Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
This season he is though.
How many times do we see him take the line on the left side, delay and then whip the puck to a trailer creating a scoring chance.
His vision is up this year. The pace is slowing down for him.
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I think this is what I've noticed most of all. Seems like he's put on some weight, and is flying around the ice and doesn't seem like he's arriving late to the play like it sometimes looked in the past.
The highlight videos on CP in the offseason really demonstrated that his play along the boards has seriously improved over his career, to the point that I think he and Thachuk are our two best wingers at retrieving and winning battles along the boards at this point.
That ability and the way he is able to now dish the puck and get to scoring areas from the wing are the reasons I like him on the wing and I would be really interested to see the same stats breakdown with him on a line as the LW versus other guys.
The problem with Bennett on the wing is his Ice time will always be limited behind Thachuk and Gaudreau but perhaps at 3C he sees more ice?
I haven't really been impressed with Frolik and if there was a way to get either Bennett or Thachuk comfortable on the right side I think that a Backlund, Chuckie, Bennett line would be great and it would give the team a second faceoff option on that line.
I don't think peters wants to do that, and I believe he is leaving Bennett with Neal in the hopes that he can get neal going somehow, as Bennett has been very effective so far this season and maybe it'll rub off on Neal eventually.