It’s Benning’s show, like it or not
CANUCKS: Fans will know soon enough if general manager deserved new contract he signed Wednesday
As with most things in today’s world, your assessment of Jim Benning’s contract extension will be determined by what side of Vancouver’s great hockey divide you occupy.
If you’re a Benning man, you’re secure in the knowledge the Canucks have fully embraced the vision of a sound hockey man, an elite evaluator of talent and a master drafter. Over the five decades of this franchise’s existence, the most prevalent storyline has been an infuriating inability to draft and develop young players.
If you believe in Benning, then you believe he gives the Canucks the best chance at finally succeeding in this area.
If, however, you take a contrary view of the Canucks’ GM, you have ample reason to believe the team just signed up for an extended period of futility.
The stated premise of the Benning-Trevor Linden era — stay competitive while integrating new players into the NHL team — has failed in spectacular fashion. Invaluable assets were squandered in pursuit of this pipe dream. Absurd contracts were issued. There’s also the matter of 28th- and 29th-place finishes to discuss.
If Benning couldn’t get that part right, what makes you think he’ll get the next part right? The plain fact is, given where they were drafting, the Canucks should have assembled a sexy prospects pool. But occupying the big office is a little more complicated than drafting in the top-five every year.
So who has the more accurate view of Benning? Is he the man to oversee the next phase of the operation, or did the Canucks make a huge mistake in extending him?
Hate to waffle on this, but we’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, both sides can take comfort in this: Unlike his much-celebrated draft picks, it won’t take four more years to assess Benning’s stated goal to rebuild the organization.
We’ve always maintained the clock doesn’t start running on the newly imagined Canucks until 2019-20, which is a realistic time frame for the young players to gain some traction.
But there have to be signs beginning next year that the rebuild has started, that this organization can build a winning team around their young players.
Northeastern star Adam Gaudette will almost certainly be in the lineup, and if Benning turned a fifthround draft pick into an impact player, it changes a lot of things for this organization.
Goalie Thatcher Demko, who is having a monster year in Utica, turns 23 next season and his time has come.
Next season will mark the third season since Olli Juolevi was drafted, which is enough time for a fifth-overall selection.
Elias Pettersson is tearing up the Swedish elite league and might be ready for the NHL in 2018-19.
Add those players to the Brock Boeser-Bo Horvat core and the
Canucks and Benning can boast about their new look and their new direction.
Other organizations — Colorado, New Jersey — have taken significant strides this season by committing to young players. The NHL is a young man’s league. The game is now built around speed, more speed and, if that fails, more speed after that. The Canucks have the look of a team that can play that game. If they get the next part right.
Right now, that registers as a big if. At Wednesday’s presser, neither Benning nor Linden backed off the team’s stated purpose of providing a “stable” environment for their younger players.
To the faithful, that’s code for a blueprint that has led to three straight disastrous regular seasons, which is why Benning’s extension wasn’t accepted with open arms in
a lot of quarters.
“We want to make sure we support the young players so they have some stability around them,” Linden said.
“We have to continue to add players to help support our younger players,” Benning said.
Sorry, we’ve seen where that approach has led. Maybe a little instability is what this organization needs.
Again, there are about 342 variables in the development equation — everything from Pettersson’s physiology to Juolevi’s readiness to Jake Virtanen’s maturity — but it has to start with a commitment to the young players.
The next question is, can Benning and Linden pull all this together with the pieces they’ve assembled? Can they build an NHL defence — a chronic Canucks weakness and a trouble area this season — out of
what they’ve assembled?
Benning’s signing is a leading indicator the Canucks will re-up Erik Gudbranson.
Sorry, we don’t have the time or space to get into that one here.
There are other concerns. Are the 20-somethings on the Canucks — and there are a pile of them — ready to take the next step?
While we’re asking questions, what of the Sedins?
Our phone lines are open.
But this is now Benning’s show — or Benning’s and Linden’s.
As mentioned, you can look at their first four years together any number of ways, but one thing is now abundantly clear.
They can’t complain they haven’t been given enough time to turn around the Canucks.