[News] McKenzie: Bennett expected to have shoulder surgery. Could be out for months

[djsFlames]

If it requires surgery, get it done now. And just hope to god it's healed in time to play the back half of the season in Kingston.

[Fire]

Originally Posted by nik-

I disagree with both of these statements. It sucks for his development, and the second part causes more playing time to be missed. Which makes it worse.

I don't think it will hurt his development too much. It sucks missing the World Juniors, but playing in the OHL is not going to make him a much better player than he already is, he already dominates that league. His main issue is his size and strength. Hopefully after rehabbing he will be that much stronger.

[albertGQ]

Originally Posted by Arya Stark

Not that it makes a difference but just curious, does he get paid an NHL salary?

Previous page said that he is paid an AHL salary while injured since he didn't play in the NHL last season

[jaydub74]

Kid is his own worst enemy. He knew he was hurt, but lied to the training staff to get back in the lineup. Can't fault him for his desire to play, but his short term thinking may have cost him a chance with the Flames this year, and any further development. Bad decision, should have just rested it in the first place, now he's paying for it.

[Rick M.]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Too many pull ups?

The separated shoulder he 'played through' in junior last season is more likely the explanation of why he couldn't do a pull up at the Combine. This is one tough kid.

[burn_baby_burn]

Does this raise any red flags about the evaluation process of the Calgary Flames scouting and medical staff? How was this not caught at the NHL combine or before the draft? I'm sure Bennett isn't the first hockey player to hide an injury to make a team or keep in the line up. The fact that a physically mature 18 year old with world class athleticism couldn't do a single pull up should have been an indication for the Flames staff to do further testing before the draft.

[FBI]

Dammit.

Can somebody with a time machine tell us if next year he is all recovered and dominant?
If so then I don't have to be sad.

[JonDuke]

I know I'm late to the the party, but...

[Poe969]

Lets just hope that however it's handled, Sam comes back at 100% and becomes a dominant player for us in the future. This year was a wash anyway so it'll just set him back a year or so.

I just hope he learns that trying to hide things like this are detrimental to his future.

[codynw]

Originally Posted by Fire

If he can produce 118 points in 57 games with a bad shoulder think what he could do when healthy.

He only had 97 points. The 118 you're seeing is probably his penalty minutes.

[Poe969]

Originally Posted by codynw

He only had 97 points.

what a bust!


I think it's even more impressive that he had 97 points AND 117 penalty minutes with an injured shoulder. Hopefully it didn't hurt his future.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by burnitdown

What I don't get is if this was a problem from his junior year, how did we not pick this up during the pre-draft medicals (a bad move)? Or did we, and still opt to draft him (an understandable move)? It seems like Hartley made it sound like they would have liked to have known about this sooner so it sounds like it's the former. UGH!!

Sounds to me like the kid has the warrior mentality that he's willing to play through the pain and likely badly wanted to attend his first NHL camp and didn't want a nagging injury getting in the way. In retrospect it's probably best he came clean earlier but it also shows the team that this guy is going to go through walls for this team and who could be unhappy about that after seeing the Flames previous cap ceiling team full of players that were only happy if they were scoring and few willing to go over and above the call of duty?

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

Does this raise any red flags about the evaluation process of the Calgary Flames scouting and medical staff? How was this not caught at the NHL combine or before the draft? I'm sure Bennett isn't the first hockey player to hide an injury to make a team or keep in the line up. The fact that a physically mature 18 year old with world class athleticism couldn't do a single pull up should have been an indication for the Flames staff to do further testing before the draft.

Who's to say they didn't? At the time it was likely a nagging minor problem that got worse with rookie tournament and training camp. Shoulders can be funny and you don't want to do surgery unless you need to. Bennett likely wasn't letting them know how much pain he was in and they were hoping he could work through it.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by opendoor

That's not true. Players on two-way contracts who are injured in training camp and who accrued fewer than 50 NHL games in the previous season are paid a discounted rate while on IR which is based on how many days they were in the NHL the previous season. So if you were in the NHL for 10% of the year and in the AHL for 90%, your IR salary would be calculated by prorating the salaries by those percentages. So a guy on a $1M/100K 2-way deal would be paid as if he had a $190K annual salary ($1M x 10% plus 100K x 90%).

In Bennett's case he wasn't in the NHL at all last year so he'll just be paid his AHL salary of $70K (about $370 a day for every day he's on IR).

Good to know, thanks! Still beats the $50 weekly wage he'd get in junior though.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by jaydub74

Kid is his own worst enemy. He knew he was hurt, but lied to the training staff to get back in the lineup. Can't fault him for his desire to play, but his short term thinking may have cost him a chance with the Flames this year, and any further development. Bad decision, should have just rested it in the first place, now he's paying for it.

Drouin has already done the same thing a couple times to Tampa. Fortunately less severe injuries.

[sa226]

Originally Posted by nik-

I disagree with both of these statements. It sucks for his development, and the second part causes more playing time to be missed. Which makes it worse.

I see your point, missing time is never a good thing. But momentum has such a huge role to play in development. If he gets it done now he can come back healthy (hopefully) lead his junior team to whatever success they may have, springboard that success into a hardworking summer and springboard that into a great camp and NHL gig.

In Poirier's case he had to have surgery and rehab over the summer and now once he is cleared to play he has to play catch up to the rest of the players who have had a full summer and camp. Thats tough for a developing player.

I really believe that Backlund's arrival was delayed one year due to that stupid broken finger he had. That year he had a great camp and was riding a wave of confidence heading into the season, then the injury happened and he had to play catch up the rest of the season.

[FlameZilla]

Bummer. They managed to keep this quiet.

Kid's young and should bounce back quickly though.

Does this mean he'll get a few months collecting an NHL salary on the IR? That is fricken sweet for him, though I imagine he'd rather be playing hockey.

[albertGQ]

Originally Posted by FlameZilla

Bummer. They managed to keep this quiet.

Kid's young and should bounce back quickly though.

Does this mean he'll get a few months collecting an NHL salary on the IR? That is fricken sweet for him, though I imagine he'd rather be playing hockey.

[sureLoss]

Calgary Flames @NHLFlames
"I had problems with this shoulder last year. I didn't think anything of it ... it started to act up a bit at the start of camp." - Bennett

Randy Sportak @SUNRandySportak
Bennett: “I think, ultimately,this is going to be best for my career. After,I'll be that much more confident, that much stronger.”

[undercoverbrother]

While I don't doubt that the Flames do their due diligence, I wonder if this is something that should have come out before the draft?