The final word on Jim Benning’s draft legacy with the Canucks

Earlier this offseason, the Vancouver Canucks let their rights to two 2021 draft picks, Lucas Forsell and Hugo Gabrielson, lapse.

With neither on a development path pointed anywhere close to the NHL, it really wasn’t a big deal. But with both players coming from Jim Benning’s final draft as GM of the Vancouver Canucks, their departures from the organization’s reserve list does mark the point at which we can fully and retrospectively assess Benning’s legacy as a drafter.

The results are, predictably, mixed at best.

Draft-by-Draft

Benning was at the helm of the Canucks from the 2014 NHL Entry Draft through the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, a total of eight drafts. In this first section, we’ll go through them one by one.

(Note: We realize that listing point totals for goalies is mostly useless, but there were so few drafted that we just left it as is. We trust our audience to know enough about the likes of Thatcher Demko and Arturs Silovs.)

2014

Round/Pick	Selection	NHL Games	NHL Goals	NHL Assists	NHL Points
1/6	Jake Virtanen	317	55	45	100
1/24	Jared McCann	668	184	214	398
2/36	Thatcher Demko	242	0	5	5
3/66	Nikita Tryamkin	79	3	8	11
5/126	Gustav Forsling	477	57	135	192
6/156	Kyle Pettit	0	0	0	0
7/186	Mackenze Stewart	0	0	0	0

In this section, we’re going to attempt to give each draft a score of success, and we’ll use this first example to lay some parameters for our analysis.

Fortunately, it’s a complex example that gives us a lot to think about.

When determining whether a draftee has ‘hit’ or not, a threshold of games played is typically set at either 100 or 200 career games. By that measure, Jake Virtanen is a hit. But we all know he was anything but. With his case in mind, we’re officially adopting a ‘we know it when we see it’ policy. NHL games played are still the major determining factor here, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. Virtanen was a bust by any reasonable measure.

The case of Gustav Forsling is also worth mentioning. He is, quite simply, one of the most successful fifth-round picks of the past decade, if not the most successful. But Benning also traded him for Adam Clendening a year after drafting him. For this, we’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize, and the prize is assessing Benning as a drafter. Draft Benning did a great job of picking Forsling and deserves full credit for it. Trader Jim gets the blame for not hanging on to Forsling long enough for it to matter.

What about Nikita Tryamkin? By all accounts, he had what it took to succeed at the NHL level, but chose to take his talents back to Russia. With him, we’ll err on the side of failure. A total of 79 NHL games is just not enough to call Tryamkin a hit.

With all that decided, we’re ready to call it.

Jared McCann, Thatcher Demko, and Forsling are not just hits, but genuine star players at the NHL level. They’re major hits, in other words.

Virtanen is one of the all-time great disappointments. Tryamkin wasn’t able or willing to deliver on his potential. And none of the other two draftees came close.

In this draft, Benning hit (and hit big) on 3/7 picks. In terms of volume, his first draft was easily his best.

2015

Round/Pick	Selection	NHL Games	NHL Goals	NHL Assists	NHL Points
1/23	Brock Boeser	554	204	230	434
3/66	Guillaume Brisebois	30	1	2	3
4/114	Dmitry Zhukenov	0	0	0	0
5/144	Carl Neill	0	0	0	0
5/149	Adam Gaudette	301	46	50	96
6/174	Lukas Jasek	0	0	0	0
7/210	Tate Olson	0	0	0	0

Brock Boeser is not just a hit, but a great hit for how late he was selected in the first round.

Adam Gaudette has just recently solidified himself as a solid hit. Sure, most of his real success has come this past season, but he’s arrived as an NHL player all the same, and so he counts.

The toughest call here is Guillaume Brisebois. He’s now the longest-tenured Canuck, and has been nothing less than a good soldier for the franchise ever since being drafted. That said, he was a third-round pick who has only managed 30 NHL games to this point. We cannot, in good conscience, count him as a true hit.

That leaves Benning with a 2/7 hit-rate on his second draft, and far less overall success than his first. 

2016

Round/Pick	Selection	NHL Games	NHL Goals	NHL Assists	NHL Points
1/5	Olli Juolevi	41	2	1	3
3/64	William Lockwood	54	0	2	2
5/140	Cole Candella	0	0	0	0
6/154	Jakob Stukel	0	0	0	0
7/184	Rodrigo Abols	22	2	3	5
7/194	Brett McKenzie	0	0	0	0

Oof, can we skip this one?

The less said about Olli Juolevi, the better. We’ll have to turn the page on this discussion, because we know Juolevi isn’t going to be the one doing any turning!

Will Lockwood has built himself up into an NHL/AHL tweener, who most recently lost in the Calder Cup Finals to the Abbotsford Canucks. But he’s topped out there, and we can’t count him as a hit.

Weirdly enough, seventh-rounder Rodrigo Abols finally made it to the NHL with the Philadelphia Flyers this past year, but really can’t be considered a full-time or long-term NHLer. Just an odd name to see pop up out of seemingly nowhere!

That leaves Benning’s third draft with a 0/6 success rate, and leaves this as his worst draft year of them all.

 2017

Round/Pick	Selection	NHL Games	NHL Goals	NHL Assists	NHL Points
1/5	Elias Pettersson	471	185	272	457
2/33	Kole Lind	31	2	6	8
2/55	Jonah Gadjovich	160	10	8	18
3/64	Michael DiPietro	3	0	0	0
4/95	Jack Rathbone	28	2	3	5
5/135	Kristoffer Gunnarsson	0	0	0	0
6/181	Petrus Palmu	0	0	0	0
7/188	Matt Brassard	0	0	0	0

Elias Pettersson has become a controversial figure in Vancouver, but even his greatest haters cannot deny that he was an excellent draft pick at fifth overall and a major hit.

Beyond him, we did eventually find out why no one was taking Kole Lind. But the Canucks’ second second rounder of that year, Jonah Gadjovich, has gone on to win two consecutive Stanley Cups as a fourth liner for the Florida Panthers. He absolutely counts as a draft hit.

None of the rest made much noise at the NHL level, save for the noise surrounding Jack Rathbone’s signing status, which wound up not mattering much at all.

For 2017, Benning gets a 2/8 hit-rate, though it’s worth mentioning that one of the hits was an especially valuable one. 

2018

Round/Pick	Selection	NHL Games	NHL Goals	NHL Assists	NHL Points
1/7	Quinn Hughes	433	59	350	409
2/37	Jett Woo	0	0	0	0
3/68	Tyler Madden	0	0	0	0
5/130	Toni Utunen	0	0	0	0
6/186	Artem Manukyan	0	0	0	0
7/192	Matthew Thiessen	0	0	0	0

You can’t complain much about a draft that yields the greatest player in franchise history, especially as late as the seventh pick in the draft. Quinn Hughes alone makes this a successful draft year.

Which is good, because Benning and Co. really didn’t get much more out of it. We do think there’s still a chance that Jett Woo plays NHL games in the coming season, but he’ll be a tweener at most. Remember the drama over the trading of Tyler Madden? Look how that turned out.

Benning gets a 1/6 for the 2018 draft, but that somehow doesn’t seem fair. Really, Hughes should probably count for at least five hits on his own. 

2019

Round/Pick	Selection	NHL Games	NHL Goals	NHL Assists	NHL Points
1/10	Vasily Podkolzin	219	26	33	59
2/40	Nils Höglander	293	58	57	115
4/122	Ethan Keppen	0	0	0	0
5/133	Carson Focht	0	0	0	0
6/156	Arturs Silovs	19	0	0	0
6/175	Karel Plasek	0	0	0	0
6/180	Jack Malone	0	0	0	0
7/195	Aidan Mcdonough	6	1	0	1
7/215	Arvid Costmar	0	0	0	0

Aside from that first draft, this one is our hardest to call.

Nils Höglander is already a hit, and a pretty darn good one for the second round.

But what about Vasily Podkolzin?

Production- and tenure-wise, he’s not dissimilar to Virtanen. And yet, character-wise, it’s night and day. Podkolzin now appears to have carved out a permanent role for himself in the NHL, though, unfortunately, it’s in Edmonton.

We’re going to tentatively label Podkolzin as a hit, with the belief that he’s going to stick around in the big leagues for a few more years at least and pump up that statline.

Arturs Silovs is another conundrum. He’s only made it into 19 NHL regular season games so far. But he’s also got a couple of legendary playoff runs and some international heroism under his belt, while remaining a top goaltending prospect heading into his first year of waiver eligibility.

Goalies do typically have a longer developmental timeline. We’re going to call Silovs a hit based on the high likelihood of his being in the NHL next year, whether that be in Vancouver or elsewhere.

That gives Benning a 3/9 hit-rate for 2019, and one of his best volume years. However, it seems a bit generous given the content. Perhaps a score of 2.5/9 is more accurate in this case.

2020

Round/Pick	Selection	NHL Games	NHL Goals	NHL Assists	NHL Points
3/82	Joni Jurmo	0	0	0	0
4/113	Jackson Kunz	0	0	0	0
5/144	Jacob Truscott	0	0	0	0
6/175	Dmitry Zlodeev	0	0	0	0
7/191	Victor Persson	0	0	0	0

That’s a lot of zeroes. Worse, none of these players are on a path to change anything about these results. The 2020 draft was a 0/5 total bust for Benning, with the blow softened only by the fact that he didn’t get to draft until well into the third round. 

2021

Round/Pick	Selection	NHL Games	NHL Goals	NHL Assists	NHL Points
2/41	Danila Klimovich	0	0	0	0
5/137	Aku Koskenvuo	0	0	0	0
5/140	Jonathan Myrenberg	0	0	0	0
6/169	Hugo Gabrielson	0	0	0	0
6/178	Connor Lockhart	0	0	0	0
7/201	Lucas Forsell	0	0	0	0

Benning’s final draft is officially approaching ‘too-soon-to-call’ territory. But most of it is still pretty conclusive, especially with Gabrielson and Forsell recently let go.

Danila Klimovich still has some road left ahead of him and one more season of waiver exemption. His overtime heroics in the AHL playoffs put him back on the map, but he remains a longshot.

Aku Koskenvuo is signed, but has an uphill battle if he ever wants to make it to Vancouver proper. With that aforementioned lengthier curve for goaltenders, we won’t make a final call on him quite yet.

For now, Benning’s last draft is a 0/6 showing, but there is at least a lingering hope of a hit or two left in it.

First Round Focus

The first round is by far the most important of the draft, and the majority of high-quality NHL players are selected there. Thus, Benning’s first-round performance deserves particular focus.

In his eight drafts, Benning picked in the first round seven times.

Of those seven, he hit on five of them, listed in order of magnitude as: Hughes, Pettersson, McCann, Boeser, and Podkolzin.

But the massive misses on Virtanen and Juolevi stand out just as much, especially with clearly preferable selections available (William Nylander and Matthew Tkachuk, respectively) that went on to become true NHL stars.

Now, according to Jacob Billington of The Hockey Writers, any ol’ first-round pick is supposed to have a 54.5% chance of playing 300+ NHL games. Hughes, Pettersson, McCann, and Boeser are already there, and Podkolzin should get there eventually. That 5/7 hit rate is 71.4%, or significantly better than the league average.

That said, not all first-round picks are created equal. And while Benning deserves ample credit for beating the odds on McCann as the 24^th overall pick (37.9% odds of success) and Boeser as the 23^rd a year later (37.9% odds), it’s his record in the top 10 that best defines his legacy.

A top 10 draft pick is meant to have at least a 54% chance of playing 300 NHL games, and those odds increase the closer we get to first overall. And if we’re talking specifically, the standards of a top 10 pick, we can’t rightly justify calling Podkolzin a success, at least not yet.

That means that Benning’s ‘hit’ on just 2/5 top 10 selections during his time in Vancouver. Sure, Hughes and Pettersson were massive hits. However, that’s not a high enough success rate for the opportunity granted, and Benning’s misses here set the Canucks back immeasurably.

Later Round Success Rates

While we’re at it, let’s end by quickly breaking down Benning’s success rate in each round, compared to the league average.

So far, Benning has hit on three of six second-round picks, for a perfect 50% success rate. The league average, as defined by 300+ NHL games, is 25.1%. Benning did pretty well in the second round, though his penchant for trading away second-rounders deserves mention here.

The third round was a bit of an Achilles’ heel for Benning. He went 0/6 there, with the league average being 16.9%.

No hits in the fourth round, either, at 0/4, with the league average being 12.7%.

Benning made nine selections in the fifth round and hit on two of them, with Forsling representing a massive hit. That’s a 2/9 rate of 22.2% for Benning, which is actually significantly ahead of the league average of just 8.2%.

Benning did his most volume in the sixth round, where he made 11 different selections. Unfortunately, his only hit of the bunch was Silovs, which gives him a 1/11 rate of 9.1%. That’s right in line with the league average of 9.7%.

Last and least, we hit the seventh round. Here, Benning made 10 picks and didn’t hit on a single one of them. But that’s perhaps not surprising, given the league average at this point is just 6.4%.

Overall, the numbers are pretty clear. Benning was a below-average drafter, at best. He could be broken down as below average in the top 10, about average in the first round as a whole, better than average in the second round, and below average everywhere else.

In full, his legacy is one of bringing the Canucks into and through some of their darkest on-ice years…and not walking away with anywhere near enough draft capital to make it worth the while.