Trevor Linden defends Benning, praises Salo, and describes the club’s ‘delicate dance’

8 years ago

On Thursday afternoon Vancouver Canucks president Trevor Linden got into the hot seat for TSN 1040’s President’s Week.

Joining Matt Sekeres in studio for a two-hour segment on Vancouver sports talk radio, Linden was treated to several hours of questions – both from Sekeres and from ranting fans – about the club’s overall strategy. During Linden’s lengthy, exhausting appearance the Canucks president defended his general manager Jim Benning and his new assistant general manager John Weisbrod, articulated his belief in the NHL entry draft as crucial for the Canucks’ future, discussed what he’s learned in his first year on the job, said he missed cycling, and, of course, the Luca Sbisa extension was re-litigated for the billionth time this summer.

By the end of the conversation Linden seemed a bit testy, and fair enough. He mostly spent two hours dealing with the same furious questions and fan rants that have permeated around the Vancouver sports market all summer. Still, it was a revealing segment, and bears some unpacking.

Let’s start with Sami Salo, one of Linden’s former teammates and a beloved ex-Canucks skater who announced his retirement from professional hockey on Thursday. “Probably the most underrated player that the Vancouver Canucks have ever seen,” Linden said of Salo.
“He’s moving his family back to Vancouver, he’s going to make this his home, and he’s a great person,” Linden added, describing Salo’s plans for the short-term.
Linden suggested that he’d check in with Salo to see if there was any interesting in perhaps joining the organization in some capacity, and also hinted that there might be a Sami Salo ring of honour night at Rogers Arena as part of the 20th anniversary festivities.
Just because I can’t resist, Linden discussed how his life has changed in the 16 months or so since he took over the just as Vancouver’s president.
“I loved being in the fitness business,” Linden said of his former life. “I enjoyed the work with it and all my corporate relations and the public speaking and connecting with fans across B.C. It was fun, I enjoyed it, lots of time to ride my bike and ski all over the world. Obviously you take a position like this you lose that freedom, but it also makes the time off that much better.”
Classic.
Linden addressed the club’s decision to fire assistant general manager Laurence Gilman, and suggested that the Canucks’ front office would replace him – and particularly his mastery at the negotiating table – by committee. He suggested that John Weisbrod, Jim Benning and himself would all be part of the negotiating team going forward, while the club would lean on in-house counsel for legal advice and on Jonathan Wall for help navigating the collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
Even though Gilman’s contract work became a thornier issue in the later years of the Mike Gillis era, the fact is that Vancouver’s management team was dynamite at navigating the CBA and signing players to deals with team-friendly annual average values during Gilman’s Canucks tenure. I think it’s fair to say that with the recent deals for Luca Sbisa, Derek Dorsett and Brandon Sutter, that hasn’t necessarily been a strength of the new Canucks administration.
Linen also addressed the club’s decision to fire Mike Burnstein, describing that as a particularly tough conversation. He went on to sing new ~~trainer~~ human performance consultant Dr. Rick Celebrini’s praises at length, calling his hire a ‘major coup’ for the organization and discussing the importance of having his medical team, his human performance team and his sports science team functioning in concert. I’ve been critically listening to executives speaks for years and it’s my opinion that on the subject of human performance, Linden sounded particularly passionate and knowledgable.
I thought Linden had a few interesting comments in defending Benning, whose q-rating has obviously taken a bit of a hit in the Vancouver market since roughly mid-April.
“When I came in last year, obviously hiring Jim was a focus,” Linden said of Benning. “I wanted to hire a builder, someone who was a talent evaluator, someone who could take this group and restructure this team.”
The most popular player in franchise history was also asked if the firings of Gilman and Lorne Henning reflected Benning’s preference for making decisions in a more unilateral fashion, and whether or not there’s some risks associated with that approach. I thought Linden’s answer was fascinating, frankly.
“I think you hire good people that you trust and that you recognize have a skill set for team building and understanding what it takes to be a championship team,” Linden said. “I think you allow them the autonomy and set them up to make decisions. These aren’t all made in a vacuum. (Benning) likes input. I think we’ve got a good group when you think of John (Weisbrod), myself, Stan Smyl, Ryan Jphnson is going to become part of that group and play a bigger role in Utica.
“One thing I like about Jim is he’s very decisive. He’s able to make a decision. The situation we came into last year and the challenges we face. Jim’s able to make a decision and I think that’s a strength. We’re not in a situation where we can afford to just re-sign veteran core players. We may, but at the end of the day we’re a team in transition….
“The number one most important part of our business right now is amateur scouting…” Linden continued after reeling off a list of young players that should compete for roster spots next season. “That’s our lifeblood. There’s no other way we’re going to get better than through the amateur draft.”
Later in the interview Linden praised Benning’s decisiveness as an executive, which frankly – and perhaps I’m reading a bit too much into this – I still hear as a repudiation of the Gillis regime.
“I will say this about Jim,” Linden said. “As displayed the last couple of years he has the ability to make critical decisions and difficult decisions and do what’s right. When he came in here 16 months ago he was faced with no-trade contracts and how are you going to deal with that and he’s been able to make decisions and do what’s right for our fans and our team.”
I certainly disagree with some of Benning’s decisions and priorities, but there’s no denying his effectiveness as an executive when it comes to shedding salary, making trades, and being willing to pay in order to land pieces he covets. Decisiveness isn’t as important a trait for an executive as, say, prudence, but it’s not nothing.
Overall Linden’s portrayal of Benning – as a decisive, team builder – is compelling, in my opinion. At the very least it highlights a couple of areas that I think are bona fide strengths of Benning’s first 16 months as Canucks general manager. And, in attempting to cast his Canucks regime as the decisive regime that drafts well, I think Linden is drawing a smart line in the sand that delineates his management team from Gillis’.
I thought Linden’s defense of Weisbrod and his potential involvement in the Ryan O’Reilly offer sheet snafu – where the Calgary Flames overlooked that CBA rule 13.23 would apply to O’Reilly and he’d have to pass through waivers were the Colorado Avalanche to decide against matching the Flames’ offer – was significantly less effective.
“I don’t know if it was John or Jay Feaster, but I know John to be an outstanding person,” Linden said of the episode. “I think there’s a great deal of trust (between Weisbrod and Jim Benning). I think he’s a good talent evaluator and a very smart guy.”
Linden then went on to say that the loophole that the Flames management team missed – which, at the time then Canucks GM Gillis hilariously claimed to be wise to on national television – was ‘obscure’ and suggested that it wasn’t fair to judge a guy over missing one obscure loophole that the NHL itself wasn’t even hip to at the time.
I personally don’t care which executive was primarily responsible for the oversight, this was a $10 million offer sheet that, had it been successful, would’ve cost your club a first- and a third-round draft pick. When a management team is doing a deal of that size and import, there’s no excuse for their failure to do the due diligence. Period.
Linden’s view that Weisbrod shouldn’t be viewed exclusively through the lens of one bad moment is fair enough, but there’s just no getting around that the O’Reilly incident reflects poorly on everyone associated with that management team. Probably best to own it when this question comes up in the future (and I’d add that I’m hopeful that we won’t have to hear about it every time Linden faces questions from the public).
” Obviously the Luca Sbisa contract came up, and Linden admitted that the high value of Sbisa’s qualifying offer played a role in the price of that extension. He also admitted that Sbisa and his partner (Kevin Bieksa) struggled mightily in the postseason series against the Calgary Flames, but that he still thinks Sbisa has some untapped upside (which, maybe? Probably not though).
Linden also intimated that he didn’t regret doing the deal:
With westward AHL expansion coming this fall, one would’ve reasonably expected the possibility of a Canucks AHL affiliate coming to the lower mainland to be a hot topic – particularly considering the climate in Abbotsford, B.C. a few years ago. That hasn’t come to pass though. The question of the Utica Comets moving to British Columbia was broached briefly by a fan, and Linden shut it down unequivocally.
“Our situation in Utica is special. It’s a great spot,” Linden said. “The one thing that we love is that we have six, seven teams within a two hour drive. The practice time and ability to rest between games is significant. The support they get in Utica, the guys love playing there. The dressing room the weight facility is NHL caliber. At this point we’re really happy there.”

“It’s unrealistic to just flush everyone out,” LInden said. “I don’t understand that. I have trouble with the realism of that question. It’s not possible. You have to look at where we are and what we have…

“I don’t know where things go in the future, but right now, it’s not possible and furthermore I believe strongly that we have to integrate young players with some sort of foundation for them to be successful.

“Let’s be bad for seven, eight years whatever that looks like. I don’t know what that looks like. People say they want that… *exasperated sigh*

Where we are with the group we have, we’re going to be the best team that we can be. I’m not going into the season to try and lose. We have our eyes on today we have our eyes on the future, we’re doing a delicate dance and we’re going to do the best we can… We love the fact that we have some young players and can integrate them with the quality veterans that we have.”

Earlier in the interview, when the same subject was broached Linden referred to his preference for developing young players in a more veteran environment. He also added this telling nugget:

“I don’t think it’s completely realistic when you look at the players we have viz their contract status and their importance to this organization.”

That can only be referring to the Sedin twins. Too often in analyzing professional sports teams we judge them through the lens of an overly simplistic binary – that a team must always either be going all in for a championship, or tearing it all down to rebuild. If you’re an executive running a team that doesn’t fit neatly into one of those boxes – and that’s probably the majority of professional sports teams, by the way, though you wouldn’t know it from reading sports blogs – then you’re an idiot.

Too little attention is paid to the fact that professional sports properties are just that: sports entertainment properties. They’re in the entertainment business. We can quibble with some of Linden and Benning’s moves – and trust me, we have at length in this space – but the notion that their approach to team building is indefensible strikes me as wrong headed.

Vancouver isn’t the firmest hockey market. And the Canucks are a franchise largely without history. Having the Sedin twins retire as Canucks can provide real value to the club. There’s also real value to having them hit 1000 career points and tie a bow on their Hall of Fame caliber careers in Vancouver.

Too often we (the royal we, I mean) underestimate the costs and the risks associated with ‘tanking’ and in my view that harms our team building analysis.

Benning’s and Linden’s is a nuanced approach, but from moving out veterans on expensive no-trade contracts, to loading up on successful AHL players in their early 20s to help bridge the chasm between the Sedins and the Horvats of the world, there’s definitely method underlying the club’s moves. What the Canucks are doing this summer has seemingly confused the hockey world, but it has long looked to me like a gradualist rebuild. Considering the particulars of the franchise’s marketplace and history, I think that’s a defensible approach.

You can listen to the full interview here.

Correction: This article originally and incorrectly identified Dr. Rick Celebrini as the club’s trainer.

Trevor Linden defends Benning, praises Salo, and describes the club’s ‘delicate dance’

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