NHL: Ranking Each Team’s General Manager

Jim Benning of the Vancouver Canucks is the punching bag of hockey twitter. He has a reputation of being one of the worst NHL general managers out there. For the most part, it’s a well deserved reputation. Trading Nick Bonino, Adam Clendening and a second round pick for Brandon Sutter didn’t work out too well. Canucks fans already want a mulligan on the Loui Eriksson contract and the ink on it only recently became dry.

As one of Benning’s biggest haters, allow me to say he’s been doing a much better job as of late. He seems to have finally committed to a rebuild. Benning has done a particularly good job in trades, getting his prospect pipeline full of some exciting players. He needs to keep doing smart things that rebuilding teams do in order to keep rising on this list. Next up on his to do list: Bo Horvat’s extension and sweet talking the Sedin twins into accepting a trade.

Kevin Cheveldayoff of the Winnipeg Jets might have been the hardest general manager to judge. One could make an argument that he’s above average and one could also make the argument he’s among the league’s worst. Let’s take a look at both sides.

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Working in his favor is how much talent the Jets have. Patrik Laine, Mark Scheifele, Jacob Trouba, Dustin Byfuglien, Blake Wheeler, Nikolaj Ehlers and Bryan Little is a core most general managers would be jealous of. Cheveldayoff deserves a ton of credit for putting this core together.

On the other hand, there are some very obvious problems with the Jets. The biggest ones are goaltending and coaching.

For a while, Cheveldayoff didn’t do anything to fix either. This offseason, he has signed Steve Mason, who is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get. It’s baffling why Cheveldayoff hasn’t fired Paul Maurice yet. Better coaches have been fired for much less.

Don Sweeney‘s tenure with the Boston Bruins has basically been a continuation of Peter Chiarelli. He has drafted quite well, but it’s worth noting the scouts are probably more responsible for this than Sweeney. Under Sweeney, the Bruins have missed the playoffs once and had a first round exit.

The biggest issue with him is asset management. Sweeney doesn’t effectively value players, whether it be in trades or free agency. Signing David Backes was a baffling move at the time, and it’s even more baffling now. This is hindsight, but why the heck didn’t he trade Loui Eriksson? Get something for your (at the time) very good forward rather than lose him for nothing.

Sweeney’s fate will rely heavily on the young players the Bruins have drafted. Why? Because Boston has several huge roster spots to fill this offseason and the best player he has signed so far was in the AHL for most of last season.