Wild West – General Manager Ratings: Vancouver Canucks

In part twelve of our look at the GMs of the Western Conference, we will look at Jim Benning in Vancouver who before being named GM with the Canucks, was Director of Amateur Scouting in Buffalo for almost eight years and Assistant GM/Director of Player Personnel in Boston for over seven years as well.

Category Ratings: 

5: below average

6: average

7: above average

8: top ten

9: Exceptional 

10: Perfect

Overall ratings should be based at seven being average, but the biggest takeaway should be how each GM compares to the others.

Prior Ratings:

Bob Murray – Anaheim: 7.85 

John Chayka – Arizona: 6.62

Brad Treliving – Calgary: 7.5

Stan Bowman – Chicago: 7.6

Joe Sakic – Colorado: 7.55

Jim Nill – Dallas: 7.225

Ken Holland – Edmonton: 6.925 (post-2009)

Rob Blake – Los Angeles: 7.025

David Poile – Nashville: 7.55

Doug Armstrong – St. Louis: 8.0

Doug Wilson – San Jose: 7.45

Vancouver Canucks

GM – Jim Benning, hired May 21st, 2014

The first category, winning:

Regular-season record: 211 W 213 L 33 OTL 22 SOL 0.499 Winning %

Best result and playoffs: The Canucks under Benning had a 48 win and 101 points in 2014-15 but were bounced in the first round quite easily by the Calgary Flames. They have missed the playoffs for four straight seasons and have a chance still this year with the Play-in against Minnesota.

Benning inherited a team that had missed the playoffs in 2013-14 and had an ageing nucleus of Henrik Sedin (32), Daniel Sedin (32), Ryan Kesler (29), Kevin Bieksa (32), Dan Hamhuis (30), Alex Burrows (32), Alexander Edler (27) and Roberto Luongo (34).

The young players and prospects in the system were Zack Kassian (22), Chris Tanev (23), Jordan Schroeder (22), Brendan Gaunce (20), Bo Horvat (19), Hunter Shinkaruk (19), Ben Hutton (21) and Jacob Markstrom (23)

To be fair, Benning took over a team in decline. His biggest mistake at the start was not recognizing that fact.

Winning rating: 5.8

Drafting is Benning's background and s