The Great Vancouver Sports Talk Radio Wars of 2017 began in earnest on Monday, as Sportsnet 650 launched their new station with a host of big-name guests befitting the new home of the Vancouver Canucks.
Daniel Sedin, Sam Gagner, Michael Del Zotto, Kirk McLean, and more braved the heat at the PNE as Sportsnet 650 broadcast live on location, while others, like Travis Green, smartly stayed indoors where there’s air conditioning and phoned in their appearance.
One of the first guests was Canucks General Manager Jim Benning, who spoke about contract negotiations with Bo Horvat, how he has no intention of trading the Sedins, and the Canucks’ goaltending situation going into the season. But when he spoke about the opportunities available to young players, he invoked the name of Troy Stecher in a way that just didn’t add up.
James Cybulski challenged Benning particularly on the Thomas Vanek signing, questioning whether adding another veteran would prevent a young player from earning a spot on the roster. Benning was quick to say that the team’s youth would have a chance to earn their way onto the team.
“Like with Troy Stecher last year,” he said, “if they come into camp and they deserve to be on the team, I’ll find a spot for them.”
That sounds great, but there’s just one problem: Benning and the Canucks didn’t find a spot for Stecher last year. Despite a stellar training camp and pre-season that showed he was better than, at the very least, Philip Larsen and Alex Biega, Stecher was still among the final cuts heading into the regular season last year. He started the season with the Utica Comets.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad decision: from a development perspective, playing on the top pairing in Utica was a better option than bouncing in and out of the lineup with the Canucks. The top-four was set with Alex Edler, Chris Tanev, Ben Hutton, and Erik Gudbranson, so Stecher would have likely rotated in on the third pairing if he started the season in Vancouver.
What is absolutely false, however, is that Benning found a spot for Stecher on the Canucks. Instead, it took an injury to Chris Tanev in late October for Stecher to get called up. The only way that Benning is responsible for finding a spot for Stecher is if he intentionally injured Tanev. I’m not saying he did that, but it certainly gives “I’ll find a spot for them” a sinister edge.
In fact, Stecher was sent back down to Utica on November 2nd once Tanev was healthy enough to play again. Certainly, that didn’t last long, as Tanev played just the one game, then was out again until mid-December, but it was clear that Stecher’s spot on the Canucks only came by dint of Tanev’s injury.
Stecher might have once again been sent to Utica after Tanev returned to the lineup, but Gudbranson elected to undergo season-ending wrist surgery. Gudbranson’s final game was December 13th, the game before Tanev returned.
Those two injuries to fellow right-side defencemen are what opened up a spot for Stecher, who, to his credit, grabbed hold of that spot and wouldn’t let go.
What’s baffling is that it was completely unnecessary for Benning to mention Stecher. Benning has several other names he could drop to prove that he and his management team are willing to find a spot for good young players. He would just have to go back one more season, to when Jake Virtanen, Jared McCann, and Ben Hutton all made the Canucks out of camp.
Perhaps Benning would want to skip past Virtanen and McCann, who aren’t exactly success stories when it comes to young players making the Canucks’ lineup. Hutton, however, demonstrates exactly what Stecher supposedly did: the Canucks will find a spot for a young player who earns it.
Hutton had an excellent pre-season, proving he was NHL ready, and the Canucks found a spot for him, to the point that they unnecessarily exposed Frank Corrado on waivers and he was claimed by the Toronto Maple Leafs. Not to re-open up the Corrado-brand can of worms, but it demonstrates that the Canucks were willing to lose assets (however needlessly) to open up a spot for a young player who earned it.
Hutton’s story should encourage the Canucks’ young prospects aiming to make the opening night roster; Stecher’s story would instead leave them hoping for an injury to a veteran ahead of them on the depth chart.
Citing Stecher in this way isn’t that big a deal — it’s not even the first time Benning has made this exact claim — but it is odd how this management team continually tries to revise its own history.
