#i also misremembered and lu was traded the season Before benning was hired. so that’s on mike gillis

[brockachu]

What did Benning do to Linden?

ok so to be fair to benning (which is very generous of me, i know), it was at least a little the fanbase’s fault & definitely also largely the aquilinis’ fault that things fell apart with trevor linden the way they did.

idk your historical knowledge of the canucks, anon, so i hope i’m not overexplaining, but a quick rundown — trevor linden was a former long-time canuck, who was much beloved by the fandom from his draft (1988, 2nd overall, by the canucks) through his career until his eventual captaincy. his nickname was Captain Canuck. he’s possibly more associated with the captaincy in vancouver than henrik sedin or stan smyl, who are both still much beloved and involved in the organization today. he played for us for a solid decade, hopped around a few east coast teams due to inadvisable trades on the canucks’ part + a misled sense of ‘maybe he can get the cup he is due if we let him free’ (he had previously led the team to the famed 1994 stanley cup finals vs the rangers *insert cartoon patooey spit sound in mark messier’s general direction*), and ultimately wandered home to van to retire here + mentor then-captain markus naslund, then future captain henrik sedin in the 2000s. he was also at one point elected president of the nhlpa, when they were still trying to behave like an actual union. in case the theme isn’t coming across here — he has had leadership written across his forehead & resume since the first scout said ‘hey this lanky kid from alberta can skate’. that combo of leadership + dedication to the canucks has made him a beloved figure to van.

in 2014, when the canucks were reluctantly looking down the barrel of the rebuild, they called trevor, who had settled his family & stayed in van post-retirement, mostly working with local charities or canucks-led initiatives and keeping a low profile in the business side of the hockey world. trevor was brought in as president of hockey ops Before benning was hired. linden’s only big decision he made before benning took over was in firing coach torts. ostensibly, as pres of hockey ops, linden hired benning but press has since made it clear that linden’s choices were slim due to pressure from ownership. that year (2013-14), we missed the playoffs for the first time in 5 years, but management & ownership hoped a coaching change and some quick roster flips would keep us in the picture, since the majority of our core was still in a good age & skill window and only one actually wanted out (*cartoon patooey spit noise in ryan kesler’s general direction*). we got some free agent vets as well and gave it another solid try. that Did Not Work ~surprise~. we made the playoffs, crashed out in the first round, then the dark years settled in.

the hum drum drudgery of marching into the dark night of this ‘rebuild’ continued on, with fans getting more and more impatient. but more than the impatience, was the alarm that we had No Idea what the team’s identity was. long-time favs burrows & hansen were traded in the same season, despite clear indications that they wished to retire as canucks, and they weren’t even traded for picks — we got half-developed prospects who never worked out for us ultimately. same of essentially every move made under benning. finally, at the end of brock boeser’s rookie season & green’s first season as head coach of the canucks (he was originally meant to be interim, but his rapport was so good with the younger players, the promotion became official), the sedins announced their retirement. fans felt Antsy.

ok so we knew we could expect bo horvat’s eventual captaincy, we had brock boeser scoring up a storm his rookie season, word was good on thatcher demko’s development as our future goaltender — but what else? a boy king, his knight in golden locks, & their court mage of a goaltender who was in development hell does not a royal court or a proper roster make. more than that, in that time benning had been stacking up bad contracts & selling picks that could pad out our depth for 4 seasons running now, with seemingly no oversight by linden.

now you would think, ok but benning is the problem, so why is this linden’s fault? I Don’t Know Either. i have been here This Whole Time and i Still don’t know how trevor became the scapegoat for benning’s mistakes, but here we are. the sedins retire and linden quietly follows behind them with his resignation, which unfortunately left benning even More unchecked than before. the heavy implication from all reporting is that trevor gave pushback to benning and the aquilinis, who ultimately took benning’s side and told trevor to stuff it or shove off. so he said ‘i know where i’m not welcome’ and him choosing to leave without a fight is prolly what convinced fans that the problem was him not doing enough to stop benning rather than yknow the billionaire puppet masters who really only kept trevor around as a figurehead to appease the fans until the fans decided to eat their own idol. but hey, the loudest canuck fans also didn’t want bure back until he got inducted into the hhof, so i’m never gonna agree with that lil cult.

tldr: benning fucked up for nearly a decade. for half of it, he & ownership let linden sacrifice his reputation for this team, in some sick groundhog’s day of his career, But Worse. and some of the most vocal of canucks nation lapped it up and this is why it took me forever to look even slightly into canucks twitter. jury’s still out now, but i mostly follow actual press and interpret with for myself.

this is a Very Rough summary of this era. my memory is not perfect but i did pull wiki for a timeline. also, p much anyone in van press core will get very sad and feel bad if linden’s presidency gets mentioned. most reasonable members of the media & fanbase breathed a sigh of relief that linden came around in 2019 when bo got named captain and again in 2020 when the sedins’ jerseys were retires. luckily, that bridge is probably not irreparably burned, so long as rutherford & the aquilinis remember they’re on Thin Fucking Ice with any and all beloved canucks alum.