Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
I wonder if people would even bother to consider that:
- He never played PP1 unlike most young instant success stories going to thin rosters
- His #1/#2 even strength icetime linemates were not career established 3rd/4th liners Alex Chiasson and Troy Brouwer (this reeks of those Backlund/Bouma years. See what getting Backs away from Bouma did for the lone top six forward in that combo? Or what getting Kuznetsov away from Brouwer did? Or how much even Turris struggled eith Chiasson? )
- His #3 even strength ice time teammate was not career #6/#7 defenseman Deryk Engelland. When your D-man spends all his shifts defending as a career trend, you are likely to be spending all your shifts defending.
- He (or/and Tkachuk btw) were ever used in 4v4 or 3v3 situations instead of a certain career 3rd/4th liner who is simply awful in those situations.
If that is peoples' idea of a player being set up to succeed "because of 60% zone starts" I would point to Leon Draisaitl's zone starts as a rookie under Eakins. Zone starts are not highly correlated with individual success the way quality of teammate is. I am sure the Chiasson/Brouwer/Engelland(/Jokipakka) defense brigade will eyeroll at me for my dislike of players whose only role is to fulfil aesthetics but that same Draisaitl has played with Patrick Maroon, Connor McDavid, and Adam Larsson as his three 5v5 ice time linemate leaders, three excellent players instead lf three players who could get injured tomorrow and be replaced by someone off our struggling farm team without batting an eyelash. Last year, when he was 20, it was Hall, Purcell, and Sekera. Purcell's pretty soft, but Hall is a superstar and Sekera is a dependable and offensively capable #3.
The Flames can afford to protect Bennett from high quality of competition because Backlund, Stajan, and more recently, even Monahan have been pretty solid at center. But that does not excuse them setting Bennett up to fail nonetheless. Our right wing depth and (usual) 3rd defense pairing are by most modern measures atrocious. If Bennett had Hall and Sekera on the ice with him at all times I do not think he would be struggling this season. And while the Gaudreau experiment did not pay dividends, that was as much on the RW/D/Gaudreau himself playing unspectacularily as it was on on Bennett. Gaudreau hasn't exactly looked great at 5v5 with Monahan either.
I mean, the best persisting linemate Bennett has had this year is actually Kris Versteeg. A guy who, during training camp, was on a PTO.
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I don't like these excuses.
1) Being on the #2PP unit means you're facing the #2 PK unit.
2) These lousy teammates that Bennett's been playing with have been more successful than Bennett. And which roster carries a load of elite talents in all top 9 spots? And which roster decides to put it's struggling young talents on its top lines?
What's would you do? Give Bennett the two best line mates and face them against other teams 4th lines, just to give Bennett better numbers? That would mean the Flames 4th line gets scored on when it faces the opponents good lines. The Flames are trying to compete, not inflate one player's numbers. If Bennett can't produce 5-on-5 against 3rd line competition, that's not a good sign.
3) There's worse 3rd pairings in the league than Engelland and Jokipakka. People can't at the same time suggest we resign Engelland and then suggest he's no good when it's convenient. No roster is going to have Norris candidates on its 3rd pair. Especially if a team drafted a 4th OA pick - chances are their roster sucks. But other 4th OA picks still manage to become star players