Practice Notes - December 30, 2019

[Flames Draft Watcher]

If Gaudreau needs the entire lineup to be rebuilt in order to make him effective that's a problem. Great players make the players around them better. This year he's often making his line worse.

The best Gaudreau has looked this year was with Ryan and Lucic imo. He needs players who can cycle, who can protect the puck and retain possession.

I'm glad Ward has re-united that line.

[Strange Brew]

I guess we’ll see how Monahan/Backlund/Bennett plays but it doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. I guess if you move Gaudreau to the Ryan line you really need someone with at least some skill with Monahan.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

If Gaudreau needs the entire lineup to be rebuilt in order to make him effective that's a problem. Great players make the players around them better. This year he's often making his line worse.

The best Gaudreau has looked this year was with Ryan and Lucic imo. He needs players who can cycle, who can protect the puck and retain possession.

I'm glad Ward has re-united that line.

Agree with this. Hope Gaudreau can find some offensive luck again on the PP to build his confidence. Meanwhile you hope this line can get offensive zone time if nothing else.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Someone with a better memory can assist me here but my understanding was that Bennett's agent did in fact approach Flames management about his usage there maybe a year or two ago. Friedman (or the like) reported on it.

you're remembering correctly. Bennett was unhappy with his usage, his agent spoke with Treliving, Bennett got a shot with Tkachuk.

Bennetts numbers went up, Tkachuk's numbers went down, but outside of that he was producing at a 4th line rate.

We went over this last year and the year before. Bennett was consistently producing fourth line rate tangible numbers that had him tied or behind the contemporary 4th liners on the team.

You can read some of the posts here:

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

yeah, I don't think you represent the stats appropriately.

For example:



He produces goals at a 4th line rate, but played 30% of the season with the hottest player in the lineup at the time.

We've been over this:



This year, without significant icetime in the top 6, he's on pace for:

12 goals and 21 points.

That's 4th line production.

last year after 20 games without significant icetime in the top 6, he was on pace for:

8 goals and 21 points

Czarnik by comparison was on pace for 27 points. Janko on pace for 19. 4th liners. Janko exploded of course, but he's back to being a 4th liner this year.

I believe according to your stats that his time with Tkachuk and Backlund saw his points per 60 jump by 100%. So, even on the hottest offensive team in the west last year, when he didn't get icetime with the Tkachuk and Backlund, he produced at 4th line rate.

If you gave Hathaway the 3 extra minutes per game Bennett played, does Hathaway close the 2 goal gap between them over 70 games? Absolutely.

Is Hathaway out producing Bennett this year even though he's playing marginally fewer minutes? Yes he is.

Is Hathaway a 4th liner? Yes he is.

So what's Bennett then?

Same story this year, just worse because he's not getting reps outside of the 4th line and his production is illustrating that. He's not getting those reps because there are simply better options.

I predicted this would happen with the Lucic addition. Lucic is providing everything Bennett provided plus more and that's pushed Bennett down the depth chart. As bad as i think Lucic is, he's significantly outperformed bennett this year, and ideally Lucic is a 4th liner, so what does that make Bennett?

Bennett is now not just a 4th line player, he's an expensive 4th line player.

That's no bueno.

With Dube and Mangiapane looking ok and pretty good, there's just no justification to give Bennett extra reps.

Once again it looks like the flames are going to try that in this game against Chicago, but at this point I think that's as much to satisfy Bennett's camp as it is to position him for a trade.

The rumour about the flames laughing off trade proposals isn't exactly going to go away with this new rumour that Bennett doesn't feel like he has a position on this team.

This could be the last gasp before the plunge. Give him minutes, see what happens, hope you can capitalize on a marginal improvement on the trade offers you received a month ago.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

you're remembering correctly. Bennett was unhappy with his usage, his agent spoke with Treliving, Bennett got a shot with Tkachuk.

Bennetts numbers went up, Tkachuk's numbers went down, but outside of that he was producing at a 4th line rate.

We went over this last year and the year before. Bennett was consistently producing fourth line rate tangible numbers that had him tied or behind the contemporary 4th liners on the team.

You can read some of the posts here:



Same story this year, just worse because he's not getting reps outside of the 4th line and his production is illustrating that. He's not getting those reps because there are simply better options.

I predicted this would happen with the Lucic addition. Lucic is providing everything Bennett provided plus more and that's pushed Bennett down the depth chart. As bad as i think Lucic is, he's significantly outperformed bennett this year, and ideally Lucic is a 4th liner, so what does that make Bennett?

Bennett is now not just a 4th line player, he's an expensive 4th line player.

That's no bueno.

With Dube and Mangiapane looking ok and pretty good, there's just no justification to give Bennett extra reps.

Once again it looks like the flames are going to try that in this game against Chicago, but at this point I think that's as much to satisfy Bennett's camp as it is to position him for a trade.

The rumour about the flames laughing off trade proposals isn't exactly going to go away with this new rumour that Bennett doesn't feel like he has a position on this team.

This could be the last gasp before the plunge. Give him minutes, see what happens, hope you can capitalize on a marginal improvement on the trade offers you received a month ago.

He's been on average a 7-8 guy in the league for the past three seasons. Not a fourth liner.

To go dice up his ice time from when he was given more opportunity to less is a worthless exercise unless you plan on doing the same with the other 180 forwards that play down the roster.

He's been off this year, I'm fine with him taking his turn munching popcorn, but he's not a fourth liner. He's a bottom six guy that creates more than his share of chances, doesn't finish, but plays a physical role and can fight.

That has value, and likely doesn't have him over paid.

[Flash Walken]

Nah, I don't have to dice up the icetime of 180 guys, and I don't need to compare him to worthless organizations with worthless bottom 6 players.

All i have to do is compare him to guys who play 4th line minutes on his own team to illustrate his numbers are less than spectacular and that for all his jam and physical role, he produces offense at or below the level of guys like Jankowski, Czarnik, Hathaway and Lucic.

He has the 4th line edge on Czar because he has physical tools for the role, but Czarnik just passed through waivers making a million dollars less per season with no term attached, so I don't think that's a glowing comparison.

I'd rather have Hathaway at 1.5x4 than Bennett at 2.25x2 because at least Hathaway can do 4th line things like kill penalties alongside produce at a 4th line rate, and he doesn't grumble about the quality of his minutes to the point where the team bends over to accommodate him, which is now the case for 2 years in a row with Bennett.

It appears to me that that is the stickiest wicket of them all. In the last 4 years Bennett is averaging less than 40 seconds per game short handed. Last year he averaged just 12 seconds per game short handed, and this season it's 8 seconds.

What kind of 3rd line player doesn't play short handed minutes?

There are 6 forwards on the roster who average more short handed icetime per game, and Jankowski averages 2 minutes and 12 seconds more per game than Bennett does.

I have to believe that's a decisive factor in Bennett's value. Hathaway is playing 1:22 shorthanded for the caps this season, for example. Janko almost 2:30. Bennett :08

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Nah, I don't have to dice up the icetime of 180 guys, and I don't need to compare him to worthless organizations with worthless bottom 6 players.

All i have to do is compare him to guys who play 4th line minutes on his own team to illustrate his numbers are less than spectacular and that for all his jam and physical role, he produces offense at or below the level of guys like Jankowski, Czarnik, Hathaway and Lucic.

He has the 4th line edge on Czar because he has physical tools for the role, but Czarnik just passed through waivers making a million dollars less per season with no term attached, so I don't think that's a glowing comparison.

I'd rather have Hathaway at 1.5x4 than Bennett at 2.25x2 because at least Hathaway can do 4th line things like kill penalties alongside produce at a 4th line rate, and he doesn't grumble about the quality of his minutes to the point where the team bends over to accommodate him, which is now the case for 2 years in a row with Bennett.

It appears to me that that is the stickiest wicket of them all. In the last 4 years Bennett is averaging less than 40 seconds per game short handed. Last year he averaged just 12 seconds per game short handed, and this season it's 8 seconds.

What kind of 3rd line player doesn't play short handed minutes?

There are 6 forwards on the roster who average more short handed icetime per game, and Jankowski averages 2 minutes and 12 seconds more per game than Bennett does.

I have to believe that's a decisive factor in Bennett's value. Hathaway is playing 1:22 shorthanded for the caps this season, for example. Janko almost 2:30. Bennett :08

The team is bending over backwards to accommodate Sam Bennett?

That's some serious insider information you're sporting there! We have a comment from a year ago about his agent and that's where you go?

Otherwise I agree ... he'd have more value if he was killing penalties for sure.

But yeah you need to dice up the other 180 because that's the bottom six of all the teams. If you're going to make a cut on Bennett's production because he was given opportunity you pretty much need to do the same if you're summary is he's a fourth liner. I can't imagine league wide third liners don't move up the roster once and a while for injury or shake up. Additionally, they move down when things aren't going well. The average production is the average production.

[GioforPM]

Yeah, I don’t see the Flames working to accommodate any bottom six players. they are getting what they are getting.