Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
...when given 6 minutes every few weeks to play on his off wing with the big boys
Bennett has been treated as a utility player to fill whatever short term gap this team has. IMO he is simply a LW. For some reason it’s okay for Gaudreau and Lucic and many other players in the league to be accepted as single position players, but not Bennett.
The Lindholm C trial is going very well. Knowing he works at C is vital info for the future of this team. The next thing I’d love to see is Bennett-Monahan-Gaudreau for 10 games. Give Johnny time to figure out new angles on his off wing, and let Bennett focus on what he does best.
Play Backlund with Jankowski. Maybe he gets off the snide. Maybe he doesn’t. Either way, it will give more valuable insight than plopping Bennett and Janko out together by default.
The best/worse case scenario of Toffoli is that he sparks this team to an another brief illusion of success before reverting to Brouwer v3.0 after he signs a silly extension
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I'm afraid the logic doesn't quite work. Gaudreau is a "single position player". Also Bennett is a guy who can only play LW (though unlike Gaudreau, he played a different position in jr.). In order to play Bennett with good linemates, you have to move Gaudreau off of LW and on to a position he never plays.
Bennett-Monahan-Gaudreau would be terrible. Bennett and Gaudreau turn the puck over a lot, and while Monahan is working on his defensive game, he doesn't have the speed to cover for blue line turnovers by his wingers.
This seems to me to be an effort to prop up Bennett rather than improve the team overall. I think Bennett can be a third line LW. I still think maybe he could be a bottom 6 C, though a lot would have to happen. If a RW is found, you can play Bennett and Jankowski (or whoever) on either side of Backlund, who for all his recent problems, has some offensive ability, and see what happens.