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You be the judge.

Following the conclusion of the NHL trade deadline on Tuesday, Benning held a press conference in which he fielded questions for about 16 1/2 minutes.

There were just over 30 queries raised in that time period, and the first nine were all similar in theme: Why didn’t the Canucks acquire draft picks at the deadline instead of Brendan Leipsic and Tyler Motte?

The questions, to be sure, were framed differently and had divergent entry and exit points. But they all had Benning justifying his deadline moves.

Putting it another way: he was playing defence and that’s become a familiar pattern for his administration. Yes, there were other questions — some do with the logjam now in the organization, some to do with Leipsic as a player, one to do with the dearly departed Philip Holm.

But the presser generally found itself back in the same place, which wasn’t a good look for either Benning or a Canucks’ team which could use some, err, positive news. Or so we’ve heard.

Now, if you turned off Benning’s presser at the 15-minute mark, you likely would have been confused, frustrated, disappointed or some combination thereof which has also become the default position for the faithful over the last three seasons.

But, at the 15-minute mark, The Botchford asked a question about a potential shakeup to the Canucks which took Benning down a new road — a bright new road, which, as things transpire, leads us away from 28th place and to an exciting future. For the past three years, Benning and Trevor Linden have been promising this future to their fans and, while you’d never know it from their inexpert messaging, it’s arriving in the next couple of weeks.