GDT: Calgary vs Minnesota 8 PM ET

[Calculon]

 

[Skobel24]

Bennett as a winger doesn't mean a fail. It seriously just means he joins a relatively long list of players from that same draft who look to be wingers for the forseeable future. I think Bennett and much of the draft will bloom late in terms of rounding out their games. All those guys have a heck of a lot of talent.

Exactly. There have been countless players drafted as centermen that wind up on the wing. It's common.

 

[Body Checker]

Chalk it up under the "Games should of lost" heading on the board. Start evening out soon with "Games should of won"

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

I have no idea if Bennett will ever go back to C or not. For the time being, he’s looking fantastic so no reason to mess with what him and Janks have going on. But what I foresee is down the road an injury occurring to a C, Benny will then get another shot and he’ll either be a) meh, b) okay or c) play great. If he plays great, then you have a discussion to talk about. Again right now there’s nothing to think about.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

The same Bennett that had 0 points in 18 games at centre.

Odd, considering he only played eight games at center this season. Which is within variance for an eight game sample size for a guy getting strict third line minutes (hint, he had seven pointless games at wing before he finally scored, and is pointless in his last five.)

The same one who looked completely lost.

You mean the one who was centering an injured Vertsteeg, Curtis Lazar (who is still terrible, 30 games later), while carrying Matt Bartkowski around (incidentally, Bartkowski played seven consecutive games this season, which co-incided with "Sam Bennett at center"... HMMMMMM).

Or maybe you mean the Sam Bennett who had his way with guys like Kesler in last year's playoffs, playing center and leading this team in playoff 5v5 goals. Or since small sample sizes mean everything, maybe you mean the Sam Bennett who had 6 points in 4 games (dominantly) centering Gaudreau in 2015-16. Or do you mean the Sam Bennett who was on pace for 38 points playing 3rd line center before his on-ice shooting percentages fell off the face of the earth the year before.

The only place Bennett was "lost" in was stick infractions, which were due to a rule change.

The same Bennett who now has 16 points in the 24 games he's played at wing.

16 points in 34 games, actually. But I guess we'll just manipulate facts to fit a narrative.

Who looks dominant in board battles and is a hound on the puck.

Yeah, traits that can be applied to some of the best centers - guys like Bergeron, Toews, Crosby, ... move em all to wing and use an eight game stretch to justify it.

Never mind that Bennett's still having a season that's awful for his talent level - he is on pace for ten goals. After scoring 18 his first year (playing more center than he has this year), 14 his second year (playing 90% center).

 

[Lunatik]

Seems someone is in shambles over Bennett. Shambles.

 

[Anglesmith]

Definitely an option to consider when the top line goes into another dry spell. Monahan always seems to elevate his game when he's centring other guys. Same can't be said for all players, so maybe we could exploit that. Meanwhile, Bennett does seem to combine with Gaudreau pretty well on the few occasions we've seen, so maybe he's the kind of guy who needs an elite winger to make him more effective at centre.

Thing is, now that we have Bennett on the wing, putting him back at centre would disrupt all the lines. And now that the top line is red hot, you aren't going to see that broken up, obviously, and there's no reason to. No reason not to just have Bennett keep up his good work on the third line wing.