The Official 2013/2014 Canucks & NHL Thread

[DanHibiki]

My eyes are up here, pig

[Gumby]

Originally Posted by darthchilli

I'd be down for this...

Rogers Arena staff recently sampled carved roast beef sliders and bacon poutine! Looks like Linden is delivering on some of his promises!

[jeedee]

Originally Posted by Gumby

Rogers Arena staff recently sampled carved roast beef sliders and bacon poutine!

inb4 price is $10 for a small ass portion

rather just hit up Costco for Poutine pre-game

inb4 annoying vegetarians saying Costco Poutine is groce

[cliffhanger33]

Phone hearing for Prust this afternoon

[fsy82]

just a reminder the conference with Jim Benning is at 11:15am today and you can watch it live on the canucks website

[Tim Budong]

Stepan has a broken jaw

[subordinate]

Originally Posted by darthchilli

Stepan has a broken jaw

It's only fair...

[Mike Oxbig]

Originally Posted by jeedee

rather just hit up Costco for Poutine pre-game

shawn79 is that you?

[pastarocket]

Originally Posted by fsy82

just a reminder the conference with Jim Benning is at 11:15am today and you can watch it live on the canucks website

-definitely gonna watch the press conference this morning. -Hope Benning is ready for those questions from the Vancouver sports reporters.

-old bags Ed Willes and Skeletor Gallagher are probably gonna come up with some leading questions again.

[AzNightmare]

Originally Posted by jeedee

yeah and lets get raymond and ballard back too

move on, annoying feminists

Whoa Whoa!



Hodgson has a role now, Schneider's good, and AV's a potential championship coach after all.

We didn't suggest scrubs.

[murd0c]

Live: Q&A with Trevor Linden & Jim Benning (May 23, 2014) - YouTube

[punkwax]

Must be hot in there.. Benning sweating pretty good.

[murd0c]

with those questions and being the first day on the job I would sweat as well

[highfive]

The kesler question was a big one...hahaha

back of his mind is like shit...these canucks fans are psycho...what the hell did i get myself into?

Holy shit...Carcillo suspended 10 games. Automatic 10 game apparently?

[cliffhanger33]

10 for carcillo

[fliptuner]

Originally Posted by highfive

Holy shit...Carcillo suspended 10 games. Automatic 10 game apparently?

3, 10 or 30, depending on severity/intent to injure (going by what the announcers said, during the game). From what I saw, he was arguing with the ref, try to get free and subsequently hit him. Going by the guidelines, 10 seems about right.

[Not really racist!]

^

Category I (20 games) – “Any player who deliberately strikes an official and causes injury or who deliberately applies physical force in any manner against an official with an intent to injure.”

Category II (10 games) – ” Any player who deliberately applies physical force to an official in any manner (excluding actions as set out in Category I), which physical force is applied without intent to injure, or who spits on an official.”

Category III (3 games) – “Any player who, by his actions, physically demeans an official or physically threatens an official by (but not limited to) throwing a stick or any other piece of equipment or object at or in the general direction of an official, shooting the puck at or in the general direction of an official, spitting at or in the general direction of an official, or who deliberately applies physical force to an official solely for the purpose of getting free of such an official during or immediately following an altercation.”

Read more at: Report: Dan Carcillo Could Face Big Suspension For Shoving Linesman | New York Rangers | NESN.com

Benning looks so awkward in front of the camera, thank god Linden is good at PR so he can deal with all that while Benning can do his job

cliffs of Q&A:
Benning/Linden are on the same page

Benning hasn't talked to Kesler about his future, but wants him to stay as he is a player you need to win

Benning is willing to ask players to waive their NTC if it makes the team better going forward

Benning likes our prospects, especially ones taken last year, mentioned Hunter, Bo, and Cole

He wants us to play a four line game, with six capable defenseman, alludes to the final 4 in the playoffs right now

He will work directly with scouting staff to help them, give them advice, and mentor them (lol prolly means nobody getting fired)

Coach interviews start the week after the draft combine (next week)

Wants a fast tempo, transition game

Emphasized structure time and time again throughout session, 5-up offense, and 5-deep defense "positionally sound" and "defensively responsible" without the puck

and here's a good article on Benning

New Canucks GM Jim Benning's talent whisperer's work speaks volumes

VANCOUVER - We’ll see on Friday, but Jim Benning has never been big on words. He hasn’t much needed them.

In Benning’s final season as the Buffalo Sabres’ director of amateur scouting, the club’s lineup included 15 players drafted on his watch. When he became the Boston Bruins’ director of player personnel in 2006, the team was 26th in the National Hockey League. Five years later, with Benning elevated to assistant general manager, the Bruins won the Stanley Cup.

The 51-year-old’s work pretty much speaks for itself, although Benning will have to say something when he is introduced Friday as the Vancouver Canucks’ new general manager.

“I would say he was careful with his words,” Benning’s younger brother, Brian, said Wednesday from home in Edmonton. “I was a little more talkative. But it’s time to step out and lead, right? He’ll have no problems doing that.

“Go back the last three years and he has had numerous interviews (to be a general manager). He was going to wait until the time was right. I played in the U.S. and live in Edmonton now, and I recognize the significance of hockey in Canada. I’m glad he’s going to a great hockey town. I think it’s a great opportunity. The thing we’re most proud of is he has put the time in. He knows the draft, knows the importance of it. He knows everybody.”

Canuck president of hockey operations Trevor Linden said when he started six weeks ago that a paramount trait of his general manager would be a proven ability to evaluate players and identify talent. No wonder Benning’s name was mentioned from the beginning as the top candidate in Vancouver.

He is a scouting rink rat, a guy so addicted to assessing and projecting players that even in management Benning continued to attend many junior and college games.

He inherited the scouting chromosome from his father, Elmer, who at 73 has spent nearly four decades tracking amateur players in Alberta for the Montreal Canadiens.

One of the players the elder Benning would have scouted extensively was Linden, the former Medicine Hat Tiger who was drafted second by the Canucks in 1988. Jim Benning, a sixth-overall pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1981, finished his nine-year NHL career with two seasons as Linden’s teammate in Vancouver.

Elmer Benning said the relationship between Linden and Benning was a “huge” factor for his son.

Elmer’s Canadiens eliminated Jim’s Bruins from the Stanley Cup playoffs last week, clearing the way for Linden to hire Benning.

“We never talked from the time the series started until it was over,” Elmer Benning, a retired fireman, said from Edmonton. “I respected that he’s Boston and he respected than I’m Montreal. It wouldn’t be good for either of us if we weren’t competitive. Inside, truth be known, he burns when he loses. But if you don’t care, you’re not going to be good — in anything in life.”

Jim often stayed at his parents’ house when the Bruins visited Edmonton. His mom, Liz, is a retired nurse. Occasionally, Jim and Elmer scout the same junior game, but they don’t sit together or compare notes.

“I’ve always said to be your own person when you scout,” Elmer said. “I’ve always said: ‘If you’re going to make a mistake, let it be your mistake. Don’t listen to someone else.’ We all make them; it don’t matter what team. I never tried to tell him how to scout but I said: ‘Don’t be afraid to make your own decisions and stand by them.’ If I’ve done anything to help him, it was to be his own man.

“I think Jim will go (to Vancouver) with the attitude he doesn’t have all the answers, but he’ll certainly work hard to try to get them. He has always had a soft spot for Vancouver because he played there, and he has always had a summer home in Portland. And Portland to Vancouver is a lot different than Boston to Portland. Still, he really did like Boston. Wherever you go, you’ve got to be happy.”

Jim Benning played junior hockey in Portland, which is where he met his wife, Rhonda. They have four children, two of them grown. The family spends summers on their acreage southwest of Portland. They have a barn and horses. The Oregon coast is about a 45-minute drive.

Elmer Benning is a realist. He knows the Canucks’ situation is not ideal. The team has an aging core that needs to be refreshed and made younger, but Jim will inherit nine Canuck contracts that include no-trade clauses. A 10th NTC, belonging to Jannik Hansen, becomes active July 1. Benning also loses $800,000 of Canuck salary-cap space annually due to the March trade of Roberto Luongo to the Florida Panthers.

Benning must hire a coach and make decisions on Gillis’s staff, including incumbent assistant GMs Laurence Gilman and Lorne Henning, player personnel director Eric Crawford and senior adviser Stan Smyl.

And everything Benning does will be subjected to the media’s blowtorch.

“Sometimes when you feel you can do something, you’ve got to go,” Elmer Benning said. “What in life is a perfect situation with everything set out for you? The guy who never took a chance is the guy who never made a mistake. But he also never did anything.”

Benning said his son was so driven to succeed as a player that, as kid, Jim would come home from school, close all the curtains and then work out.

“He didn’t want to have to answer the door to go play with his friends,” Elmer said. “It wasn’t like he didn’t like them. But his goal was to be a hockey player and when that ended, he had the chance to go scouting.”

Three veteran hockey people, each from a different NHL organization, raved Wednesday about Benning’s qualities and predicted success for him with the Canucks.

“He’s very smart, very honest,” one scout said. “He knows who’s going to play and who isn’t. He knows what’s going on all the time. And don’t let that quietness fool you. He’s intense. When he walks on to the draft floor he looks like he’s ready to fight Mike Tyson.”

Benning probably has the book on how well Tyson skates.

imacintyre@vancouversun.com

Twitter.com/imacvansun

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/C...#ixzz32ZKd9LHY

[m3thods]

You know, Benning is a real breath of fresh air. Like, GMMG was such a boring guy to talk to in like, press conferences you know?


Not the best in front of the media, but he'll definitely get better with TC Carling back in the fray. TC looks like that "fixer" in mafia movies always lurking in the background lol

[pastarocket]

Did I hear Benning correctly? He mentioned that he will evaluate player talent in the junior level by going to watch players in junior games. That's rare for a general manager to do scouting work outside of the NHL.

-sort of get the feeling that Benning will be able to do some scouting as a GM, while Linden helps out with some of the GM duties. Tag team

[murd0c]

Originally Posted by pastarocket

Did I hear Benning correctly? He mentioned that he will evaluate player talent in the junior level by going to watch players in junior games. That's rare for a general manager to do scouting work outside of the NHL.

-sort of get the feeling that Benning will be able to do some scouting as a GM, while Linden helps out with some of the GM duties. Tag team

You did hear correctly and I really like the sounds of doing it that way, prob one of the reasons why hes not going to fire the scouting staff is because he will know the players and what he says goes.

[Not really racist!]

Originally Posted by pastarocket

Did I hear Benning correctly? He mentioned that he will evaluate player talent in the junior level by going to watch players in junior games. That's rare for a general manager to do scouting work outside of the NHL.

-sort of get the feeling that Benning will be able to do some scouting as a GM, while Linden helps out with some of the GM duties. Tag team

He did that when he was AGM in Boston, we have the management personnel so I don't think its a problem. He started his career that way so its a huge bonus.

Hopefully he gets rid of Kesler before he walks or is worth nothing or asks for an outrageous contract

[punkwax]

Pfft. Canucks have never missed out on any Giant talent...

[Mike Oxbig]

Silferberg + ott 1st for kes pls

[Infiniti]

Next order of business: coaching.

[murd0c]

Originally Posted by Infiniti

Next order of business: coaching.

No drafting is the most important as Benning said