SUNRISE, Fla. — It’s just as well people never actually built that statue of Jim Benning a year ago when the Vancouver Canucks’ general manager returned from his first draft after making four trades, including one that solved his Ryan Kesler migraine, to re-energize the organization.
The absence of a statue saved an angry mob the trouble of tearing it down on the weekend.
Benning went to his second draft as GM with only five picks, but left South Florida Sunday with seven newly-drafted players. It was a geographically unconventional draft — two Americans from the United States Hockey League, two defencemen from Quebec, forwards from Russia and the Czech Republic — but a plentiful one for the Canucks.