Jim Benning's golden touch hits refresh on Canucks
So here is an easy way to be a good lock for General Manager of the Year – an award that doesn’t include the playoffs, but that’s another story altogether.
Hire the right coach, make all the right moves – and presto! A team that was supposed to be ‘meh’ ends up being good. We’re talking about Jim Benning in Vancouver, the man with the golden touch, the guy who has done everything right so far in his first year with the Vancouver Canucks -- the team with the unexpectedly second-best point total in the Pacific Division.
From Canucks Hockey Blog – albeit a couple of weeks ago, but it still holds true:
Personally speaking, as a full-fledged Canucks fan since the West Coast Express era, it’s the first time I can recall there ever being so many new additions to the team being such vital parts to the team so early on in the season. It’s a strange and wondrous feeling, and I feel like this week I should be talking about another new addition to team, albeit in a different fashion — Mr. Jim Benning, ladies and gentlemen.
The Canucks management and coaching staff – and ownership group for that matter – never seemed on the same page with Mike Gillis as general manager and Alain Vigneault as coach during their tenure together, and certainly not with John Tortorella as coach as Vancouver missed the postseason a year ago.
In fact, by the end, Gillis seemed like a guy who was flailing to try to find the right moves – especially with his goaltender conundrum involving Roberto Luongo’s contract.
Benning’s hiring of Willie Desjardins was a master stroke. Desjardins has simply won everywhere he has gone as a head coach. He’s only had one losing season between major junior and the AHL with the 2002-03 Medicine Hat Tigers.
Forget his Calder Cup with the Texas Stars last season, one losing season at any level is just insane. The fact that this is the 57-year-old Desjardins’ first head coaching gig in the NHL is mindblowing – but props to Benning for getting Desjardins to come to the Lower Mainland.
Some other Benning moves include:
Signing Radim Vrbata to a two-year $10 million contract. Seemed like a lot at the time, but he has looked dynamite on the Sedins’ wing with 10 goals and seven assists in 20 games played.
In trading Ryan Kesler, Benning got two solid pieces in Nick Bonino and Luca Sbisa. Bonino has matched Kesler’s point production at forward – though you can’t teach snarl and surliness like Kesler had.
Sbisa has been good enough as a depth defenseman and he’s still young enough to develop into a decent player – though we’ve indeed been saying that for a while with him.
When Benning signed Vrbata, some analysts suggested that Vrbata would not perform as well when he left his comfort zone in Arizona.
Also, Benning received good value in trading Ryan Kesler to Anaheim.
Considering Nick Bonino’s strong play, both teams ended up being helped by that trade. Luca Sbisa, also acquired in the deal, has played regularly on defense.
In essence, Benning has treated the Canucks like a fixer-upper instead of a rebuilding project. He has done a superb job with his renovation project.
The "fixer-upper" line was total a golden opportunity to make a song reference from “Frozen” but anyway …
Ryan Miller – his other big addition – has ordinary numbers at a 2.47 goals against average and .907 save percentage, but hey, he’s Ryan Miller. Plus some of these numbers stem from five starts where he allowed four-or-more goals.
From The Hockey Writers:
This is okay though because we a can be reasonable confident that Miller will regress to the mean and see his performance move to a much more normal level. Over a whole season he is not likely to be the problem with the Canucks.
Also, he seems to be the type of guy who can tune out the voracious Vancouver media/fan machine and just play goal. Which is sort of what you need from a goaltender in that market. It took Roberto Luongo making a joke Twitter account for fans to finally warm up to him. The uber-thick skinned Miller doesn't have that problem
So is this sustainable? Who knows? Every team is one or two injuries away from dropping at. But by this point in the season, most pretenders start falling off.
Don’t expect a party in the Lower Mainland this year – or even the other possibility. But the Canucks are competitive, and the vibe – for once – is generally not 'the sky is falling in spite of our insane regular season success' thanks to the manager and his moves.
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