Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle
A player who has never played an NHL game is NEVER an automatic upgrade over players who have proven they can play in this league in the past. People keep saying this and it blows my mind.
He MAY very well be an upgrade right away, and he'll VERY LIKELY be a big upgrade in fairly short order, but the counting of the chickens before they've hatched around here is ridiculous. I get it, Monahan and Gaudreau have worked out swimmingly, but even Gaudreau needed some baking time and was walking the finest line between the AHL and NHL to start this year. The Flames are in a playoff push, this is not game 1 of the season, there is likely some very real concern at the moment that Bennett is as ready to go as the names you mentioned above.
And despite all that, Hartley has also shown he doesn't often throw players out their until they've had some time to practice and get use to the system a little, Bennett might not be ready yet for that reason and that reason alone.
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Point taken. And yea, maybe he's not NHL ready. But considering how ice cold guys like Raymond have been lately, I hope they give Bennett a shot. I think the energy he'd bring could do wonders for our secondary scoring.