[BigThief]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

And, it is even easier to conclude that those projections were wrong. I have watched him ever since he broke into the League—he's a really good player, but, there has never been anything in the mechanics of his game—footspeed and skating, vision and smarts, hands and skill—that is at an elite level in the NHL.

Originally Posted by Jay Random

I don't know how to break this to you, but NHL equivalency in a player's draft year is not an infallible predictor of how his career will turn out. It's not even the best predictor available at the time of the draft.

(I note in passing that Textcritic said nothing in that quote that he has contradicted in this thread. He did not say there was any particular element in Bennett's game that was elite; only that his scoring in his draft year was comparable to MacKinnon's.)

The quote from Textcritic that you are laughing at? That was from July, 2014 – BEFORE Bennett played a single NHL game. By the time he was established as an NHL regular (2015-16) MacKinnon had shown himself to be a clearly superior offensive player. That was before MacKinnon's breakout year, 2017-18, when his production almost doubled from 53 points to 97. Meanwhile, Bennett had regressed. He wouldn't top his rookie production until after his trade to Florida, and he still has never scored 50 points in a season.

At the time they were drafted, Bennett and MacKinnon were roughly comparable players. Bennett was a lot closer to his ceiling, MacKinnon had immense growth still to go. There's a reason why Bennett as the last to be chosen of the big four prospects in the first tier of the 2014 draft.

During his 1st training camp.

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...49#post4927849

I agree with everything you said, but in addition, I think that the combination of Monahan/Draisaitl is much less appealing because of the absence of speed down the middle. Monahan is a decent skater but I'm not sure that Draisaitl will ever even get to his level. Bennett's much better skating and speed creates a whole new element for this team.

Almost two years post draft, reffering to Bennett as a "high-end scoring centre"
https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...36#post5858236

I can see the temptation in ranking Tkachuk ahead of both Monahan and Bennett, but I would tend to fall in line with those who think that high-end scoring centres are dramatically more valuable than wingers over all. At any rate, I think all three players are very close in terms of how they rank in their draft years.

Text is one of the biggest homers on the board, his posts would make dino7c blush. Finding him cooming over a Flames prospect isn't difficult. Pretending the Sam Bennett we see now is the Sam Bennett he always saw is insane.