The Legend of Sam Bennett

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

You are defending the player by disparaging the organization, and by extension posters who are still hesitant to form concrete opinions about Sam Bennett's recent level of play. There are certainly valid complaints to be had, but given the tone of the last few months it should come as no surprise to see that there are more than a few posters here who are becoming weary of the incessant whining about every little thing the team does, and the constant reminders of all of it's supposed past errors. Pining about irreversible things that happened in the distant past is pointless, unproductive and tiresome.

So, yeah. There are plenty of times when "defending the player" can come across as quite negative.

Hell yeah I'm disparaging the organization. It's run horribly. That's not negativity. That's reality.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Hell yeah I'm disparaging the organization. It's run horribly. That's not negativity. That's reality.

Ah, yes. Once again the charge of negativity is met with a weak rebuttal of self-proclaimed realism. It is a well-worn CP trope that seems to be entrenched at this point.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Hell yeah I'm disparaging the organization. It's run horribly. That's not negativity. That's reality.

Always one of my favourite posts

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Always one of my favourite posts

It's mine too which is why I keep using it until the team proves it wrong.

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by activeStick

It's a pretty regular stance by some posters here, regularly stating how low their expectations are (which is fine, nothing wrong with that), but then making sure they are coming out after the fact and reminding the forum that this is how they thought at the time things would turn out.

An odd desire to be right on the internet and a relishing in debating other posters who viewed things from a more positive light after the fact.

The “holier than thou” angle taken by folks like Bingo and Textcritic etc, believing it is somehow their duty to police (or at least passive-aggressively shame) people’s opinions, doesn’t help. Pitting “camp positive” against “camp negative” is abrasive and only serves to escalate tension and alienate people.

One of the weirdest recurring takes here is that someone’s bull**** posts on a message board are somehow reflective of the quality of their character or their general outlook on life. Not everyone takes this miserable team so seriously that they allow it to colour their entire personality like that.

[PepsiFree]

The way I see it, the trade is done. I don’t care a whole lot about what could have been anymore because there’s a healthy time limit on looking backwards. I also don’t really understand the posters who undersell Bennett as complete garbage and trot out things that are obviously false in doing so, just to make the point that we shouldn’t like the player, or something, I guess.

Bennett has shown to be a good complimentary player who is a lot of fun to watch. He doesn’t need to hit 100 points to impress me, I don’t think anyone believes he’s turned into a McDavid-level superstar, so the posters trying to dispute that seem like they’re yelling at clouds.

History aside, I don’t know how you can watch the player and not enjoy it. Bennett in Florida was every single great thing about Bennett in one stretch, things we’ve seen glimpses of over the years. It was pretty cool and fun to watch. So far, still is.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

The way I see it, the trade is done. I don’t care a whole lot about what could have been anymore because there’s a healthy time limit on looking backwards. I also don’t really understand the posters who undersell Bennett as complete garbage and trot out things that are obviously false in doing so, just to make the point that we shouldn’t like the player, or something, I guess.

Bennett has shown to be a good complimentary player who is a lot of fun to watch. He doesn’t need to hit 100 points to impress me, I don’t think anyone believes he’s turned into a McDavid-level superstar, so the posters trying to dispute that seem like they’re yelling at clouds.

History aside, I don’t know how you can watch the player and not enjoy it. Bennett in Florida was every single great thing about Bennett in one stretch, things we’ve seen glimpses of over the years. It was pretty cool and fun to watch. So far, still is.

I happen to think it is both possible and more fun to watch Bennett play and succeed while not also descending into a rage about how he was handled in Calgary.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Hell yeah I'm disparaging the organization. It's run horribly. That's not negativity. That's reality.

It's funny. We could talk about how abysmal the Gilmour for Leeman trade was. How Darryl Sutter lost his mind at the end of his GM tenure and gutted the team with some ridiculous decisions. How Feaster was in way over his head as GM and did a horrible job of getting value for players like Jaybo. These statements would all go unchallenged.

But you hold the view that the organization mishandled the highest pick in Calgary Flames history and it is disparaging and negative.

I'm with EE. I do find some of the mental gymnastics and salty tears entertaining and sure as hell doesn't mean I'm rooting against the team.

[GioforPM]

It's possible to believe all of:

Bennett is not garbage.

Bennett wasn't working out with the team and probably never would have to the extent he is in Florida, even with better linemates than he wound up with.

On the latter point, the Flames tried several options, including playing him with a highly touted acquisition, another first rounder they had high hopes for, a veteran cup winner and the top line. They may not have given the latter enough time, but there were always better options for the team. But nothing seemed ideal.

The parties were mutually frustrated and it was best to move on.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I happen to think it is both possible and more fun to watch Bennett play and succeed while not also descending into a rage about how he was handled in Calgary.

Then why aren't you shaming the posters that are trying to discredit Bennett? It seems to me the only people that get called negative are the ones that aren't toeing the company line. This is what frustrates posters.

Edited because I care about what frustrates fellow posters.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

It's funny. We could talk about how abysmal the Gilmour for Leeman trade was. How Darryl Sutter lost his mind at the end of his GM tenure and gutted the team with some ridiculous decisions. How Feaster was in way over his head as GM and did a horrible job of getting value for players like Jaybo. These statements would all go unchallenged.

But you hold the view that the organization mishandled the highest pick in Calgary Flames history and it is disparaging and negative.

I'm with EE. I do find some of the mental gymnastics and salty tears entertaining and sure as hell doesn't mean I'm rooting against the team.

I think the objection was to "enjoying" people being (supposedly) wrong and that the team was at fault.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

You're comparing apples and oranges. Bennett at RW is not Bennett at C. Heck, Dillon Dube at RW is not Dillon Dube at C. Mikael Backlund at RW is not Backlund at C, remember how bad he looked with Johnny and Monny?

It's 100% fair and honestly the root cause of it all was the 16-17 season.

Bennett played center most of that season with most of his usage coming in the following line combos.

Versteeg - Bennett - Brouwer: 18.9%
CF%: 44.5%
xGF%: 39.1% (woof)
GF%: 58.3%

Gaudreau - Bennett - Chiasson: 11.8%
CF%: 48.9%
xGF%: 63.8%
GF%: 50%

Chiasson - Bennett - Versteeg:
CF%: 59.9%
xGF%: 49.0%
GF%: 41.2%

So mixed results, some of it was bad luck, and a lot of it was just Troy Brouwer, Alex Chiasson, and Kris Versteeg (to a lesser extent) weren't that good.

I would have loved to see a Tkachuk-Bennett-Versteeg line that year as I think the three of them would have really popped together.

The problem was they took playing a young Bennett at center with bad wingers, and translated it too "Bennett can't play center".

Then the next year Bennett-Janowski-Hathaway became a thing, and were effective and then Bennett became a winger.

Bennett-Jankowski-Hathaway
CF%: 54.9%
xGF%: 56.9%
GF%: 52.4%

Which in the short term was great because that line had chemistry and looked great together, but long term it set back Bennett's development and opportunity as a center.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

The “holier than thou” angle taken by folks like Bingo and Textcritic etc, believing it is somehow their duty to police (or at least passive-aggressively shame) people’s opinions, doesn’t help. Pitting “camp positive” against “camp negative” is abrasive and only serves to escalate tension and alienate people.

If everything a poster has to say is incessantly negative or unrealistically positive, then I think the labels fit. I have pointed this out before but there are very, highly critical posters on this board who are also quick to celebrate even small successes that the team continues to experience, and who also appear to be genuinely enjoying the game as evidenced from their participation in the game threads, or in the lampooning threads like E=NG. These strike me as fairly reflective of how a lot of highly invested fans of the team will feel and respond on a day-to-day basis, but it is also not reflective of all of those posting on this board who tend to get stereotyped as "negative."

One of the weirdest recurring takes here is that someone’s bull**** posts on a message board are somehow reflective of the quality of their character or their general outlook on life. Not everyone takes this miserable team so seriously that they allow it to colour their entire personality like that.

I mean, this is the only perspective that anyone of us has of one another. You are right: it is totally not reflective of who we are in real life, but the caricatures that develop around individual posters are certainly not borne of nothing. My impression of you is not of an especially positive person, and the reason for that is that virtually anything you ever have to say on the board is overwhelmingly pessimistic. So, for those of you who are displeased with how you are being perceived on an internet message board (I am not sure why you should care), then perhaps there are steps you could take to change that.

[Enoch Root]

I just find it amazing that people want to keep re-hashing the same arguments, every time the thread is bumped.

Maybe this time it'll sway some people that disagree!

[jaikorven]

I might be off base here, but I don't want to continually read the negative even when it is or might be true (speculation is fine). I do not want to deal with it on a forum that is meant for entertainment. I don't find the negativity entertaining at all. Some is expected, but my god it gets overdone on here sometimes.

[Saqe]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

Sam Bennett was also riding at ridiculous PDO of 112.3 on 62% OZ starts for those 10 games in Florida. I can back this up by watching some of the highlights at the time where certainly a number of his goals/points were nothing more than dumb luck bounces and cashing in on playing with incredible play driving players.

Don't be fooled into thinking Bennett was sniping or hanging onto pucks to create time and space. He's the same player he was here taking dumb penalties and operating a step behind the play, just playing with players that are far superior to anyone in a Flames jersey. It goes to show even more how much a team needs true star power and play driving centers in this league when they can quite literally polish a turd like that.

I've watched Huberdeau and Gaudreau for years and while Huberdeau is an elite playmaker, maybe the best in the game, the difference between him and Gaudreau overall is marginal if there is any difference at all. Gaudreau is clearly faster and has a better shot, the edge goes to Huberdeau regarding playmaking. He's also bigger and surprisingly strong. They are very different as players but to say Huberdeau is far superior to anything that the Flames have (Gaudreau) just isn't true.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Then why aren't you shaming the posters that are trying to discredit Bennett? It seems to me the only people that get called negative are the ones that aren't towing the company line. This is what frustrates posters.

It frustrates me that people still write "towing the line". It's "toeing".

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

I just find it amazing that people want to keep re-hashing the same arguments, every time the thread is bumped..!

I just find it amazing that this thread is getting bumped over and over. He was a bad draft pick. Unlike other bad draft picks we have had, he was our highest ever bad draft pick, so there's the bitterness. But he's gone and done here. And honestly, I don't care how he plays from now on, because he's no longer a Calgary Flame. Can we stop obsessing about him until Calgary plays Florida at least?

[TOfan]

Originally Posted by Coach

It is? Is there a source for this thought? My understanding is that he wasn't available when Peters was hired, so not considered. And then yeah when Peters got the boot, they could have brought him in, and then again could have when giving Ward the full duty before firing him months later. We needed Darryl right after Gulutzan threw his stick like an idiot.



I don't think this is necessarily true. I think it's possible neither Darryl or Tre WANTED to trade Bennett. It was a tough position to be in to roll the dice again on him next season, or try and get something valuable for him while they could. We could all project that Sam could do well with Sutter, but it was a big risk to lose out on his return.

Friedman has said the Flames approached Sutter when Peters was dismissed. I suspect the Flames gaged Sutter's interest, and probably preferred Sutter to Ward (who wouldn't?), but Sutter wasn't ready to commit at that time. I don't think Ward was ever the preferred choice, even when he did get the gig in the offseason. He was hired with a two year term and was probably close to the lowest paid HC in the league, if not the most. In other words, if things didn't go well, it wasn't going to be that hard to move on. I think the Flames maintained contact with Sutter and probably let him know the job was his, if he wanted it.

Sure, we could have used Sutter after Gulutzan threw his stick, but your premise seems to be that it was the Flames decision, and not Sutter's as though Daryll was just sitting around waiting for the Flames to hire him. I doubt very much that was the case. Pinning the timing of the hiring solely on the Flames is not realistic. Sutter had as much control as to when, or again if, he wanted to return to coaching. Maybe he wasn't ready in November 2019 to commit. Being a HC in the NHL is a demanding job. He probably works around the clock at the sacrifice of being with his family. Then the pandemic hit which was probably the worst time, perhaps ever, to be a coach or player in the NHL. We read similar criticism's about Treliving/the Flames on players as well. People like to look at a player, like Tyler Toffoli, and say 'Wow, he had a good year. Treliving really blew it by not signing him.' Well, is there any indication Toffoli would have signed in Calgary? Did I miss the report where Toffoli was left at the alter by the Flames and had to take the Habs as his second choice? Point being, the Flames don't get to simply pick and choose who they want working for them. The closest they get to that is the draft and as Adam Fox has proved, even that isn't a sure thing.

I do agree that Treliving, nor Sutter, may not have wanted to trade Bennett. The fact it took Treliving the amount of time it did to move him speaks to that. I suspect he was hopeful Bennett was going to find his stride here. At the end of the day, it was best for the player, and probably the organization to move on. Clearly Bennett wanted a shot in a top 6 role elsewhere and he wasn't going to beat out Gaudreau, Tkachuk, Mangiapanne, Lindholm, Monahan, Backlund. I would also take Coleman over Bennett. As it turns out, this years Flames forward group is better than it was at the start of last season, at least in my mind.

If Bennett was still a Flame today, he is probably competing with Dube for a LW role on the 3-LW spot, which I'm not sure if he could have won that spot.

[Enoch Root]

Nm