In case you somehow missed it, the Canucks have come to terms on a contract extension with general manager Jim Benning for three seasons, ending speculation about where his future lies.

To say that was a divisive decision on the Canucks’ part would be an understatement. To judge by Canucks Twitter, it was about a 50/50 split between sheer adulation and utter despair. There was very little happening in between. Such is a hockey-crazed Canadian market like Vancouver.

There’s been no shortage of digital ink spent on this topic to date, and I don’t expect that to change for the next week or so, too. With that, I’ve asked all the CanucksArmy contributors to offer up their opinions on the matter.

I don’t mind it, mostly because it would be pretty hectic if another GM were to come in and essentially go through another “rebuild” according to his own plan. I’m not ecstatic by his extension, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I’d give Benning/Linden another two years because then we’d get a better sense of what the team looks like when the prospects have gone further in their development.

That said, there was a part of me that really hoped the organization would look hard at Julien BriseBois from Tampa.

I’m not exactly excited about it, but it’s not like it’s the end of the world either. Benning had a lot of excuses coming in, with a lot of existing no-trade clauses and perhaps having to do what ownership wanted every once in a while. From this point on, there will be no excuses. Everything that’s coming will be on him, and I’m almost looking forward to seeing what he can do with that.

I am fine with the Benning extension. Any new GM would want to put their stamp on the team and likely tell the owners what they wanted to hear and chase the playoffs. Moves would be made and people would disagree with them and we would have to go through another round of why the new guy sucks at his job.

I know that this management group has its share of warts, but they have also done some good work. Clearly, there is plenty of work still to do, but I do see something to be excited about coming soon. Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, Adam Gaudette, Thatcher Demko, Jonathan Dahlen, Jake Virtanen, and Olli Juolevi are all players that I can get behind. Sure, they may not all pan out, but they are leaps and bounds above what has been in this pipeline in the past. I feel like this management team did good work at the last deadline and in the draft. If Benning did indeed get three years, I can live with it. It will give his picks some time to develop as well as give him time to add a few more prospects to the cupboard.

The extension itself is not great. Maybe a bridge deal would have been nice? But that being said, I heard a bit of bandying around about Ken Holland, and I think that, between him and Benning, Benning is the better man for this current job. I don’t necessarily think that Benning has done the best job – in the Pacific, he’s one of the lower GMs out of those with more than a year of experience – but we can’t deny that he has a mixed bag as a drafting record at the very least, whereas Ken Holland has bungled the last few drafts for Detroit while simultaneously sinking them into even deeper holes financially. The Danny Dekeyser extension was atrocious, his drafting over the last two years was worth writing off completely, and he’s managed to somehow end up with both his best young goaltender and one of his key forwards hanging in RFA limbo heading into the offseason. I’d rather see Benning for another few years while the team evaluates who else may be out there – but given that they’re nearing the end of the season and that was the name bandied about, they made the right choice.

The extension itself is not great. Maybe a bridge deal would have been nice? But that being said, I heard a bit of bandying around about Ken Holland, and I think that, between him and Benning, Benning is the better man for this current job. I don’t necessarily think that Benning has done the best job – in the Pacific, he’s one of the lower GMs out of those with more than a year of experience – but we can’t deny that he has a mixed bag as a drafting record at the very least, whereas Ken Holland has bungled the last few drafts for Detroit while simultaneously sinking them into even deeper holes financially. The Danny Dekeyser extension was atrocious, his drafting over the last two years was worth writing off completely, and he’s managed to somehow end up with both his best young goaltender and one of his key forwards hanging in RFA limbo heading into the offseason. I’d rather see Benning for another few years while the team evaluates who else may be out there – but given that they’re nearing the end of the season and that was the name bandied about, they made the right choice.