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- Aug 12, 2005
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I mean, Benning himself said something like outside of the first pick he just sat back and observed letting the scouts make the picks, so why would this even be a question? The biggest discrepancy is it appears that every scout/region was allowed to make a pick, so under Gillis it's highly questionable if we would have drafted Tryamkin, and Mackenzie Stewart falls into this category as well being a Delorme-backed goon pick. There would have been an extra shuffle had ownership not interfered in that we could have had different draft picks, but given the picks we did have I don't see why we wouldn't still have McCann, Demko, Forsling, and Pettit regardless of who was GM.
The best way to sum it up that I've posted several times over the years is:
2000(?)-2009: Ron Delorme era
2010: Gillis transition year
2011-2014: Eric Crawford era
2015/2106: Benning/Weisbrod transition years
2017-present: Judd Brackett era
Gillis put together the Crawford team so if you have to put credit towards a GM I'd tilt it in his favour.
I think Benning heavily influenced the Demko pick. Not so much picking him over other goalies but the decision to use such a high pick on a goalie. Demko was the consensus top goalie in the draft. Would the Canucks have picked McDonald instead if Demko wasn't available? I'm not too sure about that. Teams don't use the 36th overall pick on a goalie unless they feel strongly he's a bluechip future #1 goalie prospect and even then whether to draft a goalie high is often something that a GM makes a decision on. Brian Burke had a rule of not drafting goalies in the first round and was shocked when Nonis drafted Schneider.