It’s been nearly four years since the Vancouver Canucks fired general manager Jim Benning.

Even though he’s been gone for four years, the newest Canucks management team is seemingly on the verge of making Benning-esque missteps.

“They don’t want draft picks,” CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal said during Wednesday’s episode of Donnie and Dhali. “They want to stay competitive.”

Those last five words could have sent weary Canucks fans in a time machine back to the Benning era. His list of rushed, win-now moves read like a litany of Stephen King Horror novels for Canucks fans.

“So they trade everybody for draft picks, then what happens? Then you’ve got to obviously go right into a rebuild,” Dhaliwal explained.

“It’s not what management is thinking right now,” he continued. “They’re trying to get good players in return.”

Prioritizing current NHL players over futures and draft picks? It’s a strategy that’s burned the Canucks before.

Heck, it’s torched the Canucks in the past 12 months.

Moves like flipping an unprotected first-round pick for Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor showed an unwillingness to take a patient, long-term approach. Canucks GM Patrik Allvin chose to hold onto Brock Boeser and Pius Suter at the deadline rather than trade them, in a futile effort to make the playoffs.

It’s almost as if the ghost of Benning never left Rogers Arena.

Benning said he would turn the team around in a hurry. He tried and failed.

Are the Canucks doomed to repeat history?

Right now, the Canucks need to face reality, as they sit near the bottom of the NHL standings.

They promoted Adam Foote in an attempt to keep the defensive structure in place with a familiar face, but that plan has completely backfired.

Even with Quinn Hughes on the roster and Elias Pettersson playing at a higher level than last season, they aren’t anywhere close to contention.

Injuries have contributed to their problems, but that only highlights the team’s lack of depth.

It seems clear that the Canucks need to start over and rebuild.

Why the Canucks need to rebuild

The Canucks have informed teams that their veteran players are available, and most expect trades to follow.

But will they rebuild in a meaningful way that can lead to a Stanley Cup championship? Or will they attempt to take shortcuts in an attempt to rebuild on the fly?

A recent report that the Canucks are interested in players like Zach Bolduc and Owen Tippett suggests that they are leaning towards shortcuts, once again.

It’s a story we’ve seen in Vancouver before.

Bolduc is a fine young player, but will the Canucks actually be able to contend with him on the roster?

Or how about Tippett, who turns 27 later this season?

It seems unlikely.

This is not a team on the precipice of winning that just needs one or two more pieces.

While the Canucks entered this season as a relatively young team, the core of this team is no longer young.

Hughes is now 26. Pettersson is 27. Filip Hronek and Brock Boeser are both 28. Marcus Pettersson, Jake DeBrusk, Conor Garland and Thatcher Demko are all 29.

This core is closer to being a bottom-feeder than a playoff team, and it’s time management is honest with itself.

While the shortcut route is tempting for a lot of teams, it’s not typically how you build a contender.

The Colorado Avalanche experienced a few painful seasons, which led to them drafting Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar.

How about the Florida Panthers? They built around their drafted pillars of Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad by stockpiling assets before acquiring guys such as Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett via trade.

Can you imagine if the Canucks followed a similar script to build around Hughes and Pettersson?

Instead of stockpiling assets, Allvin and Rutherford quickly flipped first-round picks in deals for Hronek and Marcus Pettersson.

There’s also the Montreal Canadiens. Not only did they stockpile good, young players through the draft, but two of their core pieces came from future-looking trades.

In 2018, they traded Max Pacioretty to the Vegas Golden Knights in a deal that got them Nick Suzuki.

In 2022, they traded Brett Kulak to the Edmonton Oilers for two draft picks, one of which turned into Lane Hutson.

How many draft picks and intriguing prospects could the Canucks net if they start trading players without trade protection, such as Kiefer Sherwood, Drew O’Connor and Garland?

And, if the team stinks, would players with no-move clauses, such as Boeser, DeBrusk or Hronek, be willing to waive?

We’ve seen the Canucks try to take shortcuts for more than a decade, both with recent moves by Allvin and, of course, from nearly eight years of Benning in Vancouver.

At this point, if the Canucks are going to start trading guys, they need to do so with an eye to the future. And, if Quinn Hughes is truly leaving, no one on this roster should be untouchable.