Ranking the worst Benning moves

[ChilliBilly]

You should have an issue with it. You take the BPA. You do not draft by position. You have not way of truly predicting what you need 2-4 years down the road that drafting by position is almost always a mistake. If you have two players you truly think are equal then maybe you draft by position but you don't draft based on the organization but rather the importance of the position...you take the Center and D-man over the winger.

The major issue isn't simply well his average ranking indicates he wasn't much a reach...the problem is there was clear drop difference in quality moving from the top 5 to the rest of the top 15. It was an obvious miss. I mean I hope Juolevi does well and actually starts to develop but it was a clear miss from day 1. The gasps throughout the entire arena when they said "from the London Knights....Juolevi" says it all.

Gudbranson is still the worst move. It sums up every problem with this GM...inability to assess blueline talent, throwing away youth and picks, being too enamored with the cut a guys jib rather than if that guy actually wins you games.

His point was that the Pettersson pick was as much "off the board" as Juolevi was. IIRMC, I believe after their interview they decided Tkachuk had "issues". Their asset evaluation in this case was horrible. As I have stated before they could have traded down 4 - 5 spots, screwed Calgary and picked off a better player than Juolevi. But the main point here is that going from multiple scouts evaluations, Pettersson was more of a reach than Juolevi was. And I am thankful that we have Juolevi and Pettersson rather than Vilardi and Tkachuk.

 

[palefire]

You should also do a "Best Benning move" poll.

Options:
Getting rid of Guddy
Period

I tried to make a list of the genuinely consequential good Benning moves, and I got: drafting Pettersson, Boeser, and Hughes, signing Stecher, and (arguably) trading for Baertschi. I suppose that Vrbata and Vanek were hits drowning in a sea of bad free agent signings though they managed to botch both of their departures.

Everything else positive involves trading off dead weight (Lack, Bieksa, Hansen, Burrows, Vanek, Del Zotto, Gudbranson...).

Funniest thing about those first round picks is that they did well with the picks where it wasn't crystal-clear who they ought to choose, and screwed up the two where everyone was screaming at the time to make a different choice.

 

[4Twenty]

I hate the Juolevi pick, hated the January before it was made, but that's a scouting/collaborative error. Trading McCann and 33rd overall for Gudbranson is purely a GM move, therefore that's where my vote went.

It was just a complete mis-read of where the team was, even though they had just finished with the 3rd worst record in the league. The classic But Gillis, is that he was left with bare cupboards, but if you're cupboards are bare, why the heck are you moving a 19 year old who just played a full season in the NHL and basically a late 1st (33rd).

The only move that's close to this isn't in the poll, and it's the desired "help now" return in the Kesler deal. Ya, ya I get it, he was hamstrung by the single team list, but he targeted Bonino and Sbisa. And even though Bonino performed admirably in his minutes, it was the wrong type of return. This move set the tone on the re-tool on the fly era, and 5 years later, that era can only be seen as a positive in one way, as a means to suck to acquire top of the draft talents.

 

[ChilliBilly]

I tried to make a list of the genuinely consequential good Benning moves, and I got: drafting Pettersson, Boeser, and Hughes, signing Stecher, and (arguably) trading for Baertschi. I suppose that Vrbata and Vanek were hits drowning in a sea of bad free agent signings though they managed to botch both of their departures.

Everything else positive involves trading off dead weight (Lack, Bieksa, Hansen, Burrows, Vanek, Del Zotto, Gudbranson...).

Funniest thing about those first round picks is that they did well with the picks where it wasn't crystal-clear who they ought to choose, and screwed up the two where everyone was screaming at the time to make a different choice.

To be fair, a lot of people had Virtanen ranked pretty closely to the next 3 picks. Sadly, his biggest problem is a serious lack of vision and hockey IQ. Which wasn't obvious at the time. Also, he was a "safer" pick because of worries that Nylander and Ehlers might not be able to handle the tough minutes in the NHL.

 

[Johnny Canucker]

Signing Myers to the same money as the top 5 Dmen in the league.

There are five defencemen in the entire NHL making $8M+ (Karlsson, Doughty, Subban, OEL, Burns) 5 Norris trophies in that list. Myers will get this money from Jimbo.

 

[DFAC]

Didnt we resign Gudbranson and Dorsett and trade for Sutter all in a short span?

Ive tried to block out those memories...

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

From a fan's perspective: Taking the Vancouver GM job.

 

[ginner classic]

Signing Ryan Miller to his bloated contract when he had leverage and didn't use it. Miller wanted to play on the west coast and didn't have any suitors at the time....enter Jim Benning. Not his worst, but shows his ineptness.

So 'competing with himself on Miller signing'?

 

[4Twenty]

Didnt we resign Gudbranson and Dorsett and trade for Sutter all in a short span?

Ive tried to block out those memories...

They extended Dorsett/Sbisa and traded for Brandon Sutter in a few month span.

However they did draft Juolevi, trade for Gudbranson and sign Loui Eriksson in about a 3 week span in 2016. How that combo didn't get him fired, I'll never know.

 

[ginner classic]

Other - Removing any dissident voices in the management team. They circled their idiot wagon train and created an echo chamber of yes-men.

We can modify the Weisbrod one to be 'replacing Gilman with Weisbrod' (although it was not exactly at the same time, that is what happened).

 

[Isi]

The only move that's close to this isn't in the poll, and it's the desired "help now" return in the Kesler deal. Ya, ya I get it, he was hamstrung by the single team list, but he targeted Bonino and Sbisa. And even though Bonino performed admirably in his minutes, it was the wrong type of return. This move set the tone on the re-tool on the fly era, and 5 years later, that era can only be seen as a positive in one way, as a means to suck to acquire top of the draft talents.

I'm always surprised this doesn't get more hate. It's exactly as you said, the tone-setter, the first of many "hockey trades", almost all of which have backfired, but really, do any of those trades have a bigger missed opportunity cost than this one? Pick 10, pick 24, some good prospects, we walked away with one of those things, which we quickly dumped. Even something below the surface in that trade has re-surfaced time and time again as an issue of Jim's - it always bugged me we didn't retain half of Kesler's salary in that trade. We should have been doing everything possible to get the very best return possible, and who cared if we kept 2.5 million for two seasons? But the Ducks being budget team they were surely would have liked that. Maybe it only gets a 3rd round pick years later, but it's something. 5 years later and of course the answer is clear why something like that didn't happen: Jim just doesn't think of doing things that way. The Mike Hoffman trade to San Jose who Doug Wilson quickly flipped to the Panthers is an example of a trade/move that Jim Benning literally seems not able to do, for whatever reason

 

[ginner classic]

I'm always surprised this doesn't get more hate. It's exactly as you said, the tone-setter, the first of many "hockey trades", almost all of which have backfired, but really, do any of those trades have a bigger missed opportunity cost than this one? Pick 10, pick 24, some good prospects, we walked away with one of those things, which we quickly dumped. Even something below the surface in that trade has re-surfaced time and time again as an issue of Jim's - it always bugged me we didn't retain half of Kesler's salary in that trade. We should have been doing everything possible to get the very best return possible, and who cared if we kept 2.5 million for two seasons? But the Ducks being budget team they were surely would have liked that. Maybe it only gets a 3rd round pick years later, but it's something. 5 years later and of course the answer is clear why something like that didn't happen: Jim just doesn't think of doing things that way. The Mike Hoffman trade to San Jose who Doug Wilson quickly flipped to the Panthers is an example of a trade/move that Jim Benning literally seems not able to do, for whatever reason

It turned me off Benning. Nothing that happened after that came close to changing my mind. The Bieksa and Jason Garrison deals gave me a glimmer of hope that was quickly dashed.

 

[UK Canuck]

all of them, but I voted for Gudbrandson because I truly despise him

 

[UK Canuck]

Jesus Christ the memories and feelings these deals are bringing back up, how is he still in a job?? seriously??

 

[FroshaugFan2]

Voted for the Gudbranson trade.

Bad strategy to trade valuable picks and a prospect for an established player when the Canucks should have been rebuilding. Bad target of an overrated bottom pairing defenceman. Bad trade value giving up a recent first round pick and a very high second for a player Florida was going to have difficulty signing.

Drafting Juolevi over Tkachuk probably turns out more damaging for the franchise, but that was simply a bad scouting call, so it was a little more defensible at the time.

I didn't vote for it because it was of little consequence, but the most baffling and indefensible move to me is still signing Mackenze Stewart to a NHL contract a full year early. Not only did the Canucks sign one of the worst players in the WHL, they did it a year before it was necessary because they thought he was AHL ready. When it turned out he was unplayable in even the ECHL.

 

[MS]

I'm always surprised this doesn't get more hate. It's exactly as you said, the tone-setter, the first of many "hockey trades", almost all of which have backfired, but really, do any of those trades have a bigger missed opportunity cost than this one? Pick 10, pick 24, some good prospects, we walked away with one of those things, which we quickly dumped. Even something below the surface in that trade has re-surfaced time and time again as an issue of Jim's - it always bugged me we didn't retain half of Kesler's salary in that trade. We should have been doing everything possible to get the very best return possible, and who cared if we kept 2.5 million for two seasons? But the Ducks being budget team they were surely would have liked that. Maybe it only gets a 3rd round pick years later, but it's something. 5 years later and of course the answer is clear why something like that didn't happen: Jim just doesn't think of doing things that way. The Mike Hoffman trade to San Jose who Doug Wilson quickly flipped to the Panthers is an example of a trade/move that Jim Benning literally seems not able to do, for whatever reason

The most frustrating thing about that deal was that Anaheim had probably the biggest cache of young skill defenders in the NHL and were an absolutely perfect trade partner on that front - Lindholm, Fowler, Theodore, Vatanen. Lindholm was probably off-limits but there was a deal to be made there ... and instead Benning apparently targeted Sbisa (a negative-value cap dump) over them.

Fast forward 5 years, and we're still being linked to Tyson Barrie overpayments to fill the skill defender void that should have been sorted a week into Benning's tenure here with his first move.

 

[Jyrki21]

Media outside of Vancouver seem not to be too blind to the obvious... I just noticed this nugget in Down Goes Brown's recap of draft day:

It’s a risk. And it’s a risk that doesn’t seem worth taking to add a decent player from a team that was under pressure to cut his cap hit. It’s hard not to go the cynic’s route and point out that if the Canucks miss the playoffs this year, Jim Benning probably isn’t around to worry about the 2021 first. Or maybe he’s just really confident in his team, or in Miller, or both. But man, it’s a risk.

Or, to put it a little bit more succinctly:



To summarize, Saturday morning saw deals involving P.K. Subban, J.T. Miller and the unloading of a year of Patrick Marleau’s contract and only Subban didn’t cost a first-round pick. The NHL is strange sometimes.

Bad trade scale: 85/100
Surprise scale, given who made the deal: 25/100

 

[4Twenty]

The most frustrating thing about that deal was that Anaheim had probably the biggest cache of young skill defenders in the NHL and were an absolutely perfect trade partner on that front - Lindholm, Fowler, Theodore, Vatanen. Lindholm was probably off-limits but there was a deal to be made there ... and instead Benning apparently targeted Sbisa (a negative-value cap dump) over them.

Fast forward 5 years, and we're still being linked to Tyson Barrie overpayments to fill the skill defender void that should have been sorted a week into Benning's tenure here with his first move.

Sbisa would've been 9th on their depth chart the season after the trade: Lindholm, Fowler, Vatanen, Manson, Beauchemin, Depres, Allen, Lovejoy

 

[BROCK HUGHES]

how.do you.vote.majority of.them.

 

[tantalum]

His point was that the Pettersson pick was as much "off the board" as Juolevi was. IIRMC, I believe after their interview they decided Tkachuk had "issues". Their asset evaluation in this case was horrible. As I have stated before they could have traded down 4 - 5 spots, screwed Calgary and picked off a better player than Juolevi. But the main point here is that going from multiple scouts evaluations, Pettersson was more of a reach than Juolevi was. And I am thankful that we have Juolevi and Pettersson rather than Vilardi and Tkachuk.

I diagree. The psoters point, from what I can see, was Pettersson was more of a reach by using average draft rankings. It didn't take into account that in drafts there are often clear breaks or tiers. In the Juolevi case there was such a clear break. A strong top 5 followed by the a group of the rest (really it was a strong top 1, a strong 2+3, then 4+5 and then about 5-10 others). In the Pettersson draft, it was a strong top 3 maybe top 4 (I can't remember if Makar was as universally a top 4 like the top 3 were a top 3) and then a group of 7 or 8 other guys who could go next.

 

[tantalum]

The world is never that clear I would argue. Confirmation bias to me. How long did it take for McAvoy to become the best D from that group? Your "clear" drop wasn't so clear after all. Same with the "clear" top 3 being Matthews, Laine and Puljujarvi. And I guess Puljujarvi is included in your "top 5" which wasn't all that good in hindsight.

BPA is such an illusion. Within weeks people might change their opinion on ranked players. If you got Juolevi at 49.9999% being BPA and Tkachuk at 50.0001% I really have no issue with the D being taken.

I would have picked Tkachuk, but too much is made out of that pick. He reached. They all do occasionally. He missed, but pretending it was that obvious when it happened is revisionist in my opinion.

Take 2019 as an example. I don't know what the "top something" ended up being in the end (consensus-wise), but Seider certainly wasn't in it. Yzerman a fool for making that pick? Bigger fool than Benning (not that I'm arguing one action makes a GM good or bad) taking Juolevi a priori at least.

It's not confirmation bias. The argument put forth used average draft rankings to say one player was a bigger reach than the others. What that did not show is that using those same average draft rankings there are also clear breaks in players that are (nearly) universally ranked higher than others. If you are using average draft rankings as the crux of the argument then you have to be prepared to also use the other details of those rankings.

It is not revisionist history. You can go back to draft threads and see that isn't the case. You can also watch the video of that pick and hear the gasps around the arena when if was Juolevi's name called and not Tkachuk. Tkachuk was a consensus top 5 pick...that is not a revisionist look at things. Juolevi appeared to be a near consensus top 10 pick but he was nowhere near a consensus top 5 pick and there was one such player still on the board when Juolevi was taken. The same can not be said, for say, Pettersson who was the comparative used. There you had a consensus top 10 pick and no consensus pick higher than him on the board. It's a great pick and clearly the consensus on where he should have been appears to be wrong but that wasn't the argument being used.

 

[Krnuckfan]

It's not confirmation bias. The argument put forth used average draft rankings to say one player was a bigger reach than the others. What that did not show is that using those same average draft rankings there are also clear breaks in players that are (nearly) universally ranked higher than others. If you are using average draft rankings as the crux of the argument then you have to be prepared to also use the other details of those rankings.

It is not revisionist history. You can go back to draft threads and see that isn't the case. You can also watch the video of that pick and hear the gasps around the arena when if was Juolevi's name called and not Tkachuk. Tkachuk was a consensus top 5 pick...that is not a revisionist look at things. Juolevi appeared to be a near consensus top 10 pick but he was nowhere near a consensus top 5 pick and there was one such player still on the board when Juolevi was taken. The same can not be said, for say, Pettersson who was the comparative used. There you had a consensus top 10 pick and no consensus pick higher than him on the board. It's a great pick and clearly the consensus on where he should have been appears to be wrong but that wasn't the argument being used.

This is so true. Even though two players may be ranked only a couple spots differente on rankings, there can still be significant gaps between the players.

2016 NHL Draft Rankings

Here's a complilation of 14 different prospect rankings for the 2016 draft. Not a single one had juolevi above tkachuk. That tells something.

 

[ginner classic]

Round #2 poll is open.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

Some options:

• I Want to Hold Your Hand (through the Tryamkin Signing Process)
• Yesterday (I Tampered on Live TV)
• Hello Goodbye (An Ode to Nick Bonino)
• All My Loving (is Reserved for a Number Six Defender)
• Lucic in the Sky with Diamonds
• Ticket to Ride (but not for Two Years so I Sold it to Fill the Age Gap)
• Obla-di Obla-da (is what I Hear when you say "Underlying Numbers")
• Here Comes the Son (of one of the Sutters, Get my Bank Card Ready)

Some more options:

• Yellow Sutterine
• Let it Beagle
• All You Need Is Leadership

 

[ginner classic]

This is so true. Even though two players may be ranked only a couple spots differente on rankings, there can still be significant gaps between the players.

2016 NHL Draft Rankings

Here's a complilation of 14 different prospect rankings for the 2016 draft. Not a single one had juolevi above tkachuk. That tells something.

It's pretty rare to find unanimity on a draft rankings when both optioms are in the top 15. That is usually something that only happens for top 3 picks. The Virtanen pick was bad due to overruling their own scouts to draft by need. There were some rankings that had Jake above 1 of Nylander and Ehlers...but not both. Consensus had Nylander and Ehlers higher.