Buffalo drafted Sam Reinhart. Calgary drafted Sam Bennet. Both could have had those two guys as well. It happens. Take a look through our history of first round draft picks. Even top 10 draft picks. We’re not better than 50%. Look. The jury has to be still out on all his picks. At the present, his other two top picks look like home runs.
That promising first rounder? That was a year and a half ago. It’s been a year and a half since he’s done a “huge blunder”.
Look at a team and ask... is it better or worse off for having a gm... ours is better. Despite the slow start.
Can you name 20 GMs who are measurably better than Benning?
Can you name 15?
I could probably name 10. But after that, it’s a large tier that I would think he belongs to.
Bob Murray - constructed the core of young defenseman in Anaheim, plus rakel, and managed to get Kesler for basically nothing.
Brad Treliving/Brendan Burke - Drafted Tkachuk and also managed to trade for a top pairing defenseman who is only 22 at the time. Fleeced the Bruins
Ron Francis - Constructed a great core of young players in Carolina
Stan Bowman - Pretty obvious
Jarmo Kekalainen - Yeah pretty obvious, look at the young talent he managed to get in the draft
Jim Nill - Average GM still would rank him ahead of Benning
Ken Holland - how many years in the playoffs?
Dale Tallon - Although his stock has gone down, he still got that chicago core
Chuck Fletcher - average GM
Marc Bergevin - pretty bad GM but I'd rank him above Benning
David Poile - One of the best
Ray Shero - Look at all the young stars in the New Jersey team, probably an average GM though
Glen Sather - Actually managed to get great players in later rounds like Bunevich, plus some of their young players are actually legit
Pierre Dorion - I don't think he's a good GM below average on this list for sure, but better then Benning
Ron Hextall - same as Dorion
Jim Rutherford - average GM blessed with a great core
Doug Wilson - not a good gm but above average
Doug Armstrong - below average but better then Benning
Steve Yzerman - good GM
Lou Lamoriello - below average but better then Benning
Brian MacLellan - same as Lou
Yotes GM is still too young to evaluate, same with Buffalo and LA. The only GMs I consider on par with Benning are Cheveldayoff and Sweeney and Snow.