Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinordi
Jankowski is what he is, a nice depth center. The rush to proclaim him as a top 6 center after one decent AHL season and training camp was typical of many fans but just not supported by a sober assessment of him as a prospect.
Point being, Jankowski is not disappointing while Bennett is.
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Bennett is disappointing when you lack context.
Go around the league and look for a young, 21 year old centre who has been tasked with playing with the quality of line mates that Bennett has been given. You aren't going to find many straight comparable situations, because again - most teams try to set players up for success, not failure.
Brouwer and Versteeg were kicked off the Monahan/Gaudreau line, why? Because they sucked and couldn't produce.
...so naturally, the best option is to play them with a rookie centre/2nd year centre, and hope that...what? That the centre can completely carry their useless butts up and down the ice all night? That's illogical.
Bennett, given the linemates he has played with, was set-up for failure. Everyone out there rushing to proclaim him a bust, or useless, or whatever fail to acknowledge how big of a role circumstances do actually play in success (...not you in this case, I know you're just speaking to a personal disappointment level).
It's ridiculous to watch everyone pile on Brouwer for being completely awful (which he is, and pretty much every measurable statistic speaks to it), only for those same people to turn around and...what? Blame Bennett for not being able to produce when playing with Brouwer? Monahan and Gaudreau, both of whom are much better players than Bennett, can't produce with Brouwer...but let's ignore that and just place the blame on our young, developing player.