I've got a ton of time for Matt Stajan. Love the way he thinks the game and describes the game.
Re: 18-year-old Sam Bennett; Bennett played a third of his 5v5 minutes with Backlund and Frolik in 2015-16, and his possession numbers with them were good. (Granted, just about everybody's numbers with them were good.) Playing with 11 and 67 got him offensive zone looks and scoring chances, but if the idea was to develop him into a good two-way centre, using Backlund/Frolik to prop him up might not have been the ideal scenario.
He had the fourth-most faceoffs taken in 2015-16, way behind third-place Stajan (who took nearly twice as many), and won just 46.1% of them. When he was playing centre, he was (mostly) playing up the middle with guys like Markus Granlund, Jiri Hudler, Micheal Ferland, Josh Jooris, Joe Colborne and Mason Raymond.
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