The Management Thread | White Hole Edition

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There is no thread of HFBoards where users are allowed to editorialize on the validity of other peoples’ perspectives or opinions. Debate topics with people, but the non-stop criticism of “Benning haters” or “Benning fans” or “toxic fandom” or “cultural rot" needs to end, and it needs to end now.

There’s culprits on both sides of this issue. Knock it off, or some of you will be taking vacations from the site.

Addendum: Spamming is against the rules, too. Posts comprised of one or two words (eg - #FireBenning), or simply images/gifs are a violation of the Site Rules. So let's avoid that.

 

Nice story. Never give up right?

 

So...

We are pretty much eliminated from the playoffs now.

Team	GP	W	L	OT	P	P%
Washington Capitals	412	257	113	42	556	0.675
Tampa Bay Lightning	412	257	124	31	545	0.661
Boston Bruins	413	239	123	51	529	0.64
Pittsburgh Penguins	412	237	131	44	518	0.629
Vegas Golden Knights	249	143	83	23	309	0.62
St. Louis Blues	416	236	137	43	515	0.619
Nashville Predators	413	223	139	51	497	0.602
New York Islanders	412	212	148	52	476	0.578
Columbus Blue Jackets	416	217	153	46	480	0.577
Winnipeg Jets	416	221	158	37	479	0.576
San Jose Sharks	413	218	156	39	475	0.575
Toronto Maple Leafs	416	213	151	52	478	0.575
Philadelphia Flyers	411	208	147	56	472	0.574
Dallas Stars	409	211	151	47	469	0.573
Minnesota Wild	410	211	153	46	468	0.571
Florida Panthers	412	208	152	52	468	0.568
Anaheim Ducks	416	206	151	59	471	0.566
Chicago Blackhawks	417	207	158	52	466	0.559
Carolina Hurricanes	411	202	154	55	459	0.558
Calgary Flames	415	211	168	36	458	0.552
New York Rangers	413	202	165	46	450	0.545
Montréal Canadiens	414	198	169	47	443	0.535
Los Angeles Kings	413	198	175	40	436	0.528
Edmonton Oilers	418	197	180	41	435	0.52
Colorado Avalanche	411	192	179	40	424	0.516
New Jersey Devils	408	175	178	55	405	0.496
Arizona Coyotes	414	173	192	49	395	0.477
Vancouver Canucks	418	171	196	51	393	0.47
Ottawa Senators	418	168	201	49	385	0.461
Buffalo Sabres	410	160	195	55	375	0.457
Detroit Red Wings	418	157	206	55	369	0.441

But its a weird season and Covid and stuff so cant really blame anyone for anything.

 

Here's what McCann said about his time in Vancouver. It's from an interview with The Athletic:

“Hockey-wise, I think, I was ready for that part, but off the ice, I made a lot of mistakes,” McCann told The Armies on Wednesday morning.
“There were a lot of relationships that I wish I’d taken differently … but I mean I was a young immature kid,” McCann continued. “A lot of guys go through that, but obviously it was different because I was traded after my first year, so I wasn’t able to mend those relationships. Show them that they don’t know what kind of person I am.”

It's behind a paywall, but here's the link:

The Armies: The rise and fall of the Canucks' Pittsburgh empire and the Jared McCann exclusive

 

All I know is one thing.

After 7 years, it is certainly not Benning's fault.

 

He just didn't have enough time.

 

thats what they though about the Blues a couple years back.

and Colorado? weird

 

Even moms who date or marry losers?

 

Yeah but do you still have the record player?

 

What did they think about the Blues and Colorado?

 

For all the excitement about the cap coming off the books this year, Benning added $7m in untradeable contracts in Holtby and Virtanen for next year lol

 

I think the McCann trade was terrible but it's fairly well documented that McCann had attitude issues even coming into his draft year.

 

How much more of this crappy, awful mess does our owner watch before he dumps Jethro/Jethrine?

 

Boeser didn’t have it as bad as Petterson and Hughes for getting abused as a rookie, but you would think at some point Benning would have done something to ensure this team had some backbone.

I get Ferland was meant to be part of that. A lot of money is tied up in Roussel who fair to him has had concussion issues and is more of an agitator. Gudbranson sucked and I don’t miss him on the team but he can go with anyone. Not asking for a John Scott but after seeing more bull happen to Hoglander again...

See what Anaheim wants for a guy like DesLauriers or if Nashville is selling and would move Borowiecki. They’re not deterents but the roster needs 2 or 3 guys like that if they’re not contending with skill. Would have been happy to see them spend 1M~ on Kyle Clifford or a Wayne Simmonds in the off-season knowing Ferland was LTIR.

Anyways if they start selling at the deadline maybe some of the contracts coming back could be some grit just hoping for that.

 

In Calgary when your team is 'only' 0.500 but they were recently beaten by 'Your Vancouver Canucks', Calgary fans believe to be inferior, they launch a thread to fire the coach and GM:
Fire Geoff Ward and Brad Treliving Now

Perspectives and expectations.

 

If we can stay in the bottom five of the league (like we are now) then there is the expectation of a high pick in the coming draft. Fingers crossed for new management making the pick.

 

It is hard to say how the Nucks drafting will be going forward. Besides Brackett, there was tremendous recent turn over in the Canucks Amateur scouting department; bring in Benning's son, and other Bros. Of course they have Weisbrod lurking on the side line trying to identify another 2 years away from being 2 years away, 1st round pick like he did in Calgary with Mark Jankowski.

It is noteworthy Brackett received a review of an A or some say A+ for his drafting this past year with the Wild where he has total autonomy.

The overall style of ownership and management appears to be to gravitate towards ridding themselves of clever employees so they can appear be the smartest people in a smaller room making big decisions. If they have accomplished nothing else over the past 7 years, they have accomplished this.

 

What is obvious is just how much Covid affected last year's standings. The average league standing for the Canucks has been in the 27th range for 4 years or more and the team was heading in that direction last year when the league shut down. So really no change, just a bunch more "wait and see", "give me your money you idiot you don't know anything", fans are stupid", "Being a GM requires super high intelligence, GED level at least and most fans don't have that"

I"ll tell you, the most frustrating thing is how some fans will hang on to the anchor and scream things are good even when the boat is sinking. What spurs improvement is not cheering for close losses but demanding winning seasons. 50 losses a year should be treated as a loss not improvement. Fans have to get their heads out of the arses and start expecting improvement. Don't take this "you don't know", that may have been true 25 years ago, but not today. AI can run a team now, maybe not good but it can. We all have some idea of how a winning team is created.
For me it was look at championship teams;
Size
Age
Skill level (3rd line almost the same as 2nd line)
Star power - Toews, Kane, Seabrook and Keith, Kucherov, Stamkos, Hedman, Goalie? (cant spell)
The big team wins most often.
Defence win championships

The Islanders I overlooked them quite often but they are one of the largest teams in the league and if Lamorello thinks that is hw to build a winner, well I think I might be onto something.

I ask
Why should FANS think Benning is going to do something he hasn't done before, EVER?

Would firing Benning signal a new start in your opinion? It has to start at the very top first.

 

All of the *FEW* teams below us in those standings have fired their GMs at least once during Benning's tenure as GM of the Canucks. But he needs more time!

 

It all makes sense now:

 

Cmon bro!

 

Big players also get injured less than smaller players

 

I think the topic kind of strayed from what I was originally thinking.

I'm sure that McCann had his issues. I just don't think that was a good enough reason to trade him or to somehow justify the trade.

 

7 years in and the Owner says they are collectively sticking to the plan. One assumes the plan they came up with is to tank in year 7 as they are closer in the standings in winning percentage to Red Wings than they even are to the Oilers.

I can hear Weisbrod's pitch to Ownership now, 'We are living in unprecedented times where the last shall be first and the first shall be last.'

 

I laughed.

Slightly off topic here, but does anyone have any links to any documents that Weisbrod has written?

 

Yes, it was suggested a number of years ago the JW has a preoccupation in writing and editing his own Wiki page so here you go:

John Weisbrod - Wikipedia

It appears to be a work of fiction however, as it does not mention the famous Orlando Magic debacle, the ROR RFA term sheet disaster or 'The Hunt for Red October' when he famously drove in a snow storm to discover and then draft Mark Jankowski summarized here: Mark Jankowski - Wikipedia .

I imagine the Canucks will form a case study for a failing business in some 'Executive MBA' program someday. The title of the lecture will be,' How to turn a Billion into 500M'.

The answer of course has become obvious.