Canucks: The 5 worst moves of the Jim Benning era

Trading Tim Schaller, Tyler Madden, and a 2020 2nd Round Pick for Tyler Toffoli

With the Canucks fighting for their playoff lives, and Benning in a similar situation with his job, the GM landed top trade deadline target Tyler Toffoli to shore up the top-six. The move paid immediate dividends as Toffoli slotted into the top line, playing excellent hockey before injuries and the pandemic derailed his season.

The trade itself isn’t the issue, but the lack of foresight to retain Toffoli (who was practically begging to stay) is an indictment on Benning. The sentiment at the time was that while resigning Toffoli would be a priority, it would take a backseat towards locking up Jacob Markstrom. None of those things eventually happened., and with 10% of the season played it’s obvious the holes have not been adequately filled.

Grading the transaction at the time was contingent on resigning Toffoli in the offseason, and letting him slip away to the Canadiens for less money than anticipated, is why the trade makes this list.

Signing Tyler Myers to a 5-year, $30M contract 

I’ll cop to the mildly clickbaity title, but the reality is that out of 32 NHL defenseman this season with an AAV of $6M or more, Tyler Myers is second last in average TOI just ahead of Keith Yandle (20:46 a game, taking into account injuries). This stat only gets more depressing considering the utter lack of healthy NHL-ready defenseman available to the Canucks currently. One reason holding Myers back from more ice-time is his NHL-leading 23 penalty minutes, a toxic combination considering our current 73.5 PK%.

Myers first season with the Canucks was a mild success, putting up solid underlying numbers when paired with Quinn Hughes and Alex Edler. Things fall off rather quickly when he’s not playing with two of our top defenseman, and Myers-Fantenberg or Myers-Benn were the two worst Canucks pairings from a xGoals % perspective last year.

Look no further than this past Saturday’s beatdown at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens for insight into the type of decision making that $6M a year apparently gets you:

With the game still much in the balance at 3-2, Myers forces an audacious gambit along the blue-line with J.T. Miller. With Miller hounded at the top of the o-zone by Jonathan Drouin, Myers flees his last man back position, signaling for a low percentage pass attempt you’re least likely to see again this year. The pass doesn’t even make it past Drouin, and by the time Myers can turn around, Drouin and Josh Anderson are on a partial 2 man breakaway. Drouin inevitably converts, and it’s game over.

As the game continues to trend towards speed and shiftiness, Myers will continue to struggle with the faster pace of new forwards entering the NHL. With his $6M AAV on the books for three more seasons, I expect we will be feeling similarly about this contract like our last entry…

Signing Loui Eriksson to a 6-year, $36M contract 

I guess now is a good time as any to state this qualifier: in no way shape or form is this the fault of any of the players on the list. Beyond winning cups, the job of the player and agent is to collect as much money as they can playing a dangerous sport that can take away your health and livelihood in an instant. The role of the GM is to evaluate the demands of agents and players relative to team roster needs, which made the Loui Eriksson signing in 2016 border line at best, and downright embarrassing in 2021.

Based on a 4 game sample size at the World Championships playing with the Sedin’s in 2013, Benning employed the rebuild ”on the fly” approach to take an expensive flyer on Eriksson in hopes the Swedish connection could ignite the Sedin twins in the twilight of their career. Needless to say, that did not happen. Two years after the signing the Sedin’s retired, and Eriksson has since alternated between Canuck Twitter punching bag and occasionally serviceable checking line winger to taxi squad fixture. Age, injuries and the changing game have passed Loui by, but it was Benning that put the paper and pen in his hand to ensure his career ended with the Canucks.

With a good amount of cap space coming off the books over the next couple of years (Sutter, Beagle, Roussel, Eriksson), Benning will soon have more flexibility to address some of the current roster needs. Whether Canucks ownership and fans give him that chance is looking dimmer by the day.