Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
My expectation is that Bennett should be and is able to drive play well enough to where linemates of a certain competency level experience a general improvement in their performance. There is no such thing as exclusively driving a line unless you're a freak of nature like Mario Lemieux, Evgeni Malkin, or Connor McDavid.
He has been a so-called driver of the Jankowski line all year, and he was as much the driver of the Versteeg-Bennett-Chiasson line in last year's playoffs as Versteeg, and I have so much belief that he would be a driver on a Tkachuk-Bennett-X type second line. It's not as if Bergeron is the only driver on his line. Monahan is hardly the driver of his line. Who is the driver on the 3M Line, Tkachuk or Backlund? It's really more than one guy - because driving play is a thing but driving a line is a myth.
There are plenty of metrics that show Bennett does things that are indicative of driving play, whether it's having some of the best takeaway rates on this team along with Backlund, to being one of our better zone entry players, to being one of our most productive 5v5 players period despite playing on essentially his own line.
On the flip side Bennett, or any NHLer, should not be expected to drag nobodies like Bartkowski and many of his wingers and still produce. That is wholely unrealistic when you have to play with defensemen or wingers who are actual anchors at the NHL level. So much of this game is about forechecking, which isn't even about having the puck, and if your wingers can't forecheck you are honestly hooped. I think this is why a lot of the fanbase still can't get over the loss of Byron - he was/is a supreme forechecker. Better forechecking linemates = less penalties too, because you're spending more time in better position than trying to get the puck back.
Neither of these players drive a line, though. Tkachuk plays with arguably the best two-way driver of play on this roster, and Jankowski hasn't looked as strong as Bennett in any regards - I say that as a big supporter of Janko - honestly I would be tempted to swap Bennett and Jankowski as centers because Bennett is stronger on the defensive side of the red line.
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I would be hesitant to move Bennett back to center though. It could just be that he has better linemates when he is on the wing but I think he is actually is just more comfortable at playing wing than center in the NHL.
Hard to fully figure out when he played center vs not but if you compare his numbers when on the ice with at least one of Backlund, Monahan, Stajan, Jankowski (the other full time centers in his time here) vs without it's actually a pretty big gap in performance.
15/16
Bennett as a center: CF%-47.6 GF:18 GA:26 ~539 minutes
Bennett as a winger: CF%-51.7 GF:17 GA:10 ~400 minutes
16/17
Bennett as a center: CF%-47.9% GF:21 GA:33 ~788 minutes
Bennett as a winger: CF%-51.9% GF:6 GA:11 ~160 minutes
17/18
Bennett as a center: CF%-41.8 GF:2 GA:4 ~115 minutes
Bennett as a winger: CF%-52.1 GF:22 GA:21 ~610 minutes
Him and Jankowski especially have had a lot of confidence this year and in some ways that line has been unlucky to not produce more.
Those two together have a CF% of 51.1%, a High Danger chance percentage of 57.4%, but have a horrible on ice shooting percentage of 6.87% which is a bit unlucky since league average is closer to 8%. (Although some of that may be due to Bennett not having a great shot - and missing the net 31% of the time as per that thread bingo posted.)
At this point winger Sam Bennett appears to be a much better player than Center Sam Bennett.