With Green retained, bigger tasks remain on Benning's to-do list

VANCOUVER – The most important thing general manager Jim Benning did Friday was provide some clarity about the Vancouver Canucks’ path to next season from this one.

But the message he delivered in his year-end press conference, shared on Zoom with newly re-signed head coach Travis Green, was also about the easiest thing for Benning to knock off his to-do list heading into a difficult summer.

Shacked financially by owners during the fan-less pandemic season in Canada that ended for the Canucks with a last-place finish in the North Division, Benning told reporters he will be given the authority and resources needed to improve the team.

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Benning pledged to be aggressive in upgrading the roster, be it through trade, free agency or buying out contracts — an option that didn’t appear available to the GM before the season as managing owner Francesco Aquilini cleared staff and reduced spending.

The new mandate seems starkly different as the organization tries to regain its competitiveness and restore consumer confidence before the 2021-22 season begins in October. But Benning’s promise of aggressiveness still causes some trepidation among fans, who have witnessed the GM’s biggest mistakes in free agency.

And even if the Aquilini family allows hockey operations to spend more, the NHL won’t. The $81.5-million salary cap remains flat and the Canucks, depending on how you project their players already under contract, have only about $16 million of space for next season. Nearly all of this could be required for bridge deals for emerging stars Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes, restricted free agents coming out of their entry-level contracts.

“Ownership has given us the resources to do whatever we need to do to get back to where we want to be next season — and that’s a playoff team,” Benning said. “So, buyouts are going to be part of our strategy this summer to save cap space. We’re going to be aggressive in the trade front and in free agency. We want to add speed, depth to our forward group.

“I thought maybe this year, some of the players that we thought were going to take the next step in their development, some 23-, 24-year-old guys that we thought would be able to kind of keep moving forward and take more responsibility, that didn’t happen. That’s on me. Going forward, we’re going to make sure that we have these good young core pieces in place (and) that we surround them with some veteran guys and some guys in that age group that can help them keep getting better. We need more scoring depth. We’re going to work on all those things in the off-season.”

Buyouts appear to be a vital tool for Benning to create the financial flexibility needed to pursue trades or free agents. The final year and $6-million average cap hit on Loui Eriksson’s contract is largely buyout-proof, but the Canucks would get cap relief by shedding the final season under contract for Antoine Roussel ($3 million AAV), Jay Beagle ($3 million) or backup goalie Braden Holtby ($4.3 million).

The Canucks have other financial wild cards.

Jake Virtanen’s contract calling for one more season at $2.55 million could be terminated pending the result of police and independent investigations into sexual-assault allegations that led the Canucks to place the winger on indefinite leave on May 1.

It’s also possible that Eriksson, who was not marched to minor-league Utica, N.Y., this season despite appearing in only seven of 56 games for the Canucks, could walk away from the final $3 million of his $36-million contract after the last installment on his signing bonus is paid in July.

“I’m not going to sit here and say it’s going to be an easy summer,” Benning said. “We have a lot of work to do.

“We’re going to explore all of our options. We’re not going to close ourselves off on anything. There’s lots of work to be done.”

Benning’s messaging filled the vacuum he created by largely disappearing from public view amid intense criticism during the Canucks’ 23-29-4 season, which was a stunning regression from last summer’s breakthrough when Vancouver not only made the Stanley Cup tournament for the first time in five years, but eliminated the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues for the franchise’s first post-season success since 2011.

The work back towards respectability started with confirmation Friday morning that head coach Travis Green had agreed to a new two-year-contract after being marooned this season without an extension.

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Benning said he will be working over the next week on retaining Green’s assistant coaches, although this sudden urgency to retain staff may be too late to save goaltending coach Ian Clark, who is widely regarded as one of the best in the NHL and certainly isn’t agreeing to re-sign for just two years after the Canucks committed in March to pay starting goalie Thatcher Demko $25 million over the next five seasons.

Both Demko and Holtby made extraordinary public pleas this week for the Canucks to retain Clark, who could become the highest-paid goaltending coach in the NHL.

“I wouldn’t have signed back here if I didn’t believe in what we’re doing and what we’re capable of doing and where we’re going,” Green said. “I want to win. And that’s why I signed back here. I didn’t sign back here just to get two more years of coaching in the NHL. I know Jim, I know our ownership are committed to winning. Hey, we own this season. It didn’t go the way we wanted it to. I can understand how people would be frustrated with the year.

“Our group needs to evaluate, we need to make changes. But there’s only one reason I signed back here: because I believe that we can win with this group.”

There is an impressive foundation to build on: Pettersson, Hughes, Demko, Brock Boeser, Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller, with prospects Nils Hoglander, Jack Rathbone and Vasili Podkolzin capable of joining this core group.

But the challenge for the Canucks, as it was after last season, is to build out the lineup, to deepen the scoring depth and strengthen the blue line.

“When you have a year like we had this year. … it makes it easy to say you’ve got to get better in a lot of areas,” Green said. “To just sit here and just say, ‘Hey, we just need to make our bottom six better?’ Well, we’ve got to make our team better. We’re going to have to evaluate our team, which we will do after we get to decompress a little bit after the season, and do a thorough evaluation of our group. And then it’s committing to making the changes that we need. I’ve said it all year, that we want guys that just want to win, and are willing to do whatever it takes to win. And it’s not just the players, it’s everyone in the organization.”

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