It’s been a while since we have had a good dump of Canucks news and on Thursday we got it.

Jim Benning joined Sportsnet 650’s Starting Lineup morning show on Thursday morning and answered a few questions about his hockey team.

He began by talking about the leaders that the Canucks lost when Chris Tanev and Jacob Markstrom left in free agency and joined the Calgary Flames. The two big contracts that were signed by the Flames will take up $10.5 million in cap space over the next four seasons. He mentioned that it will give an opportunity for some new leaders to step up.

“JT Miller came in and gave us real good leadership last year,” said the Canucks GM. “Bo Horvat is growing as a captain and in the playoffs took his game to another level, another step and has shown that he is ready to take more on. We got Pearson and this is a chance for Nate Schmidt and everything I hear about him, he was a big leader in the Las Vegas dressing room. Braden Holtby is a leader, he won a Stanley Cup, he will have to take on some of that for us. There’s going to be an opportunity for more of a leadership role for Petey and for Quinn Hughes too. They both had real good seasons last year, they’re gonna continue to get stronger and get better as players and they’re going to have to take on a bigger leadership role.”

He went on to say that players like Brandon Sutter, Jay Beagle and Tyler Motte are also leaders and that Motte leads in a different way. There was no update on Travis Green but Benning said he was a good fit for their team and organization and will continue to talk with Green to work things out. Benning and his staff are in constant contact to figure out how to get their season set up under the new COVID-19 protocols.

Benning said he wasn’t really sure about what the NHL is going to do with regards to a taxi squad. This would really benefit the Canucks because it would give them options with their extra forwards and could quickly give some young players ice time.

There’s a way where the Canucks can travel with some extra players like Kole Lind, Jack Rathbone and Nils Höglander, all of which are young and talented players who all have something to prove at the NHL level. All three players have had success in some of the most competitive hockey situations outside of the NHL. All three have high-end potential and keeping them around to practice with the main roster during a weird pandemic season could be a huge step in their development.

They won’t be playing as many games, but look at how the NFL has had to cycle through players. I think the NHL could do a better job with three team bubbles or three location bubbles. We will likely see a lot of young Canucks make their NHL debuts this season and that will be a nice sight to see for a team that has already built a pretty strong core.

Benning talked about Loui Eriksson’s contract situation and said that Eriksson’s agent J.P. Barry worked with him to try and make a deal happen for a fresh start. He then went on to say that Eriksson is a good defensive player who can kill penalties for the Canucks.

Benning also talked about some of the young players who could challenge for a spot this season and said that Nils Höglander has had a good start to his season over in Sweden and said that Höglander will come in and challenge for a spot. He said that training camp would be short and his team needs to make some big decisions in that short time period.

He also talked about the positives of Jake Virtanen and said he gave him some “tough love” as well.

It was good to hear Benning answer some of the questions that some of us have been wondering about since the last media availability. One of the final major question marks that he addressed was the Micheal Ferland situation.

“He’s dealing with our doctors, I don’t think (that) if the season were to start right now, he would be starting but he is continuing to work through the issues he has. For right now, we are just hoping he feels better so he can continue on with his life and then we will see where it gets to if he is able to play again or not.”

He closed out with some Podkolzin talk, saying that the team will do whatever they can to get him to Vancouver as soon as possible. He finished by saying that Podkolzin could potentially play with Pearson and Horvat on the right side this season.

It was good to get some answers from Benning and though he didn’t say a lot, he said enough for Canucks fans to wait for the next news to break from the team. World Juniors are just around the corner but the NHL initially planned start date of January 1st is out the window at this point.

For now, we will just have to wait for the next news to drop, it could be a quiet few weeks ahead.