Quote:
Originally Posted by Toonage
Someone with a better memory can assist me here but my understanding was that Bennett's agent did in fact approach Flames management about his usage there maybe a year or two ago. Friedman (or the like) reported on it.
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you're remembering correctly. Bennett was unhappy with his usage, his agent spoke with Treliving, Bennett got a shot with Tkachuk.
Bennetts numbers went up, Tkachuk's numbers went down, but outside of that he was producing at a 4th line rate.
We went over this last year and the year before. Bennett was consistently producing fourth line rate tangible numbers that had him tied or behind the contemporary 4th liners on the team.
You can read some of the posts here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
yeah, I don't think you represent the stats appropriately.
For example:
He produces goals at a 4th line rate, but played 30% of the season with the hottest player in the lineup at the time.
We've been over this:
This year, without significant icetime in the top 6, he's on pace for:
12 goals and 21 points.
That's 4th line production.
last year after 20 games without significant icetime in the top 6, he was on pace for:
8 goals and 21 points
Czarnik by comparison was on pace for 27 points. Janko on pace for 19. 4th liners. Janko exploded of course, but he's back to being a 4th liner this year.
I believe according to your stats that his time with Tkachuk and Backlund saw his points per 60 jump by 100%. So, even on the hottest offensive team in the west last year, when he didn't get icetime with the Tkachuk and Backlund, he produced at 4th line rate.
If you gave Hathaway the 3 extra minutes per game Bennett played, does Hathaway close the 2 goal gap between them over 70 games? Absolutely.
Is Hathaway out producing Bennett this year even though he's playing marginally fewer minutes? Yes he is.
Is Hathaway a 4th liner? Yes he is.
So what's Bennett then?
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Same story this year, just worse because he's not getting reps outside of the 4th line and his production is illustrating that. He's not getting those reps because there are simply better options.
I predicted this would happen with the Lucic addition. Lucic is providing everything Bennett provided plus more and that's pushed Bennett down the depth chart. As bad as i think Lucic is, he's significantly outperformed bennett this year, and ideally Lucic is a 4th liner, so what does that make Bennett?
Bennett is now not just a 4th line player, he's an expensive 4th line player.
That's no bueno.
With Dube and Mangiapane looking ok and pretty good, there's just no justification to give Bennett extra reps.
Once again it looks like the flames are going to try that in this game against Chicago, but at this point I think that's as much to satisfy Bennett's camp as it is to position him for a trade.
The rumour about the flames laughing off trade proposals isn't exactly going to go away with this new rumour that Bennett doesn't feel like he has a position on this team.
This could be the last gasp before the plunge. Give him minutes, see what happens, hope you can capitalize on a marginal improvement on the trade offers you received a month ago.