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Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
Gulutzan probably gets too much blame - especially when it comes to Bennett.
Peters and mostly Ward had more to do with Bennett's struggles in Calgary than Gulutzan IMO
Gulutzan actually tried to play Bennett at center in 16-17 with some veterans to support him and it just didn't work out according to the management group.
16-17: Versteeg-Bennett-Brouwer / Chiasson - Bennett - Gaudreau / Versteeg - Bennett - Chiasson
Then in 17-18 the line of Bennett - Jankowski - Hathaway found some success when people were calling for him to be moved back to the wing and they stuck with that.
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What are you talking about?
Versteeg-Bennett-Brouwer was atrocious line construction. Two guys who played with zero pace flanking a center who needs linemates that play fast. And Bennett wasn't the only center who was useless with those two flanking him - struggled equally in that case. Only Stajan ever really clicked with those two, which made sense as he was playing a slow game at that point himself.
Chiasson-Bennett-Gaudreau didn't even play together much. And either way, Chiasson-Monahan-Gaudreau was a failed line so swapping centers and then blaming Bennett's play at center for the failing of that line was exactly the kind of issue Gulutzan was guilty of.
Bennett - Jankowski - Hathaway was a terrible line and set Bennett back years. The only people saying Bennett should have been moved to wing were the people blinded by Gulutzan's atrocious usage of Bennett as a center.
Recall that I made this thread back in 2018 when Gulutzan was coach:
https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=170857
And for all the flack Ward deservedly gets for moving Bennett to the wing after he was so successful centering Dube and Lucic in the 2020 playoffs, Gulutzan did the EXACT same thing because Bennett (equally to Monahan) was our best player in the 2017 playoffs as a center. That he found himself on the wing at all the following year was brutal coaching, no getting around it.
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Really it was under Ward that things really fell off.
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No, it fell off
under Gulutzan, and by the time Peters and Ward took over Bennett had been typecast as a bottom six energy winger. Which is actually the same role Sutter used him as, before people start saying Bennett was playing better under Sutter.
Even going from his rookie season under Hartley to his sophomore season under Gulutzan, we saw Bennett's icetime drop:
Even Strength
13:08 vs 12:37
PP
1:57 vs 1:13
Despite being a second year player who typically see an uptick in their icetime now that they have adjusted to the league.
It's pretty likely that if Joel Quennville had not moved Bennett to a 2C position, that typecasting caused by Gulutzan would have permeated over to his time in Florida. Quennville was the first coach since Bob Hartley to have used Bennett correctly, and essentially turned Bennett's career around. Hartley doesn't quite get a free pass as he did use Bennett at wing for part of his rookie year, but Bennett was playing center exclusively towards the end of the year. In Hartley's defense though this was a rookie.