Quote:
Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper
That was just an example of the much larger theme of Sam Bennett's story this season. He's blown tons of grade A chances this season. You may think differently, but he's had his chances up at the top this season and he hasn't shown enough to beat anyone out of a spot. He's definitely not surpassing other LWs like Gaudreau and Tkachuk.
We've also seen him with time on the PP and he has 3 PP points this season and had 4 PP points last season. Where's the growth? Nobody coaches Sam Bennett to play crash and bang, it's just obvious he doesn't have the dynamic skill set to be a top 6 player right now. Coaching wouldn't change anything. This team isn't built around Sam Bennett, he's just a cog to the overall machine and he along with others have been disappointing.
Just look at Curtis Lazar as an example, did a new coach help this former highly touted 1st round pick become the player that he was drafted to be? No, he's struggled just as much in Ottawa as he has here. Blaming the coach is a total cop out.
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I guess no matter how much you and I argue I won't be able to convince you that Bennett is any good and you won't be able to convince me that the flames have given him a fair shake. When he played on backlunds line two years ago he was excellent. Then he was given an opportunity to centre his own line and that failed, but to say he's been given a fair chance playing in the top six under this coaching staff is just false.
Bennett shouldn't pass either gaudreau or tkachuk on the LW depth but they should rather look at playing him and tkachuk on the same line with either janko or backlund. All three of those guys have shown chemistry playing together with maybe the exception of janko and tkachuk but I think moving either tkachuk or Bennettt to RW and trying it out would be a welcome move. This club has lost 4 of 6 and yet we trot out the same forward line combinations no matter what.
Bennett hasn't, under gulutzan, had any real opportunities to seize a top six role... if you actually believe he was given the same shot a Ferland at playing on the top line? ~20 games between last year and early this season where Ferland looked terrible but hotbed a chance to play through it.
If you want to blame Bennett for this team being poorly coached and not winning games be my guest but that's an idiot take on things