Quote:
Originally Posted by saillias
The "shelter." The Oilers can't shelter Draisaitl. The Flames shelter Monahan by having Matt Stajan for defensive zone starts. And just take a shift to go be Matt Stajan, work for some pucks, make some scrappy plays, take a huge hit, your rookies go "woah that guy is going to get himself killed but that is how hard i have to work to make it."
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Nailed it!
Plus I am happy with Stajan mentoring Monahan & Bennett - he seems like he would be good at it for all sorts of reasons including the one you pointed out.
I remember watching an interview with Monahan last season, wish I could find it online, but essentially the question was who has taught you the most since you joined the pros and his answer was Stajan. Monahan then got into the details about how Stajan was really helping him work on getting better at faceoffs and defensive positioning and just creating a better overall game in the NHL and guess what it is paying off.
Now Stajan probably doesn't deserve all the credit but if Monahan thinks Stajan is making him a better player and he can do the same with Bennett = keep him.