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Somewhat lost in all the hubbub surrounding Jim Benning’s contract extension last week was a letter sent to Canucks season ticket holders by Trevor Linden. In it, he hyped up the future of the franchise, praising young stars like Bo Horvat and Brock Boeser, and extolling young prospects like Elias Pettersson, Olli Juolevi, and Thatcher Demko.
After three seasons of missing the playoffs, it’s understandable that some season ticket holders might want to move on, so Linden sold hard on the future, encouraging everyone to renew their tickets.
Linden skirted the issue of missing the playoffs, dismissing the Canucks struggles with one line.
“In the shorter term, we have faced some challenges with injuries and inconsistency,” said Linden in the letter, and that was the lone nod to three of the worst seasons in franchise history.
Time and time again, Linden and Jim Benning have turned to injuries to explain away the team’s poor record. To be fair, the Canucks have had some significant injuries, particularly this season. Chris Tanev, Bo Horvat, Sven Baertschi, Brandon Sutter, and Erik Gudbranson have all missed significant time.
Injuries are a reality for every NHL team, however, and it’s up to the management to prepare for those issues. Every year, Linden and Benning assure the fanbase that this year will be different. This is the year that they are prepared and have enough depth.
At the start of this season, Jim Benning said, “I think this year, when we do have injuries, we’re going to be calling up real players that we want to develop into long-term players. We’re at that point now.”
It echoed exactly what he said heading into the 2016-17 season: “We'll send people down who are ready for the NHL. We'll run into injuries, but we'll call up players who can help us win.”
At the end of the 2016-17 season, Benning lamented that it was “tough because we had so many injuries and we didn't have a lot of depth.”
At other times, they pointed to their free agent signings, including Sam Gagner, Michael Del Zotto, and Thomas Vanek, as improving their depth enough to deal with injuries. And yet, when injuries hit, the team crashed and burned.
The Canucks are twice as far from the playoffs as they are from last place. That can’t be explained away by injuries, even significant ones. The team doesn’t have the depth to deal with injuries and that is a failure of management. Benning and Linden have admitted as much in the past, that building team depth is their job and they need to do better.
At the end of the 2015-16 season, Benning said on TSN 1040, “We didn’t have the depth...and that’s on me.”
At the end of the 2016-17 season, Benning said in The Province, “I know we didn’t have a lot of depth and when you have injuries to your best players, it’s tough. That’s another area we’re going to look at.”
What will he say at the end of this season?
Big Numbers
12 million - The Canucks re-signed Erik Gudbranson this week to a three-year, $12 million contract, taking him out of the running to be traded for future assets at the trade deadline on Monday.
43.2 - At the time of Gudbranson’s contract extension, his corsi percentage was 43.2%, worst among Canucks defencemen. With Gudbranson on the ice at 5-on-5 this season, shot attempts have been 640-to-487 for the opposition.
Stick-taps and Glove-drops
I’m dropping the gloves with Jim Benning on the Erik Gudbranson contract. It may have been tough for the team to move on from Gudbranson given the high price they paid to get him in the first place, but $4 million per year for a third-pairing defenceman will be tough to swallow for the next three years. They badly need him to suddenly develop into a top-four guy.
Stick-tap to Erik Gudbranson, who isn’t at all to blame for any of this and doesn’t deserve any vitriol aimed his way. Also, he just won the hardest shot competition at the Canucks Superskills event, hitting 103.4 miles per hour.
