[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

I'm just going to throw this out there.

Bill Zito's time as GM is all about buying low on players. He looks for guys that have had pedigree or hints of greatness, but for whatever reason, not found a way to be good players. His M.O. is that if you do this often enough, you'll get a guy that performs above his contract, and in Florida, that's always important to do for internal cap reasons. Buy low, sell high. The classic stockmarket approach to running a team under cash constraints.

Sam Bennett is another in the line of guys like Hornqvist (declining), Duclair (suitcase player), Verhaeghe and Marchment (career minor leaguer about to pop), Montour and Gusev (underperforming on a bad team), Alex Wennberg and Noah Juulsen (underutilized/underperformer) etc. etc. etc.

I guess the assets spent mean they see him as a guy that could be truly great. We shall see. I am more certain that they spent those assets because he's an RFA that doesn't need a huge QO to keep him in a solid bottom 6 role with playoff edge. It's a missing element on the Panthers, so they went shopping for it.

Interesting point. Does he ever sell high though? It's pretty rare for NHL GM's to do that, even though in hindsight we all see the cases where they should have.