[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Not sure about Polak's argument, my position is not the same as his. My argument is that AS Bennett's development as a center is ignored in favor of only Monahan's development, we should lower our expectations of Bennett and put our eggs into the Monahan basket, whatever that may be.

I don't know how you come to this conclusion. Each player has their own development track. Right now, Monahan has 3 years under his belt at center in the NHL, and has been progressing well, but seems to have hit a stumbling block this year, possibly due to a lingering back injury that hasn't fully gone away, but isn't bad enough to keep him out of the lineup.

Bennett's development at center has been much more problematic, especially defensively, and his style of game is possibly much more suited to the wing than center. It allows him to be very aggressive in the offensive zone, which is when he's at his best. His aggressive tendency has also led to a lot of bad chances the other way so far this year. He seemed to be a little better last year, but this is a brand new system.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the team has played better defensively 5 on 5 since he was moved to the wing. He was getting outplayed regularly by the opposition and taking a lot of bad penalties. He needed a change.

The kid is so young that it's likely they will revisit the center thing once he's shown some consistency both offensively and defensively at wing. It's not dissimilar to the Galchenyuk situation.

Right now Mark Jankowski is being developed as a center better than Bennett. Yes, I'd rather see Bennett in the AHL than third line left wing, where he's neither gaining offensive confidence as a forward playing with Chiasson and Stajan against NHLers nor is he learning his responsibilities at his natural position.

Mark Jankowski is also a few years older than Bennett and had the benefit of a slow development track in college. He's also not an NHL player just yet, where Sam Bennett already is and has a full season under his belt with decent production and development. Sending him to the AHL at this point is completely counterproductive, so I have no idea why you think it would help him.

And stop using the "he doesn't have quality linemates" argument. It's bullcrap. They're still NHL players, and if he can't play an effective game with NHL players, that's on him. He doesn't have to score points, but he can still create chances and limit the opposition when he's on the ice.

I can't think of any franchise center who played regularily on the 3rd line, particularily at wing at that. One or the other, occasionally, sure. Never both. This isn't about Bennett's talents for me. It's about the likely outcome of his development. There is no commitment to his development. Bennett is effectively behind Gaudreau and Tkachuk on the depth chart at LW, and he's apparently behind Stajan, Backlund, and Monahan at centre. Somewhere along the way his development was discarded in favor of.. I'm not sure what, because it ain't wins.

Bull#### again. You don't have a crystal ball to determine his future, and you have no insight on the team's plan, but you're assuming that they're not trying to develop him. Why the #### would they be intentionally trying to hurt his development? If he's behind those players at the moment it's because he hasn't shown enough to deserve anything more.

And if you're worried that he'll never be an effective NHL player because of where he's playing currently, let me just say that just 2 years ago Backlund looked like he had topped out as a very mediocre 3rd or 4th line center. Now he looks like a possession darling 2nd line center that makes all of his line mates better. That change happened very rapidly at the age of 25. Sam Bennett is 20. He's got a long way to go before he even approaches 3rd liner territory.

There's no guarantee Bennett was ever going to be a franchise center, no more than Sam Reinhart was ever going to be a franchise center. They're both having the same impact on their teams in roughly the same spot in the lineup right now. I don't think Reinhart's development is being hindered by it.

As for my posts going downhill this year, it's too bad you feel that way but I am simply calling it like I see it. This team won't go anywhere unless they either commit fully to actually rebuilding (as Feaster did) or worse, they blow it up (which I don't trust this management to do well). As is we're on a treadmill, albeit a bottom five treadmill. I can take anything as a sports fan except the treadmill. This team is hitting the same treadmill the Maple Leafs did under Burke. They didn't improve their long term prospects until Burke, Carlyle, and Nonis were all gone.

This is the worst of it all. You really think this team is on a treadmill? You really think they need to blow it up? We're just ending the first stage of rebuilding a franchise that was torn down to the ashes. We are just starting to see the fruits of that rebuild enter a period where they are just beginning to "jog" as Burke puts it. There's still plenty of prospects to work their way onto the team in the future, and they're learning how to play a winning system, but it's still a work in progress.


I mean seriously, you should probably stop posting for a while, because this is bordering on non-sensical drivel. You're not even using any stats to back up anything anymore, which is at least something you provided in the past in order to give some reason to your more extreme viewpoints. Now you're just a rambling angry fan with nothing intelligent to add.