CanucksCorner.com Forums

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:41 am It seems to me that the Aqua boys are given a get out of jail free card here by “some”.

I don't think there's anyone here who would be sad to see an ownership change.

Cornuck wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:58 am

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:41 am It seems to me that the Aqua boys are given a get out of jail free card here by “some”.

I don't think there's anyone here who would be sad to see an ownership change.

Imagine if Gagliardi had won the court case?

Who would have thought we would yearn for the days of arms-length ownership from McCaw and Orca Bay??

Notwithstanding the accomplishments of other GMs, but I would argue we never had a better ownership-management tandem as Canucks fans than MCaw/Orca Bay-Brian Burke.

I'm not sure that's really a highlight, though.

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 6:46 am The buck stops with ownership, blaming Benning for Linden stepping down is cute, blaming Benning for Benning wanting to keep his job is cute. If Benning had aligned with Linden he would’ve been walking out of that office with Trevor to the unemployment line, don’t kid yourself, it’s the Aqualini’s. Aqua’s turn to Jim, “Jim can you do what we want, if Trevor doesn’t?” Jim, “well golly gee I think I can.” Aqua’s “good answer, now go back to your office, while I talk to Trevor”

Yes, I agree Trevor was right, but blaming Benning for our Mickey Mouse ownership over that incident is complete bullshit. We can blame Benning for not having the nads to standby Trevor, sure. But all that mess is on the Aqualini’s bottom line, the ownership put Jim in a bad spot because that is how those scumbags operate and it was the owners who didn’t want to do what Trevor wanted, the only wrong Benning did was towing the company line and wanting to stay employed. Big fucks

Golly gee. I think that is what I did. On one hand you say you can't blame Benning then on the other you say you can. I dont think I blamed Benning for the Aqua's actions. I blamed Benning for his. But go ahead and try to make an issue with me where there is none. Talk about typical bullshit. You're weird Dude.

Hockey Widow wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 8:47 am

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 6:46 am The buck stops with ownership, blaming Benning for Linden stepping down is cute, blaming Benning for Benning wanting to keep his job is cute. If Benning had aligned with Linden he would’ve been walking out of that office with Trevor to the unemployment line, don’t kid yourself, it’s the Aqualini’s. Aqua’s turn to Jim, “Jim can you do what we want, if Trevor doesn’t?” Jim, “well golly gee I think I can.” Aqua’s “good answer, now go back to your office, while I talk to Trevor”

Yes, I agree Trevor was right, but blaming Benning for our Mickey Mouse ownership over that incident is complete bullshit. We can blame Benning for not having the nads to standby Trevor, sure. But all that mess is on the Aqualini’s bottom line, the ownership put Jim in a bad spot because that is how those scumbags operate and it was the owners who didn’t want to do what Trevor wanted, the only wrong Benning did was towing the company line and wanting to stay employed. Big fucks

Golly gee. I think that is what I did. On one hand you say you can't blame Benning then on the other you say you can. I dont think I blamed Benning for the Aqua's actions. I blamed Benning for his. But go ahead and try to make an issue with me where there is none. Talk about typical bullshit. You're weird Dude.

Well, at first glance your post gave the impression that the entire event (the blame) lays at Benning’s feet. That would be like blaming the carpenter helper for his bosses (the General Contractor) fuck up. I blame Benning merely for “towing the company line”, but I’m not gonna blame him for a decision, an organizational direction, made by ownership. Benning was just a pawn.

Lancer wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 8:12 am

Cornuck wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:58 am

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:41 am It seems to me that the Aqua boys are given a get out of jail free card here by “some”.

I don't think there's anyone here who would be sad to see an ownership change.

Imagine if Gagliardi had won the court case?

Who would have thought we would yearn for the days of arms-length ownership from McCaw and Orca Bay??

Notwithstanding the accomplishments of other GMs, but I would argue we never had a better ownership-management tandem as Canucks fans than MCaw/Orca Bay-Brian Burke.

I'm not sure that's really a highlight, though.

Frank Griffiths was the man. He didn’t meddle, same with Junior. Junior wasn’t a good businessman, he fucked up his capital by going after an NBA franchise. The arena was costly but he could’ve managed with better financial advisors, I think.

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 9:20 am

Lancer wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 8:12 am

Cornuck wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:58 am

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:41 am It seems to me that the Aqua boys are given a get out of jail free card here by “some”.

I don't think there's anyone here who would be sad to see an ownership change.

Imagine if Gagliardi had won the court case?

Who would have thought we would yearn for the days of arms-length ownership from McCaw and Orca Bay??

Notwithstanding the accomplishments of other GMs, but I would argue we never had a better ownership-management tandem as Canucks fans than MCaw/Orca Bay-Brian Burke.

I'm not sure that's really a highlight, though.

Frank Griffiths was the man. He didn’t meddle, same with Junior. Junior wasn’t a good businessman, he fucked up his capital by going after an NBA franchise. The arena was costly but he could’ve managed with better financial advisors, I think.

Geez Dude, it sounds like you're writing a fiction novel and trying to portray it as fact ....

Gagliardi is on record saying he doesn't believe in rebuilds so not sure if Linden would have had better luck trying to push that plan had he been reporting to Gagliardi and not Aqualini...

Just my opinion, but the days of teams attempting rebuilds are long over....there are very few, if any recent examples of planned rebuilds being succesful and when you hear of NHL expansion fees exceeding a billion dollars or teams like the Chicago Bears of the NFL being valued near $9 Billion its just too expensive to go thru a 5 to 10 year non competitive cycle....

Linden should have read the room....if his boss wasn't interested in a rebuild then why push it to the point that it cost you your job?

The team wasn't ready for a rebuild because its scouting and player development departments lacked the expertise to manage a rebuild...

And rebuilds are an easy cop out, much easier to sell off players and draft kids who won't be ready for years rather than trying to manage your way back to contender status....

Take care...

I doesn't take a lot of speculation to think Benning said things in his interview that appealed to the Aqualinis, and then he executed. One takes a bit of speculation is Linden's role in the first place -- Presidents range from the real power positions (consider JR or Shanahan) in hockey ops to those primarily concerned with non hockey ops side of the house to those who are figureheads. It wouldn't surprise me if Linden was hired to be one type and fancied himself another (and not without reason).

Owners can can impose some parameters on individual player moves which may make things more difficult for a GM to maneuver, but it doesn't cut off the possibility for success because there are many ways to succeed (or fail). I presume either Benning pitched or ownership made clear that the club was not moving the Sedins. But beyond that, I suspect that it was Benning who pitched the initial plan he implemented.

That plan was this: the club was entirely without (good) prospects or young players (outside Horvat). The club could concentrate on concentrating assets in two or three future drafts (i.e., load up in the early rounds as we've seen some teams try) or it could look for ways to replace the drafts it missed out on (by bad drafting and trading picks) by acquiring B tier prospects and hope a couple outperform. Current and future assets would be used to deploy this strategy, but the current assets would being back draft assets such that there would still be valuable draft capital moving forward, just not extra capital. This was, I suspect, Benning's pitch, and that's what he executed.

And so he brought prospect forwards in Baertschi, Granlund, Vey, Etam (though he barely counts). He used draft capital/recent draftee capital that he acquired in dispensing some of the vets (e.g., Kesler Garrison, Bieksa) to make the plan work. With no defense in the system and only Edler and Tanev on the main roster, he also used those assets to try and build a top 4 by targeting early-to-mid 20s defensemen with high draft pedigree who were only 4-5 defensemen at the time through trade (Sbisa, Gudbrandson), hoping they'd develop.

I wrote a very long post one summer (I think in the posts that were lost to history) showing how this strategy was suboptimal, but wasn't nearly as bad as people claimed it to be in terms of probability of success -- mostly because people overvalue late first round, 2d and 3d round picks as compared with the assets who were acquired.

The "retool" didn't work; it didn't allow the Sedins to end their careers on a team that was at least fighting for a playoff spot. But the good news was that after Twitchy's first season (the Sedins last playoff appearance), it worked so poorly that the Canucks were in the bottom quarter of the league year in and year out -- one season finishing with the league's second worst record. But they had no lottery luck, and more than that, they missed too many times in the draft and maximizing draftee and asset value.

And tjhis, not the boogeyman of Aqualini, is where Benning failed. It was individual decisions more than the initial plan that held the Canucks back. None of the non-draft personnel decisions in Benning's first 4/5 seasons really worked out better than might be reasonably expected and some failed entirely.

The "Seas of Granlunds" produced a decent second line quality player in Baerstchi who was done in by injury and a coach that didn't trust his game (despite the fact he wasn't nearly as bad a 200' player as Greene thought). It also produced Granlund, who was a swiss army knife type nearly every team could use at his peak, but no team could build around. Vey was a bust. Etam was already a long shot. Put otherwise, Baertchi and Grandlund reached their reasonable projections, but neither exceeded and one failed to reach the reasonable projection. What if one of these players exceeded their expectations?

Then, the end of the Sedin-era assets are moved with Burrows and Hansen -- and again, the return is already drafted prospects. Goldobin was ready for the NHL but failed, thanks in no small part to the small-minded man coaching the team. Dahlen wasn't the viking his dad was, couldn't mentally deal with being in North America without a guaranteed shot at the NHL, and was turned into Linus Karlsson -- a guy that still might help the Canucks, and if nothing else, helped make Abby a place where prospects learned how to win.

The defense acquisitions failed. Sbisa never got above a 4-5, and though he really wasn't a terrible player, he had a hard ceiling, exposed to the best players (and got exposed in the expansion draft and became a Golden Knight....). Gudbrandson went from young flashing top 4 potential with the Panthers to a 6-7 caliber player being given top 4 minutes because there was no other choice. Trading a young forward for a young D wasn't a bad concept, but it ended up being the wrong D acquired and the wrong young forward traded (McCann instead of Virtanen).

If Sbisa has become a 3-4 and Gudbrandson a 2-3, the entire arc changes. What is a Forsling experiment had been run not a Hutton experiment -- and the Canucks showed patience with Forsling (which the Blackhawks didn't....)

Kesler-dividend, the slow-footed-but-smart Bonino and a second turned into younger speedy defensively responsible third-line center (and a third) who was an ironman and had shown flashes of goal scoring ability in Pittsburgh while not being deployed for those purposes. Maybe there was more?

Result: Years in the infirmary. Thus, an entire waste of a fairly decent asset. Wrong to go after a player of Suter's value, age, skill-set for that price? Not ex ante. Not a plan problem, and not really foreseeable. But it left the Canucks scrambling for sub-optimal replacements and then no asset to deal for value when the team was closer to competitive.

Then, there are the draft picks. The Canucks didn't overload their assets (because they implemented the plan above), but they also didn't trade away their prime draft assets until Miller (good trade!) and were beyond the initial plan. The record here is not bad, IMO, but it was one player short of what the Canucks needed. Just one!

Look at the obvious (in hindsight) misses from the pre-Miller trade days: Virtanen, Juolevi, Podkolzin (who's draft was the very end of the initial cycle). Impact players thought to be potential impact players were on the board. The hits all outperformed reasonable expectations IMO (Hughes, Pettersson, Boeser, Demko) -- even if there were other guys that would have also been good (except Hughes, he is the best player from that draft)). But what if one more of those misses had been a hit? What if McCann not Virtanen was moved? What if Virtanen was moved after his 19 goal season for Sam Bennett (a deal rumored to have been on the table).

On top of all this, Benning hired coaching that was somewhere between mediocre and bad. Greene had more things going for him than Twitchy, but I just can't believe how awful he was with young skill with warts in their game and what a weird boner he had for Josh Leivo (not young skill with warts in their game).

Now, despite missing all of these personnel decisions, the Canucks still were close to hitting a wave after the Miller acquisition. That's how good Boeser, Hughes, and Pettersson were above expectations, that's how good the goaltending was, that's the stability Tanev helped provide, that's the Miller bump. One more hit to this group from the draft; one more hit in the intial plan.... Imagine it.

What ultimately did Benning in was the unforced errors filling the roster for a million too much and a year too long for several players and the OEL acquisition that was going for two in the bush when there was one in the hand. Those year too long million too much moves -- Eriksson, Dorsett (who was LTIRed before we would ever see the folly, and thus he's a cult hero), Roussel, Beagle, Schaller -- the thing is, these moves were ancillary to the initial plan, and they were moves some form of which would be made whether personnel hit or didn't, but Benning was so bad at valuations that he was fighting the cap and needing sweetners move.

And the point of all of this is owners might influence the plan, but the plan wasn't the main problem. It was the personnel decisions. Some of that is luck as it always is. But some of it is on Benning, and very little of Benning's personnel misses can or should be laid at ownership's feet unless I am missing the story where OEL was Aquilani's folly and not Benning's white whale.

If ownership is to be blamed for something, it is not firing Benning sooner -- not because of the plan, but the execution.

Good post, UW - yes, lots of bargain bin shopping and nothing really panned out. One or 2 good moves back then would be a luxury to have now.

rikster wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 10:02 am

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 9:20 am

Lancer wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 8:12 am

Cornuck wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:58 am

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:41 am It seems to me that the Aqua boys are given a get out of jail free card here by “some”.

I don't think there's anyone here who would be sad to see an ownership change.

Imagine if Gagliardi had won the court case?

Who would have thought we would yearn for the days of arms-length ownership from McCaw and Orca Bay??

Notwithstanding the accomplishments of other GMs, but I would argue we never had a better ownership-management tandem as Canucks fans than MCaw/Orca Bay-Brian Burke.

I'm not sure that's really a highlight, though.

Frank Griffiths was the man. He didn’t meddle, same with Junior. Junior wasn’t a good businessman, he fucked up his capital by going after an NBA franchise. The arena was costly but he could’ve managed with better financial advisors, I think.

Geez Dude, it sounds like you're writing a fiction novel and trying to portray it as fact ....

Gagliardi is on record saying he doesn't believe in rebuilds so not sure if Linden would have had better luck trying to push that plan had he been reporting to Gagliardi and not Aqualini...

Just my opinion, but the days of teams attempting rebuilds are long over....there are very few, if any recent examples of planned rebuilds being succesful and when you hear of NHL expansion fees exceeding a billion dollars or teams like the Chicago Bears of the NFL being valued near $9 Billion its just too expensive to go thru a 5 to 10 year non competitive cycle....

Linden should have read the room....if his boss wasn't interested in a rebuild then why push it to the point that it cost you your job?

The team wasn't ready for a rebuild because its scouting and player development departments lacked the expertise to manage a rebuild...

And rebuilds are an easy cop out, much easier to sell off players and draft kids who won't be ready for years rather than trying to manage your way back to contender status....

Take care...

I should probably re-word it, semantics. “Patience” was what Linden was rumoured to have been requesting not so much “a rebuild”, and I think this had more to do with his feelings on the UFA signings from a couple weeks prior his stepping down - Beagle, Roussel and Schaller than him “wanting” to keep rebuilding. Dial it back a little is what he may have been suggesting?

From Aquas perspective- The Canucks had just endured 3 miserable seasons in a row and I gather the last thing the Aquas wanted to hear was “patience”, and from what we all gather, Benning agreed with the boss. I mean they had a decent stockpile of kids at the time - Demko, Horvat, Boeser, Pettersson and now Hughes to suggest some reasoning as to why the desire for a new direction after the Hughes draft.

Regarding the pulp fiction canuck noir novel I’m writing, Google Friedman reporting on Linden stepping down in the summer of 2018, it was he who reported Linden reaching out to other teams about their rebuilds.

At the end of the day, Linden was right. And also at the end of the day to add to that, that choice (direction) ultimately is on ownership and not Benning.

I should probably re-word it, semantics. “Patience” was what Linden was rumoured to have been requesting not so much “a rebuild”, and I think this had more to do with his feelings on the UFA signings from a couple weeks prior his stepping down - Beagle, Roussel and Schaller than him “wanting” to keep rebuilding. Dial it back a little is what he may have been suggesting?

From Aquas perspective- The Canucks had just endured 3 miserable seasons in a row and I gather the last thing the Aquas wanted to hear was “patience”, and from what we all gather, Benning agreed with the boss. I mean they had a decent stockpile of kids at the time - Demko, Horvat, Boeser, Pettersson and now Hughes to suggest some reasoning as to why the desire for a new direction after the Hughes draft.

Regarding the pulp fiction canuck noir novel I’m writing, Google Friedman reporting on Linden stepping down in the summer of 2018, it was he who reported Linden reaching out to other teams about their rebuilds.

At the end of the day, Linden was right. And also at the end of the day to add to that, that choice (direction) ultimately is on ownership and not Benning.

Remember that Linden was a PR hire and not a merit hire, you could argue that he was a bad hire from the beginning because of his lack of managment experience aside from his work with the PA...

He had no experience in running a team let alone pulling off a rebuild and his hockey ops department was woefully short on talent and bodies...

Regarding the Beagle and Rousell type of signings, when a team is in a non competitive stage in it's cycle its a given that character signings cost more than their on ice value because their value is in the room and you have to overpay to aquire them....

For me, the argument is to ice a roster full of unproven kids many of whom are not ready to play in the NHL and some will never become full time NHL'rs or sign players past their best before date who can help mentor the kids off the ice...

Not sure who he would have talked to about a rebuild or what value those teams would have provided considering no team has executed a succesful rebuild during the time Linden was President of Hockey Ops...

With franchise valuations going thru the roof and the outlook for them to continue to increase along with a rapidly rising salary cap, the Aqualini's are looking like a mom and pop ownership group....

More and more private equity and wealthy partners are needed to purchase and operate pro sports teams, would love to be a fly on the wall during an Aqualini family meeting to learn how profitable the Canucks are and if the team is a cash cow for their other business operations or maybe just the opposite, the other businesses keep the hockey team afloat...

Will they bring on a wealthy partner to finance the buyout of the brother and look to bring the NBA back to Vancouver?

Take care...

Trevor Linden had as much experience running an NHL hockey club as Michael “The Players Agent” Gillis had running an NHL hockey club when he was hired. The list of teams hiring inexperienced GM’s and Presidents is plentiful. Trevor was in fact hired as the President of Hockey Operations, officially, replacing the recently fired Mike Gillis who held that position. Optically, the hire was two-fold, a PR move as well - since we all know - Trevor had the keys to the city prior to his ousting from the esteemed and storied position he held briefly.

The remaining constant, both of these first time hockey club operators Gillis and Linden were removed from their positions for proposing “patience” or a “rebuild” of some kind. And in the end, after the dust had settled, who was/were right? Certainly not the Aqualini’s and their “yes man”. We’ve got clowns for owners.

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 2:37 pm Trevor Linden had as much experience running an NHL hockey club as Michael “The Players Agent” Gillis had running an NHL hockey club when he was hired. The list of teams hiring inexperienced GM’s and Presidents is plentiful. Trevor was in fact hired as the President of Hockey Operations, officially, replacing the recently fired Mike Gillis who held that position. Optically, the hire was two-fold, a PR move as well - since we all know - Trevor had the keys to the city prior to his ousting from the esteemed and storied position he held briefly.

The remaining constant, both of these first time hockey club operators Gillis and Linden were removed from their positions for proposing “patience” or a “rebuild” of some kind. And in the end, after the dust had settled, who was/were right? Certainly not the Aqualini’s and their “yes man”. We’ve got clowns for owners.

That doesn't mean that Linden was a good hire...

He was hired for PR reasons and when it came to managing the team he couldn't sell his vision or his abilities to pull off his plan and once he decided to dig his heels in he was gone would be my guess...

Not sure why you are so dug in supporting Linden?

Take care...

rikster wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 4:54 pm
Not sure why you are so dug in supporting Linden?

Take care...

I'm not sure why every event or transaction has to have a clear winner and loser. It's all black or white. How in my short liftime have we gone away from rewarding success with medals to participation ribbons for everyone and now to this wierd state where life cannot just happen, but we need to have a clear winner and loser, and a clear set of victims to every single daily event. I kinda blame youtube/tiktok for all the "person X DESTROYS person Y" crap. Linden, imnsho, has been caught up in this crap. I thought he had a good vision for the team. The rest of management disagreed and dumped him. So what. And, why are we still talking about this.

rikster wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 10:02 am Linden should have read the room....if his boss wasn't interested in a rebuild then why push it to the point that it cost you your job?

The team wasn't ready for a rebuild because its scouting and player development departments lacked the expertise to manage a rebuild...

And rebuilds are an easy cop out, much easier to sell off players and draft kids who won't be ready for years rather than trying to manage your way back to contender status....

Take care...

He did read the room.....2 of them. They were the locker rooms in Vancouver and Utica. At the end of the 2017-18 season, both of them were screaming rebuild.

2017-18 Canucks Roster Stats

Linden parted ways with the Canucks in July of 2025. The Sedins had told the team they were done. Boeser and Bo were about to be the new leading faces in the top-6 of the forward group, Baertschi was coming off a decent (albeit shortened) season, and Tanev was the steady defender who had only managed to be healthy for half the year. Virtanen was looking like a solid bust already, Juolevi clearly had not panned out, Demko had played 1 NHL game and did not look NHL ready, and Markstrom was still a question mark letting in the first shot of the game, though still with probably upside.

Pettersson was a maybe for the NHL the following season, but despite a very good showing in the SHL, he was a bean pole who many expected would have a hard time transitioning to the rigours of the NHL game. Hughes had just been drafted, and was considered to be a very good prospect who would be a small, dynamic, offensive d-man and PP QB.

There were pieces that could have been moved with an eye to the future.

If Linden believed in Pettersson and Hughes, then the call to rebuild around them (with Horvat and Boeser already in place) was the right decision.

Instead the Canucks decided to "manage their way back to contender status".....and 7 years later we have a single playoff appearance (the Edmonton bubble doesn't count) to show for it which was followed up by a complete collapse the next season.

He knew ownership didn't have patience for the rebuild, but he stuck to his convictions and walked the plank. You may ask why he pushed to the point that it cost him his job, but when the job you have is not one that you financially need, and it is more about legacy and building something the way you believe to be right, well then you stick to your guns or you wash your hands of it.

Benning either waffled on the rebuild to keep his job, or he thought he was up to the task of managing his way out of 1st round misses, a couple of trade blunders, and some poor signings. He was dead wrong and the team has suffered because of it.

Hockey Widow wrote: ↑Tue Aug 26, 2025 9:03 pm It may go a little deeper than Bending just being a puppet. In the end he failed to back Linden. Linden wanted a slower approach, a 5 year plan, to rebuild with patience through the draft. Benning did the yes man thing to the Aquas and left Linden out to dry.

I would agree with this. It too bad, I think Trev was the one who picked JB for the job in the 1st place. We had the draft genius in position, yet ownership didn't have the patience and wanted a quick retool.

His big mistake imho was in the Lindholm trade. Almost everyone knew it was a waste of assets. But what are you going to do. 5 Allstars, leading in the Pacific, they got caught in the headlights.

We did pay a lot for Lindholm and even at the time, I was like that's a big pay, but I dunno. That 23-24 team pretty much had everything and I'm not sure if we'll see another Nucks team that good and deep for a long time. I liked the way that team was built more than the 2011 team in fact. A Vezina calibre backstop, 1 elite star D-man surrounded by a bunch of big doods on our D-core and 3 star centres down the middle . Don't think any of our teams in franchise history had an elite star D-man and 3 star centres. Unfortunately, we hit some bad luck that did hurt our chances in that playoff run. The Demmer injury forced us to go with our 2 backups, our 3rd stringer in fact. Worst timing on the Brockstar injury, he was hot too. Maybe the biggest factor that hurt us was that EP40 lost his mojo/confidence/scoring touch. Despite all that, we still almost knocked off the Oilers and had a chance to go all the way. It would have been nice if that team had a larger window, it could have become legendary for this franchise's history.

We all knew that when we acquired Lindholm, the odds of him resigning with us was very slim. He stepped up his game in the playoffs and pretty much sealed the fact that he would be done here. As we all know, the sad turn of events is that we would go on to lose JT Miller half way through the season following as well. Right now, I'm ok with the Lindholm move. Mgmt saw an opening and they went for it; we might not see another opening like that for awhile. Kuzzy is a skilled winger, but he seems to be bouncing around a bit now and the Kings wouldn't give him more than a 1 yr deal. I think the Flames didn't even bother to retain Jurmo. Still too early to say on Brzustewicz and that 1st rounder and if one or both of those guys turn out to be star calibre players, then that deal would really hurt. Right now, I'm good with the trade and can live with it.

rikster wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 10:02 am Linden should have read the room....if his boss wasn't interested in a rebuild then why push it to the point that it cost you your job?

At the end of the day, Trev didn't really need this job. He made his millions during his playing days and he has other ventures outside hockey that are probably more profitable over his Team President title. I'm glad he stuck to his convictions and had no interest in becoming a "yes" man.

Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 9:20 am Frank Griffiths was the man. He didn’t meddle, same with Junior. Junior wasn’t a good businessman, he fucked up his capital by going after an NBA franchise.

Man, a part of me wishes Arthur Griffiths was able to hold on to the NBA franchise. If he was simply able to break even and make it work for all those years and keep the Grizz till now, he would be laughing and have $$$ coming out of his ass. His story is like seeing a guy forced to sell a west-side mansion for pennies in the early 2000s, but that mansion is worth a fortune now.