Vancouver Canucks roundtable: Debating the Jim Benning extension

The Vancouver Canucks announced a multi-year extension for GM Jim Benning on Wednesday. Was it the right call? The Canuck Way staff share their answers.

Love or hate the job he’s done, Vancouver Canucks general manager Jim Benning received a multi-year extension — a clear sign that the ownership and team president Trevor Linden are more than keen on how he’s performed thus far.

The decision to extend Benning was met with harsh criticism from many, including the Twitterverse. Dave Stevenson of Puck Prose questioned the move, given the team’s state of mediocrity.

Daniel Wagner of the Vancouver Courier believes Benning and Linden failed on the chance to deliver a new message towards the fans. He points out the front office’s vow to inject more youth into the lineup, though Brock Boeser and Jake Virtanen are Benning’s only draftees regulars on the roster.

At the end of the day, it seems many are divided on Benning’s extension. Some will be quick to point that this team will miss the playoffs for the third consecutive year, and for the fourth time since 2014. Others will point out some of his strong drafting and trades thus far, which includes Boeser, Adam Gaudette, Thatcher Demko, Kole Lind, Olli Juolevi, Jonathan Dahlen and others.

Well, The Canuck Way decided it was appropriate to sit down and discuss the extension. Enjoy our takes, and give us your thoughts in the comment section!

I asked the question: Do you think the Canucks made the right call extending Jim Benning?

Alex Hoegler

Without a doubt.

Listen, I know frustration is growing among the fan base. People want to make changes. Many believe it’s time for Benning to go. But in reality, this is on ownership for not giving him the green light to tear this all down.

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Benning did not have it easy when he replaced Mike Gillis in 2014. He was basically told to rebuild and hit his draft picks, all while having to trade away Ryan Kesler, and later Kevin Bieksa. He had to rebuild? Oh, then sign Radim Vrbata and deal draft picks for Derek Dorsett and Linden Vey.

Stop hating on the Loui Eriksson signing for a moment. Think about the awful drafting done by Benning’s predecessors. This man drafted the aforementioned Boeser, Gaudette, Demko, Lind, and others. Too early to hate on the Virtanen and Juolevi selections, so don’t go there yet.

Getting Dahlen for a fading bottom-six forward in Alex Burrows? Getting Nikolay Goldobin for Jannik Hansen? Signing Bo Horvat and Chris Tanev to very team-friendly extensions? Sign me up.

Oh, and I do realize this team is in the bottom of the standings once again. So were the Pittsburgh Penguins from 2002-06. And the Chicago Blackhawks from 2003-08. And the Los Angeles Kings from 2003-09. These three teams have combined for eight of the past nine Stanley Cup championships. It takes a long time to build a championship contender.

So don’t think Benning should be fired because of this team’splace in the bottom of the league standings. This is how rebuilding works in today’s NHL.

Andrew Nazareth

100 percent yes. Jim Benning is the right man to continue this rebuild.

He has had a major role in reinvigorating this prospect pool, particularly by finding talent in the later rounds. One can argue about the Virtanen and Juolevi picks, but at least those guys are going to be players for this team (its better to have NHL players than not).

Benning has also made some great trades, bringing the likes of Sven Baertschi, Markus Granlund, Brandon Sutter, Goldobin, and Dahlen via shrewd moves. Most of these players are going to be on the team moving forward.

Now, Mr. Benning is certainly not without his flaws. The Eriksson signing is horrendous anyway you sliced it. The Erik Gudbranson trade has not worked out (though if the Canucks can recuperate more than one asset for him, then it might not look so bad).

He has not been able to turn the team around in a hurry like he said he would. The fact the Canucks current team is still horrendous is still disturbing.

But the fact of the matter is that the future is looking very bright, and with a strong 2018 draft, I feel this team can be ready to compete in short order. Extending Benning was the right thing to do, and I look forward to seeing him continue stockpiling the prospect ranks.

Chris Faber

They made the right decision. Jim Benning isn’t perfect but no general manager is, if the lottery balls would have fallen differently a couple years this team would be in a very different spot. You can’t do anything about the lottery balls but you can do something later in the draft and I’ve likes the guys he has found over the recent years in rounds two to five.

Anyone can rip on him for signing Eriksson but if some of these prospects like Gaudette, Lind, Demko and Gadjovich can pan out to be good players I’m sure we can almost forget about six million dollars a season over six.

Three more years of Benning will be the right timeline for the Canucks to reassess where the team is in it’s rebuild. Benning has a great eye for talent but recent problems point to the Canucks as developers of that talent. If Benning keeps stocking the cupboard and can develop some of the guys he has in the system already I’m sure Canucks fans all over will grow to accept the job that Benning has and is doing in Vancouver

Isha Jahromi

It is absolutly the right call. Benning needed time to clean up the last regime’s mess in regards to the lack of draft picks and prospects in the Vancouver Canucks system.

Now that his first term is done, and he has plugged most of the holes in the sinking ship, it is time to work. I would have liked to see 5 years; however three is more than enough time if there isnt pressure to speed up development from up top in 2020 to win.

Tyler Shipley

There’s been a lot of talk around this organization about “earning it.” Young players have to earn their ice, have to prove they’re ready. The problem is, a lot of the Canucks’ young players have earned their ice but aren’t getting it, while veterans like Sutter, Eriksson, Gudbranson, Sam Gagner and Michael Del Zotto have been getting a lot of unearned ice time.

The extension of Jim Benning feels like the ultimate expression of this frustrating double-standard.Benning really has not earned this extension. He came into Vancouver with a promise of a quick turnaround; four years later that turnaround isn’t even remotely imminent. For the third year in a row, they are a basement dweller and yet still there is no sense that next season will look any different.

He’s blown all but one trade deadline, he’s had mixed results at the draft, his free agent signings have been mostly bad, he brought in a bad coach and then replaced him with a coach who is very similar.

He found a good Russian defensive prospect in Nikita Tryamkin, and then mishandled him so badly that he went back to Russia where he was a KHL All Star. He couldn’t get a return on Dan Hamhuis. He chose Luca Sbisa over Sami Vatanen. He’s responsible for the team’s worst contracts in Eriksson and Sutter.

Next: Canucks prospects of the week: Gaudette, Brassard, DiPietro

You go down the list of successes and failures and there are just way too many of the latter. It’s not about the team losing; we would all accept that, would have done so years ago. What fans wanted was a reason to believe that there was a masterplan here, a vision for the rebuild. Instead it’s felt like four years of spinning wheels, contradictory impulses, and mixed messages.

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