I’m not particularly good with dates or anniversaries, so it comes as no surprise that I completely missed the one year anniversary of Jim Benning’s tenure with the Canucks. And what’s a better way to celebrate one year together than to pick it apart in excruciating detail?

In the first part of this series, I walked through the trades made by Benning in his first year as the Canucks’ General Manager. Today in part two, I’ll look at the signings Benning has made to bring in and retain NHL talent.

Not including his work to sign Canucks prospects to entry level contracts, Jim Benning has signed five players to new NHL contracts:

AAV Term (years) Grade Radim Vrbata $5.00 2 9.0 Ryan Miller $6.00 3 5.0 Chris Tanev $4.45 5 9.5 Luca Sbisa $3.60 3 3.0 Derek Dorsett $2.65 4 5.0

Radim Vrbata – Grade 9.0

After missing out on their first choice of Jarome Iginla, Benning managed to snag Radim Vrbata on the promise of playing time with the Sedin twins. Vrbata didn’t disappoint, posting only his second 30 goal season of his NHL career.

At the time he was signed, I wondered if he would be a good fit for the twins, given Vrbata tends to be a bit of a perimeter machine gunner, while the Sedin’s have seen the most success with players like Alex Burrows who has historically done a great job at capitalizing on opportunities the Sedins generate for him closer to the net. While Vrbata and the twins clicked right out of the gate, the coaching staff seemed to sour on the idea of Vrbata with the twins, to the point where in the playoffs Jannik Hansen was put on the 1st line instead of Vrbata.

None of this changes the fact that Vrbata was an exceptional signing, but it does raise the question of whether or not Benning will consider moving Vrbata as he will be an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Ryan Miller – Grade 5.0

Here were my comments at the time of the Miller signing:

My preference would have been to sign a goaltender like Thomas Greiss to a backup role, allowing Lack to see if he can replicate the .925 sv% we saw in the first half of last season. Obviously, neither Lack nor Greiss have accumulated the same body of work that Miller has over his career, so there would be risk associated going with a less proven tandem.

Lack didn’t reach the .925 sv% I was hoping for, but he came in at a very close .921 sv%. Greiss signed for $1M with the Penguins and posted a .908 sv% in a backup role, which is only slight less than the .911 sv% that Miller posted. As it stands now, the Canucks look to be in a major bind from a salary perspective, and with Ryan Miller’s contract being pretty much un-tradeable, especially in light of him coming off a significant injury at age 34. As a result, they’re saddled with the option of trading Jacob Markstrom or Lack, and given the nature of the goalie trade market, they’re unlikely to get the value back that they should.

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While some pundits are now asking “how did we end up in a goalie controversy again?” the reality is that this scenario was predictable from the outset.

Chris Tanev – Grade 9.5

Last week the Montreal Canadiens inked Jeff Petry to a 6 year deal for $33M ($5.5M AAV). Although there are members of the Edmonton media that would disagree with me, Petry is a reasonably good defensemen. Tanev on the other hand, is one of the best young puck possession defensemen in the league, and a legitimate shutdown and penalty kill ace.

Below is a graph showing possession team possession metrics. On the x-axis is shots for the Canucks and on the y-axis is shots against the Canucks. As you can see, other than the Sedins, no player had a more positive impact on improve the differential between shots for and against more than Chris Tanev (number 8):

Canucks Team WOWY for shots. Blue is with, red is without. Note defensive prowess of Sedins (also points, not shown). pic.twitter.com/URMpfsRbom — Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) June 5, 2015

Luca Sbisa – Grade 3.0

There has been a lot of hand wringing with respect to the signing of Luca Sbisa. Those justifying the signing note that the minimum to qualify Sbisa was $2.9M, so at face value paying him $3.6M a year doesn’t seem like that much of an overpay, assuming you believe that Sbisa is a player that should have been re-signed in the first place. However, by just about every quantitative metric we have, Sbisa is one of the worst defensemen in the league. In terms of shot attempt differential, Sbisa’s CF% 47.18% ranks in the bottom quarter of defensemen receiving top-6 minutes. His scoring chance differntial of 44.51% ranks in the bottom 10% of defensemen receiving top-6 minutes.

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Benning has claimed that he re-signed Sbisa because he’s good in scrums, and doesn’t give the puck away very often. I tend to value play between the whistles more than play after the whistle, so I won’t talk to the “good in scrums” comment, but in terms of giveaways, Sbisa’s 1.8 giveaways/60 is roughly middle of the pack for defenders given top 6 minutes. The top-ten in giveaways per 60 minutes includes names like PK Subban, John Carlson, Erik Karlsson, and Victor Hedman. I guess you probably give the puck away more when you have the puck in the first place.

Some people have claimed the Canucks choice was between signing Sbisa for $2.9M or for $3.6M. The correct answer is to not sign him at all, because they have better and cheaper options in Utica and/or available via free agency this summer.

Derek Dorsett – Grade 5.0

Derek Dorsett is a guy I really like. While he was the third most penalized player in the league last year, he actually had a positive penalty differential of +4, so on balance he didn’t hurt the team in this area, and he was obvious a big contributor to overall team toughness. However, of forwards receiving fourth line minutes Dorsett’s CF% of 43.1%, and SCF% of 45.2% was in the bottom 10% and 25% of fourth line forwards, respectively.

The Canucks were significantly outshot and outchanced with Dorsett on the ice, and that’s relative to the league’s other fourth line players. Regardless of the impact his $2.6M AAV has on the salary cap, there is a legitimate argument that the Canucks are likely better served with one of Brendan Gaunce, Niklas Jensen, or Alex Grenier on the fourth line than they are with Derek Dorsett.

The reality is that in today’s salary cap structure you can’t afford to allocate $2.6M to a fourth line player, especially when said player is replacement leval at best, because you need that money to “overpay” your top-6 forwards and top-4 defenders. This signing isn’t quite as egregious as the Sbisa signing, but its not that far off.

Conclusion – Grade 5.0

It’s truly a mixed bag here between excellent signings (Vrbata/Tanev) and bad signings (Miller) and awful signings (Dorsett/Sbisa). I was reminded of the concept of “Critical Fail” the other day on Twitter by Jason Ford (@hemepath). In his words:

“When I was an examiner for the Royal College of Physicians, we used the concept of the “critical fail”.

A critical fail was a medical decision so egregious that a patient’s life would have been put at immediate risk. For example, transfusing the wrong blood type, or failing to order a particularly important and obvious test. A physician who committed a critical failure was always awarded a FAIL on the exam, irrespective of how well she or he did overall. So a candidate could ace the exam, except for one critical failure, and would be given a failing grade.”

Because of the impact bad signings have on your ability to manage the roster effectively going forward in a flat salary cap world, the impact of the bad signings far outweighs the good. Simply put, in today’s NHL, you really can’t afford to allocate $12.2M to your second best goalie, a fourth line winger, and a glorified AHL defensemen. This is an area where Benning gets a failing grade, and it’s not even close.

Critical Fail.

Others in This Series:

Jim Benning’s Year 1 Report Card – Part 1: Trades





