Sam Bennett contract negotiations.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

It’s interesting that most consider Sam’s performance in the Colorado series a real bright spot from the eye test, but IIRC his Corsi and High Danger splits were awful. Maybe they were still better than most other Flames that series?

He did have some production though. Kind of a flip of the regular season.

Jankowski and Neal were liabilities in that series, as were Hanifin and Hamonic so I'm not surprised Bennett was "awful" on any 5v5 metrics as that's who Bennett spent most of that series playing with besides Game 5, which happened to be Gaudreau's strongest game for a reason not independant of Bennett's play.

What we should be doing is moving Jankowski to the wing and returning Bennett to 3C where he minimally belongs, and giving him a pair of two-way wingers like Mangiapane and Frolik. It's something he's never had the benefit of in his entire career.

Which is also why, to address an above post, we do still need a Zucker because I do not think Bennett as a winger is to Calgary's benefit.

Originally Posted by Bingo

How much more context do you need than to pull 372 forwards from a season, and simply rank them in terms of production.

It's complete context.

If we're going to be pedantic, I would like to see the distribution curve.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

So when the team gets outshot in the neighbourhood of 2-1, giving up 50 shots in regulation, stats that are based on shot counts will be awful.

Kind of a flip of the regular season.

Comparing only to his teammates, who as you have pointed out innumerable times all played poorly:

Bennett had the second worst net CF% among all wingers. Only Hathaway was worse.

He had the worst High Danger Corsi score amongst wingers, and 4th worst on the team.

Czarnik was actually worse in both cases. He only played about 4 minutes of ES time, but was particularity useless during that time.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Bingo

On the team Bennett's rankings ... (forwards)

Goals60 - 10th (4th line)
PrimaryA60 - 5th (2nd line)
Shots60 - 8th (3rd line)
ExpGoals60 - 2nd (1st line)
IndCF60 - 7th (3rd line)
IndSCF60 - 2nd (1st line)
IndHDCF60 - 1st (1st line)

Once again ... not going to have much luck making that fourth line case.

That you refuse to provide the same statistical summary of those players is telling me everything I need to know about where this discussion is headed.

What are the ACTUAL numbers for Bennett compared to his bottom 6 brethren?

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Comparing only to his teammates, who as you have pointed out innumerable times all played poorly:

Bennett had the second worst net CF% among all wingers. Only Hathaway was worse.

He had the worst High Danger Corsi score amongst wingers, and 4th worst on the team.

Czarnik was actually worse in both cases. He only played about 4 minutes of ES time, but was particularity useless during that time.

Only five games so this is somewhat pointless, but ...

Sam Bennett xG% in the series was 37.75%.

However Jankowski was 20.92% and Neal was 33.42%

Sam Bennett with Jankowski and Neal as a combo was 17.54% (22 Min)
Bennett without those linemates 51.02% (26 Min)
Jankowski without Neal and Bennett 10.37% (8 Min)
Neal without Janko and Bennett 51.7% (11 Min)

Jankowski had a rough series, and Neal's ice without Jankowski, while good isn't significant in minutes.

Oh and the Flames none of the three on the ice ... 41%

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

That you refuse to provide the same statistical summary of those players is telling me everything I need to know about where this discussion is headed.

What are the ACTUAL numbers for Bennett compared to his bottom 6 brethren?

Bennett's ranking against all forwards on his team isn't good for establishing what line he should be on?

You want me to type out rankings for all those categories for 6 different players or you're right?

Give me a break.

The rankings are the math for the team. Mangiapane does quite well on some, Hathaway does quite well on some.

When a player is ranked in the top six in 4 of 7 rankings who cares who's ahead of? It's either ahead of the bottom six, or actually ahead of the current top six on the team. Either way it's a top six rating.

[Flash Walken]

I figured as much.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

I figured as much.

Actually you're not "figuring" at all. You're literally running from the figures.

[Bingo]

Actually quicker than I thought and it will dispel any notion you're carrying that I'm avoiding some truth that you think you've found.

I took out the top five forwards (Gaudreau, Monahan, Linholm, Backlund and Tkachuk).

Bennett ranks as follows against the other 9 forwards (Frolik, Ryan, Mangiapane, Jankowski, Czarnik, Hathaway, Dube and Neal).

Keep in mind a rank of 1st is 6th on the team. A rank of 2nd-4th is a third liner. A rank of 5-7th is a fourth liner, and 8-9 is press box.

Goals60 - 5th (fourth line) as I said before
PrimAss60 - 1st (2nd line)
Shots60 - 4th (3rd line)
XGoals60 - 1st (2nd line)
IndCF60 - 3rd (3rd line)
IndSCF60 - 1st (2nd line)
IndHDCF60 - 1st (2nd line)

His average ranking of all ... is 2.5, the only guy to average better is Frolik at 1.83.

So once again ... and for what feels like the 7th time. Not going to make the case that he's a fourth liner.

[Flash Walken]

This is a lot of effort to avoid giving us the raw numbers.

I would expect that a guy who played a quarter of the season on line 2 would rank higher than 4 guys who didn't. You seem to agree.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Only five games so this is somewhat pointless, but ...

Sam Bennett xG% in the series was 37.75%.

However Jankowski was 20.92% and Neal was 33.42%

Sam Bennett with Jankowski and Neal as a combo was 17.54% (22 Min)
Bennett without those linemates 51.02% (26 Min)
Jankowski without Neal and Bennett 10.37% (8 Min)
Neal without Janko and Bennett 51.7% (11 Min)

Jankowski had a rough series, and Neal's ice without Jankowski, while good isn't significant in minutes.

Oh and the Flames none of the three on the ice ... 41%

Interesting and yeah somewhat pointless. Flames got spanked and we know it. It would be very dangerous to make much of a contract decision based on that series, much less something like 26 minutes of ice time with better linemates.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

This is a lot of effort to avoid giving us the raw numbers.

I would expect that a guy who played a quarter of the season on line 2 would rank higher than 4 guys who didn't. You seem to agree.

Yeah in one of the seven stats.

Are you just ignoring the other six and focusing on goals only?

Are you seriously taking in four pages of stats that have him ranked league wide, contender wide, and team wide on line one two or three ad nauseum but focusing on the one that says fourth line and screaming "gotcha!"

That's pretty lame man.

[SportsJunky]

I'm a little bit amused that there is so much discussion going on about whether Sammy B is a 3rd or 4th liner. Bottom line for me is he ain't a top 6 guy which is what I'd like to see added this off-season.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

I'm a little bit amused that there is so much discussion going on about whether Sammy B is a 3rd or 4th liner. Bottom line for me is he ain't a top 6 guy which is what I'd like to see added this off-season.

Totally agree, and have said it many times. They need to add a better player than Frolik/Bennett

[CanadaMatt]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

I'm a little bit amused that there is so much discussion going on about whether Sammy B is a 3rd or 4th liner. Bottom line for me is he ain't a top 6 guy which is what I'd like to see added this off-season.

I agree with this.

Usually though, would we not expect our 3rd line to be a shut down checking line (ideally in a perfect world, as opposed to our second line which was the checking line this season)?

In this “ideal” scenario, Bennett would be a 2nd liner or a 4th liner as he certainly not a shut down guy.

To me the balance of the team is wrong, and if we got the balance right (I.e. a proper 3rd line to shut down the opposition top line)...then Bennett would be a 4th line guy.

Perhaps the game has changed and I’m wrong on this though.

[GranteedEV]

Goalscoring is definitely an area Bennett could improve upon to really cement himself as an upper echelon player. But the idea that his goal scoring is fourth line caliber is hilariously misguided.

286 players have hit the 3000+ 5v5 minutes played mark since Sam Bennett entered the NHL. Their goals/60 are documented below in a massive screencap. I've highlighted Sam Bennett's rank among those 286 players throughout that time in green. I've also bolded other Flames from last year's Calgary Flames

Spoiler!

Look at the names sitting in his production range and it's hardly a list of fourth liners, besides Matt Cullen who was a super fourth liner on a back to back champion.

Minute-for-minute you also see Bennett has typically scored goals at a higher rate than three members of our top six (Elias Lindholm, Mikael Backlund, and Michael Frolik). He only slightly trails Matthew Tkachuk, who has surely had the superior quality of teammate. Both of them trail Gaudreau, Monahan, and... James Neal before he hit the wrong side of 30.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Totally agree, and have said it many times. They need to add a better player than Frolik/Bennett

Yeah. And with Frolik making over $4 million you don’t need another guy in that salary range playing on your third line.

Neal and to a lesser extent Czarnik are certainly the disappointments from last year. Imagine if they had played as we had all hoped...

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Yeah in one of the seven stats.

Are you just ignoring the other six and focusing on goals only?

Are you seriously taking in four pages of stats that have him ranked league wide, contender wide, and team wide on line one two or three ad nauseum but focusing on the one that says fourth line and screaming "gotcha!"

That's pretty lame man.

Can you stop avoiding just giving us the raw numbers for the rest of the group for goals for, primary assists etc etc.

You're the most consistently stat oriented guy on this board and I am trying to talk stats with you and you're calling me lame or saying i don't believe in gravity because I keep asking you for data you seemingly have at your fingertips, and you won't supply it.

It's a really simple premise:

If bennett scores 1.00 goals per 60 and hathaway scores .98 goals per 60 i'm going to tell you that Hathaway is a better goal scorer because he didn't get 20 games with the second best offensive player in the lineup to pad those stats.

If Bennett gets 20 games with backlund and tkachuk and is only marginally more productive than guys that play 10 minutes a night exclusively with other guys who struggle to produce then Bennett's 'ranking' doesn't mean anything.

That you're fixated on 'ranking' tells me you already know this and are reticent to share that data.

[Joborule]

This Bennett is a 4th liner talk is giving me some 'Where are you Chris O'Sullivan?' vibes.

[TheoFleury]

Originally Posted by Joborule

This Bennett is a 4th liner talk is giving me some 'Where are you Chris O'Sullivan?' vibes.

No kidding. If Bennett was a 2nd round pick we would be thrilled with him, but he's viewed as worse than he is because of the disappointment about him not being game breaker. So what if he didn't live up to his draft billing? It happens. There is a place for a 30 point, multi position 3rd liner with intangibles on anyone's roster really. See him for what he is, not what you wished he would've become. We could do far, far worse than having Sam Bennett on the roster.

If I was Edmonton, I would try to clear up cap space to go after him. Give him a 5 year term at 4m AAV and watch Calgary squirm. A 2nd round pick would be a steal for him and it would make McDavid happy for sure. A line with Bennett McDavid and Draisatl would be utterly terrifying. I think he would compliment those two quite well. I know Bennett isn't a first liner but he would still be Edmonton's 2nd best winger and easily on that line. Not that I want that to happen but if I was Holland that's what my offseason plan would include. It would be a gamble for sure but that's where Edmonton is at right now.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Oh man, Calgary could be so lucky to have Bennett offersheeted. Take the pick and run. I would laugh at Edmonton saddling McDavid and Draisaitl with Bennett. If Bennett can't produce with Tkachuk and Backlund, or Gaudreau and Monahan, then he isn't going to produce anywhere. The legend of Sam Bennett continues to grow to lengths he will never be able to live up to.