Quote:
Originally Posted by Pointman
Hindsight and all, but Bennett was a questionable pick. Drafting a guy, whose main qualities are compete level and work ethic is always risky. They can stop working hard at any given moment. Bennett just had unreal amount of energy in his body in his late teens and that fooled scouts into thinking that he can maintain that into his mid 20s. In reality, playing such game at the NHL level with his undersized body wore him out fairy fast.
"He plays the kind of game you think cannot be sustained for a whole season because it’s a high-energy game and compete game at all ends of the ice. He ends up playing that game for the whole year. He just never stops"
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...1st-round-pick |
There was a distinct consensus top 4 that year and Bennett fell to us. We would have howled if the flames picked anyone but him. It was just a bad year to tank with a weak draft. We were two years removed from being told that Jankowski could be the best player coming out of the draft so going off the board would have been bad optics. Knowing what we did at the time, he was the right pick. Just didn’t turn out.