Quote:
Originally Posted by transplant99
Maybe he is...but at age 30 i dont think its a hinderance at this point. Perhaps his injury recovery abilities are affected but i don't believe his skating is....or maybe i just hope that's the case?
At any rate I just can't believe Bennett is the answer for top 6 minutes... even if the fancy stats suggest he should be, because the eye test says exactly the opposite.
Neal needs to damn well figure it out, then everyone slots in where they should and would be most effective.
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How has the eye test shown you that anyone other than Bennett has even a moderately better chance of scoring?
The other options generate fewer High danger chances (both to the eye test and the fancy stats) AND they are doing it against worse competition...
Therefore Bennett isn't scoring (although he had a nice goal last game and a few other good chances) but nobody else gives you a better chance and at least bennett is responsible defensively, can skate against the opponent's top line if needed and he does in fact generate chances.
Bennett and Backlund combined isn't great because neither one of them can seem to finish at all, both need a skills coach to improve their release and hand eye so they can hopefully score more. But no chance is Neal mixed with thachuk going to benefit anyone because the footspeed is not there to compete shift in shift out with most teams top two lines.
At this point, Bennett figuring out how to finish is best for this team.
If they would put neal in a spot to just rip one timers on the PP like he's done his entire career instead of standing in front of the net while derek ####ing ryan wastes opportunities where Neal should be then we would see his output start to pick up.