Player Discussion Is it time yet? (Benning)

[Grey Poupon*]

Can we call the guy a bonafide Top-4 Dman yet?

My goodness, this guy is solid. It's like we picked up an NHL dman out of nowhere. WOW.



Statistically, he's right there with other top-4 dmen around the league.







This kid is feisty

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[Kerricthebig]

Top 4? No not yet. Definitely trending that way though. Certainly top 6 NHL, coming along quite nicely.

 

[VainGretzky]

Can we call the guy a bonafide Top-4 Dman yet?

My goodness, this guy is solid. It's like we picked up an NHL dman out of nowhere. WOW.

Yea and on the Flames goal they put the pick on him in no way his fault

 

[jebs]

Can we call the guy a bonafide Top-4 Dman yet?

My goodness, this guy is solid. It's like we picked up an NHL dman out of nowhere. WOW.

No. I hope he keeps it up but I'm not super optimistic. He wasn't exactly rated very highly coming out of college.

He is playing great tho.

 

[JarvisFunk]

What is the consensus on this board: Benning or Davidson?

 

[Jepprey]

Ever since that Rangers flub, he's been playing solid.

For a second there, after Nurse injury, I thought we would be in trouble defensively. Manning has helped quite a bit in solidifying the d corps as a rookie. Been nice that he's chipped in some offense lately as well.

 

[Grey Poupon*]

What is the consensus on this board: Benning or Davidson?

I think they're essentially the same. Solid NHL defensemen. What you see is what you get.

We need Benning more though. We still have Nurse and Reinhart on LD. There's no one like Davidson or Benning on the right side.

 

[KlefDown]

#VoteBenning for Calder

 

[Grey Poupon*]

Not gonna lie... Benning is our Tanev.

I'm psyched!

 

[thadd]

What is the consensus on this board: Benning or Davidson?

I think they've got a similar upside but just have different tool sets at this point.

 

[Kayen]

Ever since that Rangers flub, he's been playing solid.

For a second there, after Nurse injury, I thought we would be in trouble defensively. Manning has helped quite a bit in solidifying the d corps as a rookie. Been nice that he's chipped in some offense lately as well.

Making McDavid angry has definitely helped the defensive core a lot.

All jokes aside, Benning has looked very impressive to me.

 

[KCC]

Can we call the guy a bonafide Top-4 Dman yet?

My goodness, this guy is solid. It's like we picked up an NHL dman out of nowhere. WOW.



Statistically, he's right there with other top-4 dmen around the league.

Sample size is way too small but I like what I've seen.

 

[Spawn]

He's performed admirably so far this year. Who would have thought that in the summer the Benning signing would have had more of an impact this year (so far) than the Caggiula signing.

As for "is it time yet" for him to be a top 4 d-man...

Why don't we let him continue to kill it on the bottom pairing. We've finally got a few young d-men that we can afford to let ripen playing bottom pairing sheltered minutes. Lets keep doing that and watch them blossom.

 

[Aerrol]

He's performed admirably so far this year. Who would have thought that in the summer the Benning signing would have had more of an impact this year (so far) than the Caggiula signing.

As for "is it time yet" for him to be a top 4 d-man...

Why don't we let him continue to kill it on the bottom pairing. We've finally got a few young d-men that we can afford to let ripen playing bottom pairing sheltered minutes. Lets keep doing that and watch them blossom.

Ding ding ding. He's certainly impressing me more than Davidson did last season, but it's still way too early to say he's top 4. Let's just enjoy watching him grow in a sheltered role, please.

 

[McFlyingV]

No. I hope he keeps it up but I'm not super optimistic. He wasn't exactly rated very highly coming out of college.

He is playing great tho.

What would make you think that he won't keep it up? He skates and moves the puck well, is extremely smart in his positioning, is fairly strong and has a nice physical element, and has some solid offensive instincts. There's not much about his play that screams unsustainable to me. If anything theres quite a bit of room to develop offensively as he better learns the NHL game.

I don't know that he's a top 4 D yet (he looks like one on many nights), but I think he absolutely has that upside and without question is an NHL Dman right now.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

What is the consensus on this board: Benning or Davidson?

No question Benning.

 

[Spawn]

Ding ding ding. He's certainly impressing me more than Davidson did last season, but it's still way too early to say he's top 4. Let's just enjoy watching him grow in a sheltered role, please.

Davidson's last 20 games or so last season was top notch. I don't think Benning has hit that level. But then again, Davidson hasn't come close to it yet either. Davidson is actually probably a pretty good reminder to be cautious of Benning. A number of people had Davidson penned as the teams 3rd best d-man going into the season ahead of Sekera, and he's been anything but so far this year. Consistency is a hard thing to find in this league. Benning is going to have his struggles just like any other young player in the league.

 

[McFlyingV]

Ding ding ding. He's certainly impressing me more than Davidson did last season, but it's still way too early to say he's top 4. Let's just enjoy watching him grow in a sheltered role, please.

Really? For about a 10 game stretch Davidson was playing flawless top pairing shutdown minutes last year. I think the two have been fairly similar in their play this season, albeit in different ways. Benning's very smart positionally and a good puck mover, while Davidson has solid gap control and is good at separating guys from the puck and disrupting the cycle.

 

[Aerrol]

Davidson's last 20 games or so last season was top notch. I don't think Benning has hit that level. But then again, Davidson hasn't come close to it yet either.

I think my eyes tend to hone in on puck skills and skating more than positioning (not that I don't appreciate both), so I think that may be part of where I'm coming from. But fair. I think watching Davidson this season has made me forget how good he was at the end of last season. I know I was also complimenting him with the rest of us.

edit:

Really? For about a 10 game stretch Davidson was playing flawless top pairing shutdown minutes last year. I think the two have been fairly similar in their play this season, albeit in different ways. Benning's very smart positionally and a good puck mover, while Davidson has solid gap control and is good at separating guys from the puck and disrupting the cycle.

lol, yeah, I think this pretty much lines up with my statement above.

 

[McFlyingV]

What is the consensus on this board: Benning or Davidson?

About the same this season imo. Doesn't need to be one or the other. If we are able to keep Davidson through expansion then I don't see much point signing Russell for next year unless its on a similar 1 year deal.

Sekera-Larsson
Klefbom-Benning
Nurse-Davidson

Looks good to me going forward

 

[alphahelix]

I hope we can trade Larsson while his value is still high (they traded Hall for him so he must be good!)

He is injured but we don't really miss him. Davidson and Russell can play at his level defensively while adding other elements. If he could be packaged up with Lucic or Eberle for an offensively talented RHD we'd be great. Benning gives us some depth on RH but we can't really move Larsson without adding another natural RH.

Our D is improved this year because we have depth. The worst guy we are forced to play semi-regularly is Gryba, and he can hold his own against average NHL competition. Normally we'd have 3 AHL-quality guys in our top 6 by this time in the season.

 

[Aerrol]

I hope we can trade Larsson while his value is still high (they traded Hall for him so he must be good!)

He is injured but we don't really miss him. Davidson and Russell can play at his level defensively while adding other elements. If he could be packaged up with Lucic or Eberle for an offensively talented RHD we'd be great. Benning gives us some depth on RH but we can't really move Larsson without adding another natural RH.

Our D is improved this year because we have depth. The worst guy we are forced to play semi-regularly is Gryba, and he can hold his own against average NHL competition. Normally we'd have 3 AHL-quality guys in our top 6 by this time in the season.

......

Really? One win without him and we're getting this already? I hated the trade and I still think this ridiculous. We very obviously missed him last night. Unless you're getting a Taylor Hall level player back AND adding another good top pairing dman somehow I want no part of this.

 

[Aerchon]

Davidson's last 20 games or so last season was top notch. I don't think Benning has hit that level. But then again, Davidson hasn't come close to it yet either. Davidson is actually probably a pretty good reminder to be cautious of Benning. A number of people had Davidson penned as the teams 3rd best d-man going into the season ahead of Sekera, and he's been anything but so far this year. Consistency is a hard thing to find in this league. Benning is going to have his struggles just like any other young player in the league.

Perfectly said.

I would also add Davidson last year was substantially better offensively than anything we have seen from Benning this year as well, had a much better shot and timing on when to use it.

Having said that benning has grown so much from the start of the year you can't help but hope he will continue and end up being a legit top 4 right shooting defender this team desperately needs.

 

[LTIR]

I hope we can trade Larsson while his value is still high (they traded Hall for him so he must be good!)

He is injured but we don't really miss him. Davidson and Russell can play at his level defensively while adding other elements. If he could be packaged up with Lucic or Eberle for an offensively talented RHD we'd be great. Benning gives us some depth on RH but we can't really move Larsson without adding another natural RH.

Our D is improved this year because we have depth. The worst guy we are forced to play semi-regularly is Gryba, and he can hold his own against average NHL competition. Normally we'd have 3 AHL-quality guys in our top 6 by this time in the season.

Good joke.. why not trade a LD instead? Klefbom should net something decent... or how about Nurse..we have been fine without him.. or how about Benning the man himself? So why are we trading a quality Dman again???

 

[Mcnotloilersfan]

I knew very little about him, and was worried that he was forced in on a promise that he would get ice time if he signed here. Old management still haunts me. I love this kids game. He isn't a top 4 dman yet, but we are in a good spot right now where none of these kids get forced into top pairing minuted.

They can get bottom pairing minutes, rewarded with more when they're playing well, but we can afford to ground them back down when they're not.