Canucks’ Benning brutally compared to former Oilers’ Chiarelli

The 2020-21 season has just kept creeping into the 2021-22 calendar for the Vancouver Canucks: they sit second-last in the Pacific Division and the fanbase is growing angry as the promises made by GM Jim Benning eight years ago when he took over the club aren’t leading the team anywhere while costing it multiple high-draft picks and all of its cap flexibility

While at the moment, Darren Dreger is not reporting any major changes coming to Vancouver, seeing that Benning “shielding himself away from the media, from the noise outside,” a lot is said about the general manager.

On Wednesday morning, the Vancouver is Awesome website compared him to former GM Peter Chiarelli went his ran the Edmonton Oilers. Yes, that is quite the insult. Check it out:

“Benning was Chiarelli’s right-hand man with the Boston Bruins and their tenures in Vancouver and Edmonton bear a strong similarity to each other. The Canucks are just a few years behind the Oilers.

In the 2017 playoffs, the Oilers made the playoffs after missing for multiple years. They went on a strong run, coming one game away from the Western Conference Final on the back of some fantastic goaltending by Cam Talbot.

In the 2020 playoffs, the Canucks made the playoffs after missing for multiple years. They went on a strong run, coming one game away from the Western Conference Final on the back of some fantastic goaltending by Thatcher Demko.

Both thought they were a team on the rise, only to completely collapse the following season, not even coming close to the playoffs. It was even more disappointing for the Oilers, who were expected to be Stanley Cup contenders, but it was also a crushing year for the Canucks.

Chiarelli didn’t lose his job after the Oilers’ disappointing 2017-18 season. Neither did Benning after the 2019-20 season…”

The site keeps pointing out that a coaching change did very little to help the Oilers back then and that bad trades were finally what took Chiarelli out of Edmonton.

Are fans supposed to expect trades from the Canucks to quickly improve the roster? If yes, are we sure they will be more successful than the ones Chiarelli pulled before he got the boot?

We better keep a close eye on this…