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Benning takes heat after admitting he could’ve traded Miller

Ryan Miller

Ryan Miller

AP

A curious thing happened Thursday night during a town hall for Canucks ticketholders:

The GM got booed.

Jim Benning, who’s already come under fire this offseason, took some serious heat after admitting that -- rather than dealing popular backup goalie Eddie Lack -- he could’ve traded away veteran starter Ryan Miller.

More, from The Province:

Up to now, most believed the Canucks didn’t have many options when it came to their goalies.

Turns out, they had all the options.

“We could have moved Ryan Miller,” Benning revealed matter-of-factly. “There were teams calling on Ryan Miller.”

Benning was cut off by boos. Something that happened a couple of times.

He did not waver. He double downed in his belief in Miller, pointing out his high win total this year and reiterated that he wants a veteran as his No. 1 and a young goalie as his backup.

The Lack trade -- Benning sent the 27-year-old to Carolina at the draft in exchange for a third round pick this year and a seventh-rounder next year -- was widely critiqued by Canucks fans, who liked the personable Swede and didn’t like the middling return.

There was also widespread belief that, after backstopping the Canucks to the playoffs last year while Miller was injured, Lack would’ve been a capable and less expensive ($1.15M to Miller’s $6M) starter for a Vancouver team that appears to be in a transitional phase anyway.

Some saw Lack as the better goalie than Miller, period.

Benning, though, never saw it that way. The Province notes that a Lack-Jacob Markstrom tandem “was never going to be a thing” under this regime, and Benning essentially said the ‘Canes brought Lack in to be Cam Ward’s backup.

Which now makes the Carolina situation one worth monitoring. Should Lack wrestle the gig away from Ward and have success in a different market, it’ll only further stoke the flames under Benning’s chair.

Related

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