5 things: The Canucks’ summer isn’t going great

Many teams now do these kind of “State of the [Team Name Here]” meetings with season ticket holders and more often than not they tend to be informative, fun, and a nice night for all involved. The recent Canucks Summer Summit was, from what I understand, only the first two.

Vancouver fans have plenty of reason to be pissed off at Jim Benning and Trevor Linden, the former of whom is still apparently learning on the job after all these years in the second position with Boston, and the latter seems like he was mainly hired because, hey, Everyone Likes Trevor Linden. The amount of goodwill he’s gone through in these first several months on the job, though, seems to be testing fans’ patience.

There is, flatly, not much material with which to defend those guys for what they’ve done in the last 13 months or so, and that’s especially true this summer. The Canucks are a team badly in need of a full rebuild, but they’re seemingly buying into that whole “We can rebuild on the fly” some teams foolishly pursue (tear-downs are still the best way to pursue a return to true contendership, and don’t let anyone tell you different) while trading away solid contributors who are in their early- and mid-20s.

This Summer Summit was of course planned months in advance and obviously there was no ducking it, but it quickly — and predictably — turned into a summer nightmare.

First there was the revelation that the team could have traded old, expensive Ryan Miller and kept young-ish, not-expensive (and also beloved) Eddie Lack. The return they got for Lack wasn’t great, and it would have been worse in a Miller trade, no doubt about that. 

The key thing you get in return for trading Miller though is cap space and a comparable goaltender. The fact that Jim Benning’s defense of Miller amounted to, “He won a lot of games last year, though!!!” is not something that’s going to win the hearts and minds of a fanbase already inclined to dislike Miller’s presence.

Indeed, I think it sets up both the front office and Miller for some serious slings and arrows if Miller is bad next season; 35-year-old goalies who are sub-league average in terms of save percentage as 34-year-olds (.911 wasn’t way below that level but it’s not helpful and it also costs $6 million against the cap) tend to be not get better. 

Because now not only are they paying a ton for Miller, who might become a pricy backup to Jacob Markstrom — who by the way has never really impressed at the NHL level for any length of time, and is already 25 — they also traded a popular guy for a crap return to make that the case.

Let’s put it this way: The fact that guys from call-in shows and HFBoards are rightly hammering Benning on these moves tells you a lot about the level of mindfulness going into them. That is to say, there isn’t much of any.

So then someone brings up the fact that Derek Dorsett and Brandon Prust are pulling $5 million against the cap combined. Big concern, but there are teams who buy into that being valuable. Smart fans would hope Their Team isn’t one of ’em, but Canucks fans are in an unfortunate position with that.

Because the answer from Benning on this question was that the reason they lost to Calgary was “emotion.” And, specifically, “Micheal Ferland.” Which is the most insane thing anyone has ever said. They went out and got Prust, a redundancy at best and clearly a downgrade from what Zack Kassian now provides Montreal, to be Micheal Ferland. But the thing is that if Ferland even becomes Prust — who lots of people call a “fighter who can play a little bit,” is actually “a guy who’s just not that good” — the Flames are going to be quite lucky, and the idea that Vancouver is letting Ferland’s success in a six-game series dictate personnel transactions is bananas.

You have to think of people in terms of how much they cost as a percentage of the cap, not dollars. Prust and Dorsett take up 7 percent together for this upcoming season, which is a lot for two guys who are probably going to play like 10 minutes a night. It’s not currently clear who the team will use as their other fourth-line forward, but he probably won’t be that expensive. Let’s say it’s $6 million for the whole group. Might be more or maybe even a little less, but that’s roughly 8.4 percent.

Now think about how the contracts to Chris Kelly, Dan Paille, and Gregory Campbell, all of whom provide little utility, are still enough to get some Bruins fans steamed about the now-over Peter Chiarelli era all over again. Those three cost a total of $5.4 million against a cap that was slightly lower, meaning their share of the cap was about 7.8 percent.

Benning was with Boston for that run, and has clearly learned nothing. It’s a major cause for concern.

Then there’s the recent promotion of John Weisbrod, which Vancouver fans see as hilarious mismanagement because Weisbrod was with Calgary under Jay Feaster and Jay Feaster was quite bad at his job in a lot of ways.

Now, to some extent people will try to defend Weisbrod because when Feaster came in the Calgary cupboard was bare. I don’t remember who would have been their No. 1 prospect at the time, but it wasn’t anyone over whom Flames fans ought to have been excited. And while, yes, it’s easier to stock the cupboard when your team misses the playoffs a bunch of years in a row because you’re drafting high and selling off veterans for prospects and more picks, you still have to land a some good players with those picks and, for the most part, Calgary did that.

But Weisbrod was only around for one draft with the Flames, and that was in 2012. The Flames got high-quality goaltending prospect Jon Gillies in the third round, which looks like it should work out great (he was a top-five goalie in the NCAA in all three seasons he played before going pro). But the other picks: Mark Jankowski, Patrick Sieloff, Brett Kulak, Ryan Culkin, Coda Gordon, and Matthew DeBlouw. Not great. Especially Jankowski, who looks like a big-time bust at this point and who was drafted more or less because of Weisbrod seeing him one time and becoming convinced he’d be viewed as the best player in the draft by 2022 (the anecdotes in the linked story are incredible, and you should read it).

Before that, Weisbrod was with the Bruins as director of college scouting from 2008-11. The Bruins took only two draft picks out of college in that time, and those two have played a combined 33 NHL games to date. And I might be mistaken but I think the crown jewel of the free agent signings from that time was Matt Bartkowski (hey and now he’s a Canuck!). So, y’know, another point of concern.

The Canucks haven’t really done a lot to develop their youth that much over the last few years, which is worrisome because when the Sedins retire (within the next two or three years?) that’s basically all they’ll have left.

Finally, and I guess this kind of goes without saying, but the suggestion that the Canucks couldn’t find anyone to take Chris Higgins’ contract isn’t that surprising. He only costs $2.5 million but I wouldn’t be psyched to give up assets for him either. Frankly, though, I think it could be worse.

There are a number of contracts on the roster here that should be major worries, though, and some of them (rhymes with Pukas Pbisa) were advanced by this current administration. You can’t entirely blame the past for the current state of the roster. Especially not if the guy you brought in to fix those problems have only made it worse.

Chris Higgins is not the guy you should be trotting out there like, “Look this guy sucks and no one wants to take him off our hands.” There are at least three or four players on this roster who should have gotten that treatment first. Moreover — and this is really important — how do you look at Higgins and say, “He’s the guy we should shop around?”

Again, what this whole thing boils down to is that a bunch of yahoo fanboy season ticket holders went in and ripped Canucks brass top to bottom, and were effectively right on every count. Season ticket holders should, generally, not be the voice of reason for your hockey ops department.