Management Thread. The Good The Bad and The Ugly: Gunslinger Edition.

[Jack Burton]

Please continue here.

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[geebaan]

I’m pretty pissed about this management group, this offseason, and the way everything’s gone.

I will concede, that he has time to make more moves to change my mind, at least this offseason.

Here’s hoping

 

[vanuck]

@F A N: Just bringing this here for relevancy instead of answering in the media thread...

Can't one call a spade a spade? If the reports of Canucks circling back on Stecher is right, this has been terrible mismanagement. I'm fine with not having prepared for the flat cap. The cap was going up every year prior to the pandemic. Even when players weren't happy with the escrow they were still choosing to raise the cap.

Going for OEL is fine especially if we were looking to move some salary. But we failed to acquire him and may have pissed off our own guys (which may be irrelevant). Not stepping up and signing Markstrom is fine. Calgary's offer is a huge commitment that I would be scared to make. Offering Tanev a 2 year contract is fine. I would have given him a more reasonable AAV but otherwise I'm fine with not giving him 4 years. I'm also fine with moving on from Tanev and Stecher because management decided to make a change. The fact is that even with Tanev, Stecher, and Edler, the Canucks D weren't good so I can be on board with a large scale makeover.

However, missing out on Stecher because we were chasing Barrie and ultimately missing out on both is not fine. If we were interested in having Stecher back, we should have made it a priority to secure Stecher at an affordable price first, especially after Tanev is off the board.

So now what? If Benning pulls off a Virtanen for Carlo trade and re-sign Tofolli then I'm fine. I'm also fine with pencilling in Juolevi, Rafferty, and or Rathbone as part of our bottom pairing. We need someone else not currently on the roster to be a top 4 D on the right side.

To be fair I was mainly poking fun at Dayal, but I largely agree with his take on management being inconsistent with regards to making win-now moves vs. being conservative. After all, we handed $30 million to Myers last summer, traded a 1st for Miller and spent big at the deadline to rent Toffoli. Contrast that with what's happened so far this offseason. Now it's looking more and more probable that even casual fans outside of HF will pick up on this sudden change in direction.

I have to say that the dichotomy Dayal touched upon was still pretty surface level though TBH, as it doesn't even go into why they haven't really done anything other than sign Holtby: it's because their cap issues are finally restricting them from doing what they want unlike previous years. Having just over $26 million tied up in the likes of Eriksson/Beagle/Sutter/Baertschi/Ferland/Roussel/Benn/Spooner is absolutely killing us right now to the point where we barely have any room to replace the guys we lost, yet we also have nobody in-house that can step up and fill those holes because we either traded away too many picks over the years or have been poor at finding talent outside the 1st round.

It's all connected together. Things Benning did last year or in 2018 still have consequences today, and we're seeing that so far this offseason.

 

[I am toxic]

I’m pretty pissed about this management group, this offseason, and the way everything’s gone.

I will concede, that he has time to make more moves to change my mind, at least this offseason.

Here’s hoping

He has time, but no cap space, and no excess prospects or picks to use without mortgaging the future even further, to save his own job while wasting away Hughes and Petey's ELC years and Miller's prime years, and Myers prime years, and what's left of Edler's utility.

You know what's worse than a run-on sentence? An atrocious GM left in charge for over half a decade.

 

[Grumbler]

I want to open the tank thread.

 

[I am toxic]

@F A N: Just bringing this here for relevancy instead of answering in the media thread...



To be fair I was mainly poking fun at Dayal, but I largely agree with his take on management being inconsistent with regards to making win-now moves vs. being conservative. After all, we handed $30 million to Myers last summer, traded a 1st for Miller and spent big at the deadline to rent Toffoli. Contrast that with what's happened so far this offseason. Now it's looking more and more probable that even casual fans outside of HF will pick up on this sudden change in direction.

I have to say that the dichotomy Dayal touched upon was still pretty surface level though TBH, as it doesn't even go into why they haven't really done anything other than sign Holtby: it's because their cap issues are finally restricting them from doing what they want unlike previous years. Having just over $26 million tied up in the likes of Eriksson/Beagle/Sutter/Baertschi/Ferland/Roussel/Benn/Spooner is absolutely killing us right now to the point where we barely have any room to replace the guys we lost, yet we also have nobody in-house that can step up and fill those holes because we either traded away too many picks over the years or have been poor at finding talent outside the 1st round.

It's all connected together. Things Benning did last year or in 2018 still have consequences today, and we're seeing that so far this offseason.

It's even worse - all those years we have been sucking under Benning we could have used cap space to acquire even more picks and prospects, that could either be ready to make an impact in the lineup now, or be used to acquire useful players.

Opportunity cost is easy to forget about, but it is just as costly.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Last one was over 1,000. Continue here.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

House of cards crumbling.

Finally the never-capspacers get a glimpse of what the rest of us have seen all along.

 

[tyhee]

The worst thing I"m seeing about this offseason is, as usual, the direction and plan.

Our team was in cap trouble and to my mind the thing to do was to forget about going for the fences and look for underappreciated cheap players that would go for less money than they've been making and sign them. It never made sense to me to swing for the fences for 2020-21 or 2021-22.

Now well into the third day of Free Agent Frenzy we have a slew of players changing teams in low cap hit signings and the Canucks aren't involved. Their new free agent goalie wasn't at all cheap and the bargains being signed now near the league minimum aren't being signed by the Canucks. We hear about them chasing OEL, chasing Barrie, doubling back on Markstrom and Tanev (unsuccessfully) and nothing about cheaper players. They might even have made a deal with Stecher outside the qualifying offer procedure but there is no indication they made any attempt at all. I also wonder if Benning is betting that there won't be an AHL season coming up as he hasn't been buying cheap depth to stash there nor players to help that franchise.

Perhaps I'm wrong and Benning is just being patient, waiting to pick over the bargain remains, but there is little reason to think he's planning that far ahead.

 

[Intangibos]

I cannot even imagine the elation I will feel once the Jim Benning era ends.

"Vancouver Canucks promote Ron Delorme to General Manager"

 

[Peter10]

In regards to the Brisbois discussion from the last thread, those who have seen the Sharks announce their first round pick this year will know what class is. Throwing some syllables around that barely resemble the players name is not.

 

[Pavel96]

In regards to the Brisbois discussion from the last thread, those who have seen the Sharks announce their first round pick this year will know what class is. Throwing some syllables around that barely resemble the players name is not.

But what the Sharks did takes forethought and planning. Canuck's management clearly does not focus on those things.

 

[I am toxic]

That's Loui at the end.

 

[I am toxic]

The one waiting for him is Beagle.

 

[Melvin]

I see a lot of posts about them "losing Markstrom" or "losing Tanev" and that really misses the point. I would have rather let those players walk too. Well, actually I would have rather traded them but nevermind.

The point is that they have finally made the playoffs after 4 years of being in the NHL basement and now are poised to go into next season with Jalen Chatfield in their top-4 because of their incredible myopia of the years past, and there is no clear path to fixing this.

And if you dial the calendar back one year, this is exactly what us henny pennies were talking about. It was obvious to everyone who could see past the end of their noses that this was happening.

This team should have been doing whatever it could 2-3 years ago to dump Sutter's contract, and avoiding giving term to the Beagles and Ferlands of the world, but they just kept charging forward with the idea that future cap space was unimportant and that they'd magically find a way to make it work once they got there. Well, they got there. Now we are here. And while the off-season is far from over, the team as its set up right now looks like one that's set to spend another 2 or 3 years in the basement.

 

[Intangibos]

Honestly, maybe we missed out.

The pro-Benning section of this fanbase were celebrating making the playoffs like they won the cup. In reality, that was their cup. Good for them for setting the bar low and enjoying their win. Now comes the collapse that we would expect of a championship team!

 

[vanuck]

Everyone knows it takes at least a decade to build a contender.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

"Vancouver Canucks promote Ron Delorme to General Manager"

 

[RandV]

The worst thing I"m seeing about this offseason is, as usual, the direction and plan.

Our team was in cap trouble and to my mind the thing to do was to forget about going for the fences and look for underappreciated cheap players that would go for less money than they've been making and sign them. It never made sense to me to swing for the fences for 2020-21 or 2021-22.

Now well into the third day of Free Agent Frenzy we have a slew of players changing teams in low cap hit signings and the Canucks aren't involved. Their new free agent goalie wasn't at all cheap and the bargains being signed now near the league minimum aren't being signed by the Canucks. We hear about them chasing OEL, chasing Barrie, doubling back on Markstrom and Tanev (unsuccessfully) and nothing about cheaper players. They might even have made a deal with Stecher outside the qualifying offer procedure but there is no indication they made any attempt at all. I also wonder if Benning is betting that there won't be an AHL season coming up as he hasn't been buying cheap depth to stash there nor players to help that franchise.

Perhaps I'm wrong and Benning is just being patient, waiting to pick over the bargain remains, but there is little reason to think he's planning that far ahead.

Doesn't help that once Virtanen and Gaudette are signed we have 15 pro forward contracts on the team, so no real flexibility to add forwards. Was that ever a brilliant idea.

 

[geebaan]

Okay as mad as I am, what does a successful rest of the offseason look like now?

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Okay as mad as I am, what does a successful rest of the offseason look like now?

At this point - I’m guessing a trade for a top four defensemen, a couple of depth D signings. A trade out of some salary to allow us to bring in a top six forward.

I’d call that a success. Whether some or all of it happens...

 

[carrotshirt]

Okay as mad as I am, what does a successful rest of the offseason look like now?

Pietrangelo and Hall sign 7 year contracts at league minimum.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

Okay as mad as I am, what does a successful rest of the offseason look like now?

Benning getting fired.

That’s it.

 

[Bubbles]

"Vancouver Canucks promote Ron Delorme to General Manager"

Delorme: "OK guys, we don't need any more scouts, if the guy looks good in practise, that's enough. And only slow, big, unskilled guys from the WHL."

 

[Bubbles]

Okay as mad as I am, what does a successful rest of the offseason look like now?

Re-sign the remaining RFAs. Cheap, depth defenseman on 1 year deals. Absolutely no more long contracts on older vets.