Quote:
Originally Posted by dustygoon
Why be so rigid about this? You build your team with good players down the middle, you play them lots of minutes and coach them to be responsible which Bennett has become. 200 ft game is in him. Is he Patrice Bergeron? No, but you still get solid two way play out of him.
Regardless, it's the blueline that usually has the assignment vs top players anyway. Yes...florida used barkov and forsling vs mcdavid, but you hear coaches talk about D vs F matchups. Neil "The Shadow" Sheehy is all but extinct.
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You get solid two way play now. You didn't then.
I don't think I'm being rigid so much as just seeing what the Flames were looking at back then. I agree, they should have given him some rope to make mistakes. In interviews he says that was the biggest fear - making mistakes and getting demoted. But there is little top no chance any coach was displacing a 27 year old, 50+ point Selke vote getter like Backlund as a checking centre. Hartley didn't (despite the numbers here who think he would havebeen better for Bennett), GG didn't, Peters didn't, Ward didn't and Sutter didn't. For some reason nine of those guys liked him down the middle. And as recently as last year people still considered Backlund a top defensive centre ion the league:
https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask?q=d...he+nhl+2023-24
BTW, many coaches still use shutdown lines with shutdown centres. Aside from Barkov, there's Erikson Ek, Compher, Acciari, etc. It's why LA got Danault when Kopitar was slowing down at checking. And Neil Sheehy was a defenceman.