Selling Nope: The Unfortunate Optics Of The Jim Benning Regime

It’s an oft-repeated adage in the NHL that to succeed from a business standpoint, you must either sell wins or hope. If that’s the case, then this was a tough season for Vancouver Canucks General Manager Jim Benning.

The embattled Canucks architect threw gasoline on his critics fire, doing little to shake the notion that he’s a scout in way over his head. A notion berthed last season as the Canucks defiantly made moves to continue business as usual, avoiding a long-term rebuild and the growing pains therein.

Then again, moments like Friday’s draft only drive home the extent to which luck has abandoned this franchise and only worsened matters. That they were selecting fifth overall, in spite of finishing third-worst in the entire league last season is a recent example. A matter exacerbated when the Columbus Blue Jackets shocked the scouting community and selected Pierre-Luc Dubois third overall. Dubois, of course, was the player that the Canucks coveted and expected available to them at fifth.

This says nothing of the pains they suffered this season. There was no accounting for Brandon Sutter, a traditionally durable forward, missing most of this season. Nick Bonino playing a starring role in Pittsburgh couldn’t have been accounted for, either.

It’s not like Benning isn’t culpable for this mess, though. There’s an awful lot he did have control over. He could have prepared for as buyer friendly a market as the trade deadline proved — most especially with the handling of Radim Vrbata and Dan Hamhuis. He could have papered a player to the Utica Comets and kept Frank Corrado in the process. He could have googled the CBA and figured out Nikita Tryamkin was ineligible for a three-year entry-level contract. A series of events that don’t exactly instill confidence, to be sure.

That’s what makes it so difficult to remain positive about the draft weekend this team had.  

Perhaps no player is a better poster boy for the Canucks’ excitement-gap than Olli Juolevi. In any other season, fans would be ecstatic over selecting a player like Juolevi. He’s the big, puck-moving, potential top-pairing defenceman that fans have been clamouring for the Canucks to draft for over a decade. At the end of the day, the scouting department likely decided drafting a high-end defenceman was better value than a high-end winger, and that’s entirely defensible. But, when you have the chance at drafting a franchise centreman taken away from you, first by the lottery balls, and then by the Blue Jackets, it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed.

And disappointment was a theme for this year’s draft. Realistically, they came away with two defencemen with varying degrees of top-four upside, and four possible future bottom-six forwards, and that’s being generous. Even if you’re optimistic about these players’ chances of success at the pro level, that’s not an inspiring haul. It would behoove a team with a prospect pool as thin on offence as the Canucks’ is to swing for the fences with some of their later picks. Will Lockwood and Brett McKenzie could turn into fine NHL’ers one day, but imagine how much more positive the mood around the draft would have been if they had elected to take fliers on players like Vitali Abramov or Ty Ronning in their stead.

It’s already disheartening enough that the Canucks couldn’t recoup any assets for Hamhuis — who’s almost certainly headed for the open market — and as a result only had six picks in a year that saw them finish with the league’s third-worst record. What’s most disappointing is that they came away from this draft without drafting a single forward with any real offensive upside. That’s not a good look for a team who’s offence was ranked 29th last season. 

Their trade record over the past year or so hasn’t done a lot to get the fans excited either.

I’m willing to entertain the notion that some of these trades could turn out to be wins for the Canucks in the long run. Eddie Lack has struggled in Carolina, and may never live up to the promise he showed in his last season with the Canucks. Zack Kassian was dealing with substance abuse issues, and may have never resolved them in Vancouver. Brandon Sutter could put up another 40-point season. The picks involved could all turn out to be busts. If Jared McCann and Hunter Shinkaruk can’t cut it at the NHL level, then having NHL players in Gudbranson and Granlund is a win, if only a modest one. 

Even so, at some point, this becomes an issue of public relations as much as it is one of asset management. Bonino was a playoff MVP candidate who became a folk hero in Pittsburgh thanks to a memorable call on HNIC Punjabi. Lack and Bieksa were fan favourites, and Kassian, McCann, and Shinkaruk were all young players who, to varying degrees, sold hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope that the team will still have some offensive stars to cheer for when the Sedins are ready to hang up their skates. On a more intangible level, these players were all entertaining, on some level, they were fun. “Fun” isn’t exactly the first word that comes to mind when one envisions the Canucks’ future.

Who, realistically is going to score the goals next year? Daniel Sedin had 29, and Jannik Hansen had 22. Expecting two players on the wrong side of 30 to repeat that type of performance is asking for trouble. Anton Rodin put up great numbers in the SHL, but he’s yet to play an NHL game. The team’s young players could improve, but development isn’t a steep incline, it’s a series of peaks and valleys.

This team desperately needs something they can sell. A free agent signing or two could go a long way in terms of renewing interest, but even the most casual fan will be able to see that a Milan Lucic or a Loui Eriksson isn’t enough to drag this team into cup contention. Perhaps more importantly, they’ll also realize that no free agent aside from Steven Stamkos is a long-term solution at offence for this franchise. Soon, this team needs to face the reality of a post-Sedin Vancouver Canucks, and as of yet, they’ve done astoundingly little to address the problem. 

This front office is a far cry from the one that was accused of drafting Jake Virtanen as a PR tactic just a short time ago. The way this team has so willingly flown in the face of conventional wisdom and the desires of fans has been admirable at times. The clock is ticking, though, and continuing to adhere to that strategy could have disastrous financial ramifications. If this club strikes out on the big fish in free agency, that could sound the death knell for it’s image in the eyes of the fans. It’s clear this team is intending on selling wins in the near future. They’d better hope they can do that because if this team can’t manufacture goals next season, there won’t be much coming down the pipeline to help them in the future — Brock Boeser notwithstanding. That’s the reality you have to face when you choose to acquire players with low ceilings over those with high offensive upside: you may be managing risk, but you’re also robbing your fans of a future they can believe in. 

The Canucks find themselves in a precarious situation. It’s often been insinuated that this market can’t stomach a tear-down rebuild, and maybe that’s true. But if this team can’t sell wins next season, the young foundation of players this team has built, as promising as it may be, is still lacking the offensive punch they need to feasibly sell hope for the future of this fanbase. 

Maybe they’ll surprise us. Maybe Benning’s building a winner. 

As of right now, it’s not looking good.