Canucks to fire GM Jim Benning

The changes in Vancouver weren’t limited to just the coaches as GM Jim Benning and assistant GM John Weisbrod have also been relieved of their duties, as first reported by Irfaan Gafaar of The Fourth Period (Twitter link).

Benning joined the Canucks back in 2014 after serving as an assistant GM with Boston for seven seasons. Over Benning's tenure with Vancouver, the Canucks have reached the playoffs only twice, winning just one round, which came back in his first season. His initial coaching hire in Willie Desjardins lasted only three seasons while Travis Green made it into his fifth year before being ousted on Sunday.

Benning has made several questionable decisions on the contract front over his tenure. Loui Eriksson received a six-year, $36 million contract back in 2016, which has not worked out well; he has scored just 38 times in 274 games since then. Tyler Myers received a five-year, $30 million contract in 2019 to bolster Vancouver’s back end, and that move hasn’t gone as well as the Canucks hoped it would.

His penchant for handing out bigger contracts to bottom-six role players also proved costly as Antoine Roussel, Brandon Sutter, Jay Beagle and Micheal Ferland all received deals well above market value and provided middling returns at best.

Benning also missed on two of his three highest picks as well. While he got Elias Pettersson fifth overall in 2018, he whiffed on selecting Olli Juolevi fifth overall a year earlier while Jake Virtanen never lived up to the hype of his No. 6 selection in 2014. Fortunately for Vancouver, Benning’s other two top-10 picks have shown some promise; Quinn Hughes is already one of the more dominant offensive blueliners in the league while Vasily Podkolzin hasn’t looked out of place in his rookie season.

This past summer, he took a big swing on the trade front, acquiring Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Conor Garland from Arizona for a package involving a first-round pick while also offloading Eriksson, Roussel and Beagle’s contracts.  However, Ekman-Larsson is signed through 2026-27, and even with the Coyotes retaining part of that deal, the Canucks are still stuck with a $7.26 million cap charge while Garland received a five-year, $25 million pact, one that at least looks decent so far.

As a result, Vancouver will continue to be battling the salary cap for the foreseeable future. The Canucks have more than $70 million in commitments already for next season per CapFriendly with Brock Boeser owed a $7.5 million qualifying offer this summer. Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller are UFAs in 2024 while Pettersson will once again need a new contract in 2025, so more big-ticket signings will be on the horizon over the coming years while the new GM looks to try to improve the existing core at the same time.

As for Weisbrod, he also joined the Canucks in 2014 and previously had worked with Dallas, Boston and Calgary. Before those stints, he had been the GM of the NBA’s Orlando Magic before resigning in his second year to join the Stars. The Canucks have one other assistant GM on its staff in Chris Gear who also serves as their chief legal officer.