (which again, teams like St Louis, SJ et al. seem to utilize quite a bit in different ways.)
I just object to people whining about the 'process' after a 15 year run of relatively good hockey with the Sedin era..There was going to be down time..and we all knew it was coming....Thinking that the Canucks would replace their core players in 2-3 was never realistic.
Again, I don’t think it is unreasonable to advocate for long term success and I would argue that the Canucks would have been destined for a slump post WCE (as they seemed to be) but were fortunate that Mike Keenan was an idiot and gifted us Luongo. I don’t think the slump would have been prolonged but I think we might have been looking at 2-3 seasons of “meh” hockey. But that’s just pure opinion/speculation on my behalf.
And okay, that’s fine that not expecting a turn around in 2-3 years. But Benning shouldn’t be continually harping that his focus is the playoffs every goddamned year.
There are a lot of easy ways to say positive sounding things without (essentially) promising the moon. You can manage expectations without saying the goal is playoffs.
That’s another thing I hold Benning accountable for because I don’t think he’s a particularly good public speaker. Which is fine, but talk to your PR department and avoid shooting yourself in the foot. Also, I personally think he thought he could short cut his way to making the team into a contender...a lot of the language used by management really screamed that to me.
