[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Geeoff

That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to have high expectations for a player drafted 4th overall.

Having high expectations for a player drafted 4th overall is fine.

Keying in on results in small sample sizes in a role that's detrimental to results to feed your agenda, not so much.

Bennett is on our 3rd line. He's not really playing with Gaudreau and he's not really playing with Tkachuk - our two 1st line wingers.

Bennett plays on our 2nd PP, which plays about half as often as our 1st PP and often spends a bigger portion of its shift carrying the puck in.

He could be a 1st overall pick but these elements of his role aren't going to change. Same applies to other guys - Jankowski for instance.

Plus, we've been spoiled with players like Monahan and Tkachuk who came right out of the top 10 in the draft and started putting up numbers out of the gate.

Both Tkachuk and Monahan were different situations.

Tkachuk came to a team that needed a true 1st line winger. Further, Tkachuk was coached from childhood by a former NHLer, the details of his game never needed as much work. He ended up going to Backlund/Frolik to give us two scoring lines.

Monahan was a different situation. There was a hole down the middle. In 2013-14, Matt Stajan was essentially our first line center. This kind of blatant immediate gap allowed us to put Monahan in situations to fail. Did people forget that Monahan was a minus 20 as a rookie? +/- may not mean much but that's pretty indicative of the leash Monahan was allowed - it was okay for the team to be bad and missing the playoffs was not only the expectation but deep down we knew we needed a high draft pick that year. His second year as a center, Monahan took some strides forward, but again, the need presented itself. Matt Stajan got hurt. Mikael Backlund missed half the season. Suddenly the minutes were there as well as the opportunity. Monahan also had a six game pointless streak. And finally Bob Hartley's system was far more forgiving of centers, not asking them to come back down low to support their D, which allowed Monahan to focus on the "easy" part to evaluate - scoring.

When Bennett's rookie year started, the expectations were immediately different. Playoffs were expected, and anything short was considered a failure. That got Bennett thrown on the wing the moment he made a mistake at center (A Colorado game, I remember the specific mistake pretty distinctly). We also needed a winger that year for Backlund, who wasn't doing to well to open the year with Lance Bouma as his LW. So Bennett was moved to center in a bid to make the playoffs - a situation that never happened to Monahan because playoffs were a pipe dream. The very day our playoff hopes died with a loss, I think to the Coyotes, Bennett was moved back to center. But he wasn't competing with Stajan and an unproven Backlund. He was competing with Monahan and an established Backlund.

Because of Monahan's evolution into a 60 point center and the evolution of Backlund into a bonafide top center, Bennett is on a team that no longer "needs" a top center. Neither of these players have gotten injured the way Stajan and Backlund did in 2014. I want to see what Bennett can do between Tkachuk and Frolik, or with extended (not half a game) time with Gaudreau. But that's not an option and expecting it to be is unrealistic.

We don't "need" a top LW either with Gaudreau and Tkachuk either. The luxury of playing Bennett at 3C is nice, but it's also a bit of a curse.

And no, Bennett shouldn't move to wing to stack our top six. The reason for this is because Bennett still has potential as a center to be better than one or both of Backlund or Monahan in the future. That potential could be the difference between a cup run and being a first round out.

TL;DR - Bennett is our 3rd line center. Yeah he's a high pick but he's still our 3rd line center. Manage your expectations to the role he's in, until he gets his chance at a different role.

Originally Posted by Stormageddon

Well, last night he tried to do it all himself with about 3 canucks on him behind his own net. Or maybe that was because Hamonic and Bartkowski stood there and marvelled at his stick handling while failing to get open for him.

Because quality players should never try to do it themselves? Not every attempted skilled play is a failure to use your linemates. Not every shift is about trying your damnedest to never ever resemble Taylor Hall.