Alex Rickman
November 29, 2022
To say that the Jim Benning era isn’t remembered fondly by the people of Vancouver would be a severe understatement. During his 8 years as General Manager, the Canucks won a grand total of 1 playoff round (2 if you count the qualifier round in the bubble), but on the trade and free agency markets, the team acted like a contender, trading away picks and prospects and handing out risky prospects to aging players like they were candy on Halloween. The one area where Jim Benning often gets some praise for his time as Canucks GM is his drafting, but is this praise justified or are Canucks fans looking to put lipstick on a pig? In this series, we will go over every draft Jim Benning was the Canucks GM for and see if he’s earned his reputation as a shrewd drafter or not, starting with the first draft he oversaw, the 2014 draft.
When Benning’s failures at the draft are mentioned, 2 names are normally mentioned; Olli Juolevi, and Abbotsford native Jake Virtanen. Drafted with the hope that he could become one of the league's premier power forwards, Virtanen’s time as a Canuck was chock full of blunders, both on and off the ice. Virtanen ultimately was bought out following allegations of sexual misconduct after the 2021 season, after a stint in the KHL and failing to impress on a PTO with the Oilers this past preseason, Virtanen has yet to find another job in the NHL. Virtanen was famously also picked just before William Nylander and Nikolaj Ehlers, who went with picks 8 and 9, which will prove to be a common theme among Benning picks.
After coming out of the gate hot during his rookie season, Jared McCann went fairly quiet for the remainder of his first campaign. Ultimately leading the Canucks to ship him off to the Sunshine State in the now-infamous trade that saw Erik Gudbranson join the Canucks. Since then, McCann has managed to find his footing as a solid middle 6 forward, while Gudbranson’s time as a Canuck ended in him being unceremoniously sent to Pittsburgh in exchange for Tanner Pearson. While the pick itself was a fairly good one, it’s clear to see that the Canucks mishandled McCann. To add insult to injury, just one pick after McCann the Bruins selected a Czech winger by the name of David Pastrnak. Pastrnak has cemented himself as a lethal goal scorer for Boston and continues to find himself in Rocket Richard contention year in and year out.
Originally projected as the top goalie prospect in his class, Demko fell into the Canucks laps after the Flames took goalie prospect Mason McDonald 2 picks before the Canucks turn. Seeing this, Benning and Co. wasted no time selecting San Diego native Thatcher Demko. The 26-year-old has since turned into one of the best goalies in the league, and a key piece of the Canucks roster. While Demko hasn’t had the start anyone was hoping he’d have this season, there’s no denying that grabbing him with a second-round pick was a nice piece of business from the Canucks.
Canucks fans had high hopes for the colossal Russian defenceman, but unfortunately, the North American game and lifestyle weren’t too friendly to Tryamkin. Standing at 6 '8 and weighing over 250lbs, there was hope that Tryamkin would be able to use his size to add some tenacity to the Canucks back end. Unfortunately, that simply wasn’t his game. Tryamkin returned to the KHL after 79 games with the Canucks, and with the Canucks no longer holding his NHL rights, it’s safe to assume he won’t be returning to Vancouver any time soon.
Much like Jared McCann, Forsling has developed into quite the player. Sadly, he is remembered by Canucks fans as another Jim Benning trade block blunder. Forsling’s rights were traded to Chicago for Adam Clendening before he was given the chance to sign an ELC with the Canucks. While Clendening only lasted 17 games as a Canuck, Forsling, now with Florida, has turned into a very solid NHL defenceman. Again, while the pick can’t be faulted here, Benning very clearly gave up on Forsling too early and for too little.
Kyle Pettit, a centre drafted from the Erie Otters, never signed an ELC and is yet to make a debut in professional hockey. While in an ideal world all draft picks would receive an opportunity to play pro hockey somewhere, this simply doesn’t happen, and it’s hard to fault Benning for a 6th round pick not working out.
Like Kyle Pettit, Stewart never reached the NHL but he did play some games for the Canucks AHL and ECHL affiliates. Stewart, who stood at 6’3 and weighed 240 lbs, was selected for his size with the hope that other areas of his game would develop. While this never ended up happening, this is fairly common practice with late-round selections. It would’ve been great if Stewart had found a way to develop into an NHLer, but sometimes it’s just not meant to be.
Initially hyped up as a very good draft class, this one didn’t work out particularly well for the Canucks. Apart from Demko, who has become one of the faces of the team, the only real impact players taken in this draft were traded before they had a chance to prove themselves as Canucks. While it would be unfair to call this a disastrous draft class, especially when they found their franchise goaltender in the second round, calling it a good draft with only 1 player managing to stick around on the Canucks roster would be too generous.
In the next installment of this series, we will discuss the 2015 draft. Would Jim Benning be able to make up for the mistakes of the 2014 draft, or would he come away with his second consecutive unsuccessful draft class? Find out in the next installment of the Jim Benning draft rewind.