I mean hindsight is always 20/20 but there were more than a few of us who always said the Flames were misusing Bennett. Gully, Ward and even Peters just tossed him around the bottom 3 lines so much he didn't know where he stood most of the time. Confidence is a major thing in player development and I don't think he ever got the opportunity (or earned, to be fair-ish) to grow that confidence whereas when he got to FLA they tossed him in the deep end and lo and behold he bloomed into the playoff beast we all know and love.
I wonder how Huska would've utilized Bennett honestly. I'm having the same kind of concerns with Zary.
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I mean hindsight is always 20/20 but there were more than a few of us who always said the Flames were misusing Bennett. Gully, Ward and even Peters just tossed him around the bottom 3 lines so much he didn't know where he stood most of the time. Confidence is a major thing in player development and I don't think he ever got the opportunity (or earned, to be fair-ish) to grow that confidence whereas when he got to FLA they tossed him in the deep end and lo and behold he bloomed into the playoff beast we all know and love.
I wonder how Huska would've utilized Bennett honestly. I'm having the same kind of concerns with Zary.
Good to see Conroy admit the Flames messed up. He even acknowledges the issue with the coaches, and the fact that they can't just let players like that go. Conroy owned it, saying it is on the Fames to get it right.
Conroy acknowledges the Flames drafted Sam Bennett to be a center doing exactly what he's doing now... Which means Sam's development should have been an asset for the Calgary Flames and not for a different team.
A lot of people want to put the blame on Sam Bennett but for some reason Sam just couldn't believe in himself on the Calgary Flames and likely as a whole they didn't believe in him. The supporting cast that he needed whether it was the players, whether it was a skilled player, or whether was a coach, was all missing for Sam Bennett to be the player he is now.
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You know, if someone had told me a decade ago that Sam Bennett and Matt Tkachuk would have two Stanley Cups and the Flames held the last pick of the 1st round in 2025, I really would’ve thought things had gone well for us.
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It was interesting to see the Conroy felt Hartley had a plan with Sam Bennett and then after more coaches were added his development got sidetracked.
In retrospect I would've taken Hartley right through the Gulutzan years over bringing in that pretty boy.
His tenure definitely stalled the core's development.
While Harts by many accounts was "tough" behind closed doors by today's standards, he was also seasoned, had won, and knew how to put guys with star potential in positions to succeed.
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He never would have been that player for us. We tried to ruin him.
He's been amazing in every playoffs he has been in. His full potential is fully released when he is #2 behind Barkov, though. And that is not to take anything away from Bennett, but being on Florida is the perfect scenario for him.
I still think talks of him getting 10mil plus per year are crazy. I see him as the perfect #2 center. That lifts his play to become an elite #1b center come playoffs.
How can you be so sure he would never be a great player with us? We never played him in the #2 center slot for an extended period, to my knowledge.
I'd rather see them dominating the Oilers in Flames jerseys. Not much of a consolation prize for me but I can understand trying to find a silver lining
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Not playing those 2 together was a huge problem imo. They should’ve been a pair just like monny and Johnny. Let them develop together. Instead we signed Brouwer and strapped him to Bennett’s line, while Tkachuk developed properly with Backlund and frolik
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In retrospect I would've taken Hartley right through the Gulutzan years over bringing in that pretty boy.
His tenure definitely stalled the core's development.
While Harts by many accounts was "tough" behind closed doors by today's standards, he was also seasoned, had won, and knew how to put guys with star potential in positions to succeed.
Hartley had his warts but he had a plan when it came to developing young guys. He talked about it, and he also instilled in the players that they had to do whatever it takes to win. We could see that in his style of play. He won a cup so obviously he knew what it takes to win. As in the past there was been some speculation that he had lost the room. Tre on the other hand seem to do what the players wanted, he probably saw himself as a buffer "and I think they knew that because players didn't always seem to give 100%" under him. If I can recall under GG he wanted a coach that could connect with the players. We had skill and showed some success but seemed to have a lot of passengers, or underperforming players under Tre.
Hardly talked about how he would keep playing young guys even if they make mistakes to allow them to develop their skills. Hartley talked about how he did this in Colorado as well. He was somewhat strict with Monahan and Gaudreau which I think they didn't like at the time.
It's not hard to see that Hartley likely had a plan to develop Sam Bennett because he talked about how you had to develop skilled young players differently.
Last edited by DazzlinDino; 06-19-2025 at 01:20 AM.
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I mean hindsight is always 20/20 but there were more than a few of us who always said the Flames were misusing Bennett. Gully, Ward and even Peters just tossed him around the bottom 3 lines so much he didn't know where he stood most of the time. Confidence is a major thing in player development and I don't think he ever got the opportunity (or earned, to be fair-ish) to grow that confidence whereas when he got to FLA they tossed him in the deep end and lo and behold he bloomed into the playoff beast we all know and love.
I wonder how Huska would've utilized Bennett honestly. I'm having the same kind of concerns with Zary.
Huska’s player development is why he was recruited into the Flames’s organization 10 years ago, and his use of Zary has been pretty strong. Most of the year he played either with Backlund and Coleman or Kadri and Huberdeau (or if not both, with one of those two on a line), with ample amounts of power play time. He was often the guy tasked to lead the rush into the zone on the power play, which to me reflects Huska’s trust in his skills.
He didn’t get a ton of time at centre but his injuries kind of broke up those opportunities, and his time on the wings and at centre suggests that both Backlund and Kadri were mentoring him a little bit to play centre .
In 2023, it looked like Coronato was going to take a big step the following year based on the opportunities he was getting and his development. And he took that step. This year, Zary seems primed and I think as long as he stays healthy, he’s going to take a big step. And as long as the Flames don’t pick up a guy like Rossi, there's a good chance he’ll take that step as a centre.
Who on that lineup do you line up against McDavid or MacKinnon. I know who does it on Florida. It’s not Bennett.
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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