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Originally Posted by GioforPM
I don’t know that this is true. I don’t know the stats but it always looked to me like Bennett couldn’t even see his linemates. Tunnel vision was a pretty consistent complaint. His PO performances were often built off chances generated by Lucic or Dube. I haven’t seen Bennett (even when he’s good) being a chance generator as much as a sledgehammer finisher.
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Re: bolded
confirmation bias.
Bennett regularity set up Jankowski, Reider, Neal, Hathaway, etc out of the cycle.
The only time tunnel vision might have been a legitimate complaint was the Versteeg-Bennett-Brouwer line.
Which goes back to the other issue - players who can play with pace. Bennett was regularly leading the rush with guys like that lugging along behind him.
He uses his linemates well
when they're speedy, and does so
by making forward passes instead of drop passes in transition.
He'll never be a guy to button hook around and wait for his linemates to catch up to the play. What this gets misconstrued as is "tunnel vision" when it's actually just.. playing with pace.
Something this lineup could stand to do more of.
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Over the past few seasons, he averaged almost identical ice time to Mangiapane, Lucic, and Ryan, yet was less productive. Using Mangiapane as an example, he showed he could be reasonably productive in the bottom 6 and was promoted based on that. Why could he do it and Bennett couldn't if it wasn't Bennett that needed line mates to support him, rather than Bennett needing line mates to support?
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1) Mangiapane was regularly playing with Backlund, Tkachuk, and Ryan. Bennett was regularly playing with Jankowski, Neal, Reider, Leivo, Ritchie, etc.
2) Mangiapane is also a pure sniper. Maybe the best pure sniper on this roster, period. Comparing him to ANYONE is unfair because he can snipe goals out of nothing chances.
3) A good deal of Lucic's production came on the powerplay. A situation Bennett was not even utilized in. I'd bet Bennett outproduced him at ES as a Flame.
4) You're also neglecting to mention the fact that Bennett clearly isn't comfortable at RW, and is comfortable at center. You can't evaluate a LHS center as a RW. Backlund looked awful at RW too. Dube hasn't looked great at RW either. How productive would Ryan be as a LW?
5) Again, someone has to finish. Tobias Reider had 2 goals on 71 shots 5v5 as a Flame. His expected goal based on the quality of those chances was 7.03. That's at least five assists Bennett didn't pick up simply because Tobias Reider could not score.