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Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
I don't know what that has to do with Bennett when he was playing with the Flames, but OK.
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What it has to do with Bennett, and for that matter a lot of players, is that there is this inherent and strong bias in hockey-watching against "failed attempts".
Hockey is inherently a low percentage sport.
Most passes get intercepted.
Most shots get stopped, blocked, or miss. They don't become goals.
Most controlled zone entries get met with a tight gap.
Most 5v5 goal scoring happens in streaks.
Hockey fans, and hockey executives too, let themselves believe the narratives created by these biases:
"Tries to do so much with the puck, needs to stop toedragging, thinks it's junior hockey and should just dump it and make the simple playand" (because there was a turnover that frustrated the viewer)
"Doesn't have any finish" (even if he has league average shooting percentage and generates chances at an above league-average rate)
The thing is, your frustration at attempts at plays, is probably the same frustration that coaches like Geoff Ward and Glen Gulutzan let control their decisions. Especially on a team with "safe" centres like Sean Monahan or Elias Lindholm who didn't really even carry the puck, or Mikael Backlund who, while a good puck carrier, typically keeps the game to the perimeter.
Players like Kadri and Bennett, and for that matter even elite talent players like Nathan MacKinnon frustrate their fanbases immensely when things aren't going their way. Those fanbases inflate their perception of concepts like "working off the puck to get open" as the only valid form of perceived "hockey sense". And then they let a bias towards point production further that opinion - even if a player is ineffective 5v5, if they won a powerplay faceoff leading to an Alex Ovechkin one timer, they've been "playing well enough".
As fans, watching guys with unfathomably elite hockey sense - guys like Gretzky, Lidstrom, Crosby, Gaudreau, M. Tkachuk, etc skews our perception too.
Maybe I'm rambling at this point, because I instead should be working on whatever they pay me for at work, but I just value the ability to make plays, even if there's usually a high percentage most attempted plays will fail. Here's a quote from Igor Larionov that really highlights how real it is:
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I remember Datsyuk made a couple turnovers in a game when he first came to Detroit at age 23. Players on the team like Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan, Steve Yzerman and myself had to tell him, “Pavel, just keep doing what you’re doing.” Thankfully, Scotty Bowman had the wisdom to see his potential. If he was on a different team with a different coach who did not appreciate that kind of unique skill, Datsyuk might have been out of the league. He would be playing in the KHL tonight.
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It's a pretty old article, but I feel like everyone should read it:
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/ar...-hockey-russia
So going back to this statement of yours:
"He was puckhogging, refusing to pass to line mates and instead opting to take low percentage shots, and taking selfish penalties that killed momentum. "
It's just so coloured by your bias and emotional reaction, that it's just not an objective analysis.
"puckhogging" - subjective bias against puck carriers in general, which is what you want your centre of all people to be
"refusing to pass to linemates" - subjective assessment, not backed by any passing metrics on Bennett as a Flame which showed he was actually one of the league's better shot assist guys
"low percentage shots" - even though he was the guy who took the most shots right at the net, and was playing on the ice with 3rd and 4th liners so it's not like he had Mitch Marner sending him no-look passes in the slot.
"selfish penalties" - he's a player with an aggressive style of play that lends itself to penalties. I don't see Paul Maurice having reigned in any penalty-taking in this three-straight-SCF run
