All the years are in different paragraphs.
On forward...
The team went from Kesler to Bonino.
Horvat's emergence helped offset some of that loss...
But even the combined efforts of both him and Bonino could not fully replace Kesler.
Plus...
He was already in the system...
So I cannot attribute him to Benning.
Dorsett helped a bit...
But he basically just replaced Santorelli's contributions...
And Vey was no more than a situational 13th forward.
Vrbata was a good move...
And he helped greatly.
However...
What really helped was that the Sedins returned to being top line players...
With the production to match.
I cannot honestly say that Benning made the forward corps better...
But I think he pretty much just broke even.
On defense...
It went from Garrison to Sbisa...
While Bieksa's decline was clearly felt.
Weber's improvement helped...
But he was part of the team already.
Edler's return to a steady player helped...
But he was basically cancelled out by Bieksa's decline.
Once again...
I cannot say Benning made the defense better.
The goalie position was probably the only position that improved...
But by season's end...
The supposed backup had supplanted the starter...
So the early assessment became questionable.
While I will say that the team got more depth...
It really did not get better.
The improvement in standings was basically all due to a correction...
Because the team really was not as bad as 2014 indicated.