Quote:
Originally Posted by transplant99
Now extrapolate out of that (future "upside") and tell me how it will be anything different than a 3rd line maybe, 4th line likely winger with almost no offensive abilities but who will bang and crash and do some of the board work. Will not be an option on special teams because he simply is not good enough to do so.
All I see and all he has shown thus far is a 10-12 minute a night guy who doesn't do much of anything....literally dozens and dozens just like him all over the NHL and AHL.
If BT can get anything of value for him, it has to be done. He is a super expensive 4th line winger at this point and this club has enough guys not worth their existing contracts that paying someone 2.5 times what a replacement player could command, is asinine.
So in essence what I believe is that BT cannot be worried that Sam is going to "pop" and start producing if he is dealt as there is NOTHING to indicate that will happen. Could it happen? Sure, anything is possible and there are always exceptions to the rule. This team simply cant be concerned about that however.
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He hasn't produced and he's having a terrible season. With that I'm fine with people thinking that's that. I totally get it.
However if I was going to hunt down an acquisition, I'd look for a guy like Bennett more often than not on a reclamation project. He has the pedigree, he has a history of elevating his game in big moments and then he has the tease stats that just drive me nuts.
If you look at forwards that have played at least 750 minutes in the last three seasons he is ...
37th in ixG/60
37th! We can argue that the stat is flawed, we can say that Bennett plays a style that racks up underlying stats but not actual scoring chances. But a pretty level headed, impartial attempt to levelize hockey players has him 37th in a stat that should lead to production.
He's 33rd in iSCF/60 ... a driver of the stat above.
He's 35th in iHDCF/60 ... an even tighter measure.
So yeah it may never happen, but there are legitimate measures that suggest more is to come. We saw it in that Edmonton came ten days ago, he could have scored three. He didn't. That may never change, maybe his shot is too beer league to convert.
But he does have some of the measures that suggest getting him on the cheap would be a great move by a rival GM.