The Legend of Sam Bennett

[traptor]

What ifs are obviously a fools errand, but I do feel like we had the players to be a consistent contender for a long if the "band" stayed together.

Some form of:

Jg - lindholm - monahan
Zary - bennett - chucky
Mang - backs - coleman

Hanifin - rasmus
Kylington - tanev
Zadorov

Marky
Vladar

Could be a contender. Really unfortunate how badly it was managed.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Well, they did. In 18-19 that was Bennett's most common linemate, with Backlund.

Backlund was running a shut down line. Bennett needs to be on offensive line with skilled players to flourish. He's the jam the puck in the net guy. He's not the defence first guy.

Edit: Ba'alzamon got their first, but they also had Bennett on the wing of that line. He needs to play down the middle, where he can more effectively shoot the puck into the net.

[Ba'alzamon]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Well, they did. In 18-19 that was Bennett's most common linemate, with Backlund.

I was going to point this out too, but didn't have the energy. Bennett got the first several cracks at replacing Frolik on that line, but Mangiapane ultimately got the spot because he performed better.

IMO the mistake the Flames made with Bennett was trying to convert him into a winger for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by traptor

What ifs are obviously a fools errand, but I do feel like we had the players to be a consistent contender for a long if the "band" stayed together.

Some form of:

Jg - lindholm - monahan
Zary - bennett - chucky
Mang - backs - coleman

Hanifin - rasmus
Kylington - tanev
Zadorov

Marky
Vladar

Could be a contender. Really unfortunate how badly it was managed.

Looking back on things, it's amazing that the Flames were never able to figure out how to put two consistent scoring lines together. It was always one pure offence line that got shut down in the playoffs. Just playing Bennett/Tkachuk and Gaudreau/Lindholm as two separate pairings, likely would have done wonders. Backlund was great, but should have been a third line shut down centre, not a linemate to offensively orientated players on the second line.

Once again, for me this is hindsight. At the the time I was probably pushing for two way play too.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by blankall

Backlund was running a shut down line. Bennett needs to be on offensive line with skilled players to flourish. He's the jam the puck in the net guy. He's not the defence first guy.

Edit: Ba'alzamon got their first, but they also had Bennett on the wing of that line. He needs to play down the middle, where he can more effectively shoot the puck into the net.

Bennett at the time showed a remarkable lack of ability to find linemates. We all complained about his tunnel vision. And they were still trying to make Jankowski and Monahan work as well. They never tried to make Bennett a “defence first” guy anyway. But at the NHl level if you are a 50 point guy and not a 100 point guy you’d better be able to play some defence.

[MrMike]

Originally Posted by traptor

What ifs are obviously a fools errand, but I do feel like we had the players to be a consistent contender for a long if the "band" stayed together.

Some form of:

Jg - lindholm - monahan
Zary - bennett - chucky
Mang - backs - coleman

Hanifin - rasmus
Kylington - tanev
Zadorov

Marky
Vladar

Could be a contender. Really unfortunate how badly it was managed.

Now imagine if EVERYTHING went perfect and we had this

Gaudreau - Monahan - Ferland
Pospisil - Bennett - Tkachuk
Mangiapane - Backlund - Coleman

Fox - Tanev
Andersson - Hamilton
Kylington - Zadorov

Markstrom
Wolf

[blankall]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Bennett at the time showed a remarkable lack of ability to find linemates. We all complained about his tunnel vision. And they were still trying to make Jankowski and Monahan work as well. They never tried to make Bennett a “defence first” guy anyway. But at the NHl level if you are a 50 point guy and not a 100 point guy you’d better be able to play some defence.

Bennett still has tunnel vision. He's far from a complete top line centre. What he does do, he does well though. I disagree with the premise that he needed to be a defensive forward, because he's more of a 50 point than a 100 point forward. Bennett is clearly a very effective pest/physical presence type player. He was never consistently used as a top 6 centre in that role.

Looking back on things, the makeup of the Flames was always just wrong. It was one offensive line, a shut down line, and some bottom six grinders. Opposing teams shut down the offence line in the playoffs, and the Flames had no answers. They clearly needed 2 offensive lines and then a shut down third line. They had the right guys for the job but never figured it out.

[Johnny Makarov]

Still had a hockey IQ of a kumquat when he was a Flame.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by blankall

Bennett still has tunnel vision. He's far from a complete top line centre. What he does do, he does well though. I disagree with the premise that he needed to be a defensive forward, because he's more of a 50 point than a 100 point forward. Bennett is clearly a very effective pest/physical presence type player. He was never consistently used as a top 6 centre in that role.

Looking back on things, the makeup of the Flames was always just wrong. It was one offensive line, a shut down line, and some bottom six grinders. Opposing teams shut down the offence line in the playoffs, and the Flames had no answers. They clearly needed 2 offensive lines and then a shut down third line. They had the right guys for the job but never figured it out.

Do teams still construct shutdown lines? You need your top players to play against the other teams top players.

That was the issue. OUr top guys never showed up, and got slapped around in the playoffs.

You need 3 lines that can score.

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by traptor

What ifs are obviously a fools errand, but I do feel like we had the players to be a consistent contender for a long if the "band" stayed together.

Some form of:

Jg - lindholm - monahan
Zary - bennett - chucky
Mang - backs - coleman

Hanifin - rasmus
Kylington - tanev
Zadorov

Marky
Vladar

Could be a contender. Really unfortunate how badly it was managed.

You can’t say something was badly managed when big pieces of your hypothetical roster (Lindholm, Hanifin) were excellent asset management.

The roster wasn’t optimally managed, and the hope is that Conroy has learned from Treliving’s mistakes.

Or maybe 1/2 of Treliving’s mistakes were Murray Edward’s decisions? Who knows.

Either way, to me the biggest close call to have a legit contending roster was when the Flames were 1 pick away from selecting Kaprizov in 2015, until Minnesota grabbed him right before their selection.

So you could add that to the coulda/woulda/shoulda options, or swap out him for Kylington as they likely would have selected him if they had the 2 3rds they traded to select Oliver.

Kirill would give more options for Gaudreau, create a legit secondary option for zone entry on the power play & make them exponentially more dynamic.

But… that’s how close it is.

[Ziggy Lidstrom]

I have been on record as a major advocate for Benny.

He has his warts for sure but you can’t tell that he isn’t a team first, do anything to win PWF center.

I still feel the flames should have moved monohan to wing and had Benny center monny and Jonny. He actually looked his best on that line when he was here.

Of all the guys to ship out they should have shipped him last. He wanted to be here and he would put his body on the line to stand up for guys or get to greasy areas to score. He is a playoff player through and through. Plus he scores 20 + playing on the second Line during the regular season.


The flames over the years haven’t really developed too many players beyond Backs, Gaudreau, Monny , tachuck and Anderson. I feel he got a poor deployment on this squad.

I bet Florida is happy to have him. What did we get for him? Tre the wizard strikes again.

[Joborule]

I feel that Bennett finally had the right coach with Sutter, since he plays the style that he advocates for. Once he was starting to show signs of gelling with him, I wasn't pleased that Treliving proceeded to still trade him. I got the impression that Bennett mind had change, and would've been willing to stay at that point. As said above, the wizard.

[Matty81]

Originally Posted by traptor

What ifs are obviously a fools errand, but I do feel like we had the players to be a consistent contender for a long if the "band" stayed together.

Some form of:

Jg - lindholm - monahan
Zary - bennett - chucky
Mang - backs - coleman

Hanifin - rasmus
Kylington - tanev
Zadorov

Marky
Vladar

Could be a contender. Really unfortunate how badly it was managed.

For me one of the critical factors in undoing of that team was the James Neal 5 x 6 deal that ate up so much precious cap space for half a decade. With that extra money maybe Tkachuk and Johnny could have been afforded longer term.

Also then choosing Lucic to protect that young team as one of the only better alternatives to Neal, although an upgrade on JN, really for me undermined the team culture pretty significantly when he refused to engage in the war with the Oilers and seek retribution after Kassian when he harassed and jumped Tkachuk. If I was Tkachuk as much as he started it, I wouldn't have wanted to stay in a group that didn't battle with me in those scenarios/left me on my own either. A younger hungrier fighter who came up with the group never would have let that pass in the same way.

[Finger Cookin]

This thread gets bumped about as often as Bennett is a difference maker. So what, 4-5 times per season? Sounds about right.

[Calgary4LIfe]

There were a lot of mistakes made during the rebuild. Bennet not working out here I think was simply a symptom of prioritizing win-now over rebuild and development ahead of schedule. In an ideal world, Hartley would have been kept for one more year simply because he was better at development than the next 3 coaches, or they would have simply hired better coaches after axing Hartley.



I am glad that Conroy is leading the team now, because he saw first hand the moves made and how they ended up working out. Hopefully the biggest lessons learned by him is "Hire decent coaches" and "Don't start trading picks to try and win now right away the second the organization shows it isn't terrible." He saw the good and the bad in every decision made, so hopefully he can make more good ones and less poor ones.

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

This thread gets bumped about as often as Bennett is a difference maker. So what, 4-5 times per season? Sounds about right.

Ya. He's just an average middle 6 player out there not influencing the outcome of the game at all.

4 points in 4 games and has Bruins team unglued.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by dustygoon

Ya. He's just an average middle 6 player out there not influencing the outcome of the game at all.

4 points in 4 games and has Bruins team unglued.

No, this is just one of the 4 or 5 times in a season where he's influencing things. Most of the year he's the guy who finished around where Mangiapane and Backlund did in scoring, who are certainly well regarded average middle six players around here.

I'm sure he'll continue to influence the series with a few bonehead penalties in due time.

[FBI]

Just hope Conroy has learned and we do a better job with Coronato and Pelletier

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

This thread gets bumped about as often as Bennett is a difference maker. So what, 4-5 times per season? Sounds about right.

Every playoffs more or less. You know, the time of year that matters.

[DazzlinDino]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Remember when we had Bennett and made him a bottom-six winger? Then, in what ended up being his final season here, we finally asked him what position he wanted to play... and when he said "center," we ignored him and still made him a bottom-six winger?

Remember when we had Tkachuk and made him play with Backlund and Frolik as a checker for his first 5 years here? Remember when the team seemed to ostracize him for being too "loud" in the room and always trying to stir stuff up on the ice?


Bennett wasn't even off the plane in Florida, and they already had him slotted as their #2C. Just from scouting him, they knew we weren't using him properly. Not only did they make him the #2C, they gave him Huberdeau and Duclair as linemates, and they even gave him the #2PP. The result was Huberdeau's best-ever season (which we're now paying for... thanks Sam!).

From Tkachuk's first day in Florida, they embraced who he was. They marketed it to the fans. They not only let him be himself, they welcomed it into their dressing room. They allowed the entire culture of the team to be molded by it... and it started with 100% buy-in from Barkov, who was absolutely ecstatic about Chucky joining the team.


That's quite the contrast between the two organizations, wouldn't you agree?

This is the best post ever. The Flames clearly missed the boat. There's a reason why Bennett wasn't playing very well here and didn't seem to want to play here for long stretches. And even when he brought it in the playoffs they promised him they would make him a top line Center and then moved right back down again when the next season started. At what point do we admit that maybe the Flames management got it wrong. If the Flames management had got it right we probably wouldn't be in a retool right now, and a lot of these guys would have stayed together.