Yeah what a find. Who saw him making the NHL, much less succeeding as much as he has.
Its probably taboo to discuss Benning stats compared to Werenskis right now (Werenski has been mentioned by the likes of Yahoos puck daddy as been one of best D in the NHL this year). But a comparison for fun sakes is pretty interesting
Context stats:
Quality of competition
Benning: 29.30
Werenski: 29.34
Defensive zone starts
Benning: 25.73%
Werenski: 27%
(defensive zone faceoff % is nearly equal)
TOI/game
Benning: 15 mins
Weresnki: 16 mins
So you can see that they play similar minutes- Benning has a slight advantage in quality of teammate (not shown above) and slightly easier quality of comp. But nothing drastic. Both play similar amount 5 x 5
Shot metrics
CF%
Benning: 55.3%
Weresnki: 52.3%
Scoring chances for%:
Benning: 57.64% (!!!)
Werenski: 49.72%
Shots for % is the same at 54%
Relative stats are in favour of Benning almost across the board. Pretty amazing as the rest of Edmonton players are above 50% possession or right around it. So not comparing him to bums or anything
Both have 7 points at even strength (both 2 goals, 5 assists)
Honestly to make this a fair compare to Werenski and not nitpick stats in favour of Benning I tried to find stats in his favour, but there wasnt many. He had advantage in some areas like chances for, or shots for, but Benning had bigger advantage in preventing chances against, or shots against- so his CF% or SF% was better. Werenski did have a low PDO and Benning was around 102 so might dip in future. He also does have slight advantage in individual shots/60, but Benning is not slouch in this area
It appears at 5x5 Benning has the advantage over Werenski, and truth be told his 5x5 numbers are pretty outstanding. Werenski does wipe the floor with him on PP tho and one of best PP D in the league as a rookie.
tl;dr Benning has some outstanding underlying numbers