Is it possible that even though Gillis only had 1 top 15 pick in his tenure and only missed the playoffs once in his 6 year tenure, he will have left his successor more pieces and less of a mess than benning? Granted Benning’s pieces will be a lot younger, but he also missed the playoffs in 5 of 7 years.
Gillis left the team with 2 aging 1st liners, a prime elite 2C, 3 solid middle 6 wingers on steal of a deal contracts, 1 top pairing d in his prime, 3 top 4 dmen, an upcoming elite 2C, an upcoming top 2-4D that was already a borderline top 4D, and an upcoming elite goalie and a top 10 pick.
2 33 year old 5o point Sedins
29 year old elite 2C Kesler
32 year old aging burrows
30 year old Chris Higgins
27 year old Jannik Hansen
27 year old #2-3 D Alex Edler
32 year old top 4 D Kevin Bieksa
29 year old top 4 D Jason Garrison (was our 5th highest scorer coming off a 33 point season)
31 year old top 4 D Dan Hamhuis
19 year old Bo Horvat
25 year old Chris Tanev
24 year old Jacob Markstrom
#6 overall pick
His only bad contract he left behind was David Booth at 1 year remaining at 4.25M with a 69M cap (value of 5.02M in today’s 81.5M cap world)
Benning is leaving behind a young elite 1C, a prime 1LW, a young elite 1RW, an elite 2C, a young elite top pairing d, a top 4 d, 1 top 6 forward prospect that’s worth mentioning and what should be a top 10 pick.
22 year old Pettersson,
27 year old JT Miller
23 year old Brock Boeser
25 year old Bo Horvat
21 year old Quinn Hughes
29 year old Nate Schmidt
19 year old Vasily Podkolzin
Top 10 pick potentially
His bad contracts would be:
Loui Eriksson 6M for 1 year
Antoine Roussel 3M for 1 year
Jay Beagle 3M for 1 year
Michael Ferland 3.5M for 2 years
= 15.5M wasted cap space for 1 year and 3.5M for an additional year.
Unlike most fans, I’ll give myers a pass because I think he’s a #4 but overpaid by 1-2M per. So the fact that he’s a good player imo cancels out his contract for arguments purpose. That way Benning supporters can’t say he belongs in the list of assets while Benning haters can’t say he belongs in the bad contracts.
I didn’t mention Demko or Hoglander because at the time of gillis’s firing, he had Lack who was looking like a #1G and Kassian whom was looking like a future top 6 staple. Didn’t mention any other Benning prospects because we don’t know if they will pan out or not. Odds are they won’t. Gillis also had some other notable prospects (most of whom didn’t pan out). Without hindsight, all those guys are of similar value at the time of Gillis’s firing as Benning’s prospects asides Podkolzin.