[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Funny, Bennett was one of our best PKers just two seasons ago, and since then all he's done is improve on faceoffs and see his PK time dwindle. This was a Flamesnation article written in 2017:

https://flamesnation.ca/2017/01/04/s...-penalty-kill/

as was this:

https://flamesnation.ca/2017/08/01/w...-penalty-kill/

And our PK that year was better than it was this year.

The unit was good, but next to none of that can be attributed to Bennett. We do know he was the 7th foward on the Flames in SHTOI in 2017-2018 with a whopping 0:42 per game. How on earth do you say he was one of the best PKers that year when he wasn't even a regular fixture or first option? These figures do nothing but point out that he was apparently good at cleaning up the scraps left over from the big boys.

This year, the Peters staff cut him out completely to a tune of 0:12 per game which leads one to believe that he was deemed unworthy by a pretty damn good coaching staff. The fact they didn't go back to him when the unit struggled most of the year speaks volumes.

I'm supporting his case to stay because he provides value, but he clearly needs to improve in these areas I mentioned. There's no reason to start throwing around best Pker claims. Faceoffs are nice but pretty irrelevant on a team chalk full of players who can take draws as well. I really don't get the need to continually prop this guy up as more than he is - an effective third liner that could be a game changer on a playoff team if he expands his game even slightly in terms of PK, offensive output.