The Canucks are falling apart

[HolyGhost]

Canuck fans had a good run. They are rebuilding and it does not happen over night. They have some very good prospects on the roster and more coming. I hear EA sports is popular in BC, so I imagine people there play EA hockey and assume it is that easy in real life. But considering we are dealing with a fan base that believes Gillis built the team that went on the cup run and not Nonis and Burke, they are blinded by misguided hate. All indications are the owner is a nasty piece of work and that is the guy the should be aiming at

 

[82Ninety42011]

Fans need to torch some cars to send a message to management

Don't we need to lose in the playoffs for that to happen

 

[GJB]

They should have fired Benning on the spot when he showed up on the draft floor with that Jet Black Paul Bearer hair color.

They thought Benning had found the fountain of youth

 

[Nucker101]

Also the OP forgot to mention Laurence Gilman’s firing 1 year into Benning’s tenure with the Canucks. That was the moment I wanted Benning fired and haven’t changed my opinion since.

Gilman was the only intelligent one in that front office.

Remember Gilman’s response when asked if he was apart of that ridiculous Luca Sbisa 3.6M AAV contract? You could tell what he really wanted to do was laugh and say “f*** no”

 

[Scorlov]

Title is misleading. Falling apart? The covid problem killed their season and the never recovered. Canucks had a good ten year run and are now rebuilding.

Pure speculation by people on Twitter who are paid to cause problems

They were dead months before Covid hit the team

They're bad but not sabres bad. The core is excellent.

All the canucks need right now, is to clear bad contracts and legit GM who can pull it off.

Yeah only 30-40 million dollars of bad contracts, no biggie

lel

 

[Burke the Legend]

Starts at the top not with Benning. Aquillini is the real problem.

 

[LuckyBoeser]

Young, highly skilled core, upsets defending champs last year, loses in Round 2, this year team gets torched by covid, never recovers. And Benning is being burned in effigy.

They had a bad start to the season, but any chance at turning things around was destroyed

Last season's success is irrelevant to the current state of the Canucks as they overachieved last year. Canucks were significantly and consistently outchanced, outshot during the 19-20 season and into the playoffs. Canucks were propped up by players shooting much above expected statistically (such as Pearson, Virtanen, Gaudette, and Miller hitting ppg) and arguably a vezina-esque performance from Markstrom. The problem extends far beyond than just "a poor start" and covid. Canucks having a poor start is simply a regression to the mean. Canucks are very flawed from very poor forward depth, extremely bad defense, and lacking a reliable backup goaltender to Demko. Now with a good young core of Pettersson, Hughes, Boeser, Horvat, Hoglander, and Demko, Canucks should be able to exist the rebuild and surround the talent with efficient supporting pieces. Except, that due to terrible cap management, our cap space is very bare to surround the young core with support. Reliable sources indicate that players are unhappy with how the team being run, and there's clearly something rotten within how the team is managed considering the treatment on how Toffoli, Tanev were being treated upon departing from the organization. As @Nucker101 said, this situation is not black and white. Canucks has a good core moving forward, but along as the ownership and management crew stay the same, the future remain bleak.

 

[Nucker101]

Starts at the top not with Benning. Aquillini is the real problem.

They’re basically in this together, FA is basically acting like a president of hockey ops and Benning is his GM

 

[mdobbs]

Canuck fans had a good run. They are rebuilding and it does not happen over night. They have some very good prospects on the roster and more coming. I hear EA sports is popular in BC, so I imagine people there play EA hockey and assume it is that easy in real life. But considering we are dealing with a fan base that believes Gillis built the team that went on the cup run and not Nonis and Burke, they are blinded by misguided hate. All indications are the owner is a nasty piece of work and that is the guy the should be aiming at

Ah yes, the classic 15 year rebuild

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Writing is on the wall for players who don't want to continue playing under this management and it says "GTFO"

 

[Sens With Benefits]

Yay it’s not us for once!!

 

[PumpkinBomb]

Maybe I don't pay enough attention but I don't know of the last time I heard of a player simply departing and not even engaging in an exit interview.

Would have to be Highmore right? He'd be the only player living in a hotel since the trade deadline.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

There is absolutely no way to justify this to the players or fans, and with an expansion team ~3 hours away by car starting play in a few months this hypothetical decision would probably affect ownership's bottom line sooner rather than later.

Last year was the worst possible thing that could have happened for them.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Man there are a lot of dysfunctional organizations in the NHL right now. Ottawa, Rangers, Buffalo and now Vancouver

What do these organization all have in common? Buffoons as owners.

 

[RandV]

Yep and when it came time to pay the two UFA's actually worth keeping, Benning's unhinged spending in previous seasons finally came around to bite him.

Even then there was actually room between Markstrom/Tanev/Toffoli to keep two of them. Benning just had other priorities, like locking up Virtanen early, ruining the good decision to go with Demko over Markstrom by blowing the cap savings on Holtby, and then spending the rest of his time chasing an OEL trade. Which didn't pan out when Arizona stupidly didn't take the deal offered & run, and then of course Schmidt fell into his lap. All told, that's $12.8M added between 3 players, where we could have easily opted to keep Toffoli, Tanev, Stecher, and sign a regular backup.

That's just keeping the positive status quo from last season together though. Still doesn't erase the part where this should have been the Canucks opportunity to step forward and be a contender, if they didn't have all the contracts weighing the team down and they could have added to the existing group.

 

[HolyGhost]

Ah yes, the classic 15 year rebuild

rebuild started the day the twins retired--Canucks were doing stop gap to try to make the playoffs for a few years. The rebuild started in 2018

 

[M2Beezy]

Have you been in coma for nearly a decade? The good ten year round ended ten years ago LOL they've been rebuilding for nearly a decade and are still in the basement of the worst division in the league

Hey Ed

 

[Bounces R Way]

I wouldn't trust Jim Benning to run a minor hockey team bottle drive. This guy is an absolute farce. Calling him a lame duck GM would be an insult to lame ducks.

I generally don't hold the Canucks fanbase in high regard(although the ones on HF seem cool) but they don't deserve this. It goes beyond bad trades and bad signings, the guy simply couldn't organize a sandwich. A big part of the job is managing people, showing you value their input, putting them in the best positions to succeed. Benning has completely failed in this aspect and just about every other aspect of management. I'm not sure how they get out of the mess they're in but I'm 100% it starts with firing him and his cronies.

 

[BlueAzN]

It's because of the Vancouver housing market.

 

[Zach716]

Didn't they just announce reaching out to the Sedin twins to have a role in the org? Perhaps ownership will be depending on them and their deep knowledge of the franchise to do an annual review to try and weed out everything rotten. Just a possible glass half full approach.

 

[dbaz]

Maybe I don't pay enough attention but I don't know of the last time I heard of a player simply departing and not even engaging in an exit interview.

shows how bad the media is here, always trying to create something out of nothing.
It's Pearson. He has a family problem and the team already granted him leave. This was released after JPAT misreported

 

[SensFactor]

What is the cost for J.T Miller?

 

[M2Beezy]

It's because of the Vancouver housing market.

And reffing. If refs didnt hate us wed be top notch cup winners this year. Esp with this guy in charge

 

[Vide]

Canadian fans deserve so much better than what they've had to put up with these past decades. So much incompetence and bad ownership.

 

[GOilers88]

Please write the essay about how Tyler Toffoli would have willed this team to the playoffs this year.

It's clear as day that the Aquillini's and Benning are the problem.

You don't need to try and show Canucks fans how misplaced their frustration is. It's been highlighted plenty in this thread and through media how ex players and executives and staff all have legitimate gripes that caused them to leave.

It all started with firing Linden because he wanted to build the team the right way and it's only gotten worse. Shit rolls down hill, man.