By Darren Haynes
Back in October, I wrote in this same space that the Calgary Flames owed it to themselves to invest in Sam Bennett and give the team's highest-ever draft pick an opportunity to be the top-six center they drafted him to be.
There was an urgency to the situation, with a shortened 56-game season lying ahead and an expansion draft looming on the other side.
The compressed season wouldn't allow time for a season-long experiment of tinkering here and there with Bennett's role. They needed to give him a shot at 1C or 2C right out of the gate. A legit shot. Give it six weeks at minimum. Let him string together at least 20 games in that role, then revert to plan B if things aren't working. There will still be enough season left to recover if needed.
Seattle, the NHL's newest franchise, also played a role in this equation. Bennett entered the season projected to be the eighth name on the list of seven forwards Calgary could protect come June's expansion draft. As a result, there was a real risk that Bennett, 24, could be lost to the Kraken for nothing if he wasn't traded before that to salvage something in return.
The one scenario that it was absolutely incumbent on the organization to avoid is exactly what's unfolding right now in south Florida. Finding out from another team, after it's too late, that damn, maybe Bennett really is a top-six centre, Calgary just hadn't tried the right key.
Well, here we are.
Three weeks after playing his final game with the Flames. Two weeks after playing his first game with the Panthers. That worst-case scenario is playing out before our eyes while being chronicled on the NHL's nightly highlights.
It's raising the very fair, but no longer answerable question: "What if?"
In nine games with Florida, while being deployed as the club's No. 2 centre behind Aleksander Barkov, Bennett has been sizzling hot, putting up 13 points (5 goals, 8 assists). Across the entire NHL over that same period, only Connor McDavid (6-12-18) and Bennett's new linemate, Jonathan Huberdeau (4-10-14), have been more productive.
Bennett has four multi-point games since joining the Panthers. In the last two seasons with Calgary, he only had three.
Four times in his career Bennett has gotten over 20 minutes of ice time in a game. All four of those games have come in the past 10 days in orange, gold, and white.
Bennett has piled up five or more shots in a game three times already with his new club. He only did that four times over the past three seasons with Calgary.
He's playing a ton on Florida's top power play, logging an eye-popping 9:55 on the man advantage in a game last week against Carolina. That night alone amounted to more 5-on-4 time than he would typically amass over a couple of months with the Flames, where he wasn't a mainstay on either power-play unit, only seeing time as an occasional fill-in.
Bennett has been regularly killing penalties with the Panthers, too.
For everyone shrugging off his performance to date with the argument that he was never going to enjoy that type of success in Calgary, you're not wrong based on how he was used!
And that's the rub.
That's the debate.
Before he jumped in that Uber bound for the YYC airport, should he have been given this same opportunity in Calgary that he's thriving in so far with Florida to see if that could unlock the franchise player he was always supposed to be.
This season really was that opportunity to find out.
Last August's return to play marked another sterling playoff performance from Bennett. His line with Milan Lucic and Dillon Dube, deployed as Calgary's third line, was hands-down the team's best line.
That wasn't new either. It was yet another chapter in the fabled lore of Bennett's formidable alter ego popularly known as 'Playoff Sam Bennett'.
After the Flames were eliminated last year by the eventual Stanley Cup finalists, the Dallas Stars, Bennett talked at length about how much he enjoyed being back at his preferred position of center and how he felt that fueled his overall game. He said he felt more involved in the game when playing up the middle and that it was a catalyst for elevating his game and bringing out the best in him.
Going into 2020-21, this was the opportunity for Bennett and the team. It's always been an easy argument to make that Bennett's ho-hum regular seasons thus far had not earned him an opportunity to take on a top-six role, but you could not honestly look at his playoff impact -- the portion of the hockey calendar that matters most -- and say the same.
His continual ability to elevate his game in the post-season had more than earned him a chance to at least get a legitimate audition for a bigger role during the regular season, after being stuck behind Sean Monahan and Mikael Backlund since being drafted.
It was perfect timing as, at the same time, the team needed a shake-up.
Calgary had to adjust its core upfront in some meaningful way, but the ability to pull off a major blockbuster in the offseason was no doubt hampered by the swirling uncertainty around the league. Would there even be a 2021-22 season? And if so, what would the cap look like? The alternative was to at least shuffle some players around.
It was the opportunity to take a leap of faith and see if that high-level player wearing No. 93 in the playoffs could find that same identity during the regular season, and have a similar impact. All by leaning on him more by inserting him into the top-six at his natural and preferred position of centre.
Just three months after being drafted fourth overall in 2014 -- one spot behind Leon Draisaitl -- Bennett's NHL development journey began at the Young Stars tournament in Penticton.
On Saturday, September 13, 2014, Bennett wowed Flames fans who had made the drive to the Okanagan to watch him live, or those streaming the game online, by impressing in a game against the Edmonton Oilers prospects.
Centering the top line with a left winger named Johnny Gaudreau, who had signed in the spring after three years at Boston College, Bennett stood out all night with his alluring blend of physicality and skill.
"Me and Johnny had a lot of chemistry," Bennett said afterwards. "He's an unbelievably skilled player and any time you get a chance to play with a guy like that, good things are going to happen for you."
You couldn't help but wonder, is this a sneak preview of Calgary's future No. 1 line?
Bennett at 1C. Sean Monahan, drafted sixth overall in 2013, as the 2C. Veteran Mikael Backlund at 3C. That was supposed to be the long-term plan. Strength up the middle in the form of three home-grown first-round picks that would form the backbone of what fans hoped would be a perennial Stanley Cup contender.
Obviously, that's not how it turned out.
So where did things do sideways?
For someone drafted to be a top centre, who was viewed that way as a prospect, too, it's worth examining how Bennett's usage evolved from season to season to dig into how we got from there to here.
2014-15 post-season
After missing most of the season due to shoulder surgery, Bennett returned late in the OHL season and was electric, putting up 24 points (11 goals, 13 assists) in the final 11 regular season games for Kingston. When the Frontenacs were ousted in the first round of the playoffs, he immediately headed West to join the Flames.
At 18 years old, he made his NHL debut in Calgary's final game of the regular season in Winnipeg. Centering Micheal Ferland and Josh Jooris, he had the primary helper on Ferland's goal 33 seconds into the game. One shift, one point -- what a start.
He then proceeded to dress for all 11 playoff games, but on the wing as Calgary was comfortable with Monahan, Backlund, and Matt Stajan entrenched as the top three centres.
Bennett played left wing on a line with Backlund and Joe Colborne and played well, scoring three goals and averaging 14 minutes in ice time.
2015-16 regular season
To start his first full NHL season, Bennett was back at his natural spot of centre. But despite the club's surprise upset of Vancouver to reach the second round, it wasn't a deep roster and that was reflected in Bennett's linemates.
In the opening week of the season, while Mikael Backlund sheltered in Bob Hartley's doghouse (Backlund's fourth-line wingers being Lance Bouma and Brandon Bollig), Bennett made a cameo appearance as the No. 2 centre, albeit a watered-down version of what a 2C should be with his wingers being Mason Raymond and Michael Frolik. No Huberdeau to be found here.
After the first month in which he was used at centre in nine of 13 games, Hartley moved Bennett to the wing on a more permanent basis where he remained until mid-February. He then spent the rest of the season back in the middle, but behind Monahan and Backlund on the depth chart. Monahan was skating with Gaudreau and Jiri Hudler. Backlund was typically with Joe Colborne and Frolik.
Bennett ended up centering a hodgepodge of wingers from Ferland at the high-end to Freddie Hamilton on the low-end. Jooris, Bouma, David Jones, and Garnet Hathaway were among those who saw multiple games on one of Bennett's flanks. Predictably, with that cast, offensive production was a struggle.
In the end, Bennett spent roughly 30 games of his 77-game rookie season at centre, but a vast majority of his 36 points (18 goals, 18 assists) came while he was on the wing, including his infamous four-goal game -- all of them even-strength -- against the Panthers on January 13, 2016, a night in which he lined up beside Backlund and Hudler.
2016-17 regular season
On paper, it was a productive offseason. First, in June, there was the drafting of Matthew Tkachuk at sixth overall. Then in July, Calgary signed free agent Troy Brouwer. As a veteran right wing with a coveted right shot, the expectation was that Brouwer would be good for 20 goals, which had been his average scoring rate the previous seven seasons. The club also hoped that Brouwer would inject some snarl and leadership into the line-up.
With the making of a trio that could provide some offensive pop, while being hard to play against, Tkachuk and Brouwer were put with Bennett in training camp and through September, it looked like those three ingredients would combine to make a pretty good recipe.
But it didn't translate come the regular season.
After four games, Tkachuk was removed and Kris Versteeg took his spot. Versteeg-Bennett-Brouwer enjoyed modest success in a few weeks together, but then that dried up. While Brouwer remained a fixture on Bennett's right, Hunter Shinkaruk got a shot at LW. Briefly, even Stajan moved to Bennett's wing.
When Gaudreau had his finger broken in Minnesota, Bennett was switched back to the wing for the 11 games while he was sidelined, and then returned to centre again.
Upon Gaudreau's return, Bennett got his longest stretch of getting to centre Johnny Hockey. With Alex Chiasson as the right wing, Bennett put up four goals over their 11 games together. To refresh your memory, the other two lines were Ferland-Monahan-Versteeg, and the 3M line. On any given night, any of those units could be the first, second, or third line.
When the Gaudreau experiment ended, Bennett remained as the 3C for the rest of the season, other than a two-game stint on Backlund's wing when Tkachuk got hurt.
In total, Bennett played centre for 68 of Calgary's 81 games during his sophomore season. His production dropped to 26 pointes (13 goals, 13 assists).
2017 post-season
The post-season didn't last long, in getting swept by the Anaheim Ducks, but operating as the 3C, Bennett did score twice in four games while centering Versteeg and Chiasson.
2017-18 regular season
For the third season in a row and second under skipper Glen Gulutzan, Bennett once again opened the season at centre. But this time it would be short-lived.
His linemates opening night were Brouwer and Versteeg. The next night, it was Curtis Lazar instead of Brouwer. The next night, it was Gaudreau instead of Versteeg. Then Jaromir Jagr joined the mix -- remember him? Bennett spent three games between Jagr and Versteeg.
After eight games of revolving linemates and zilch for production, Bennett was moved to the wing. Other than a handful of one-off returns to the middle through the rest of the season, Bennett had essentially been converted to a winger. He spent most of his time on a line with Mark Jankowski and Garnet Hathaway.
In his lowest total yet, Bennett played just 13 of his 82 games at centre. His production equaled the previous season with 26 points (11 goals, 15 assists) once again.
2018-19 regular season
In his first season under Bill Peters, Bennett was used exclusively as a winger.
While there was some golden opportunity as a result of that -- like his time spent on the port side with Backlund and Tkachuk, those assignments were outnumbered substantially by all the time spent either with Jankowki and James Neal, which was a regular thing for much of the season, or Jankowski and Austin Czarnik, which was also rolled out regularly.
In 71 games, Bennett had 27 points (13 goals, 14 assists).
2019 post season
Again, it was as a short-lived playoff run for Calgary. Entering the post-season as the West's No. 1 seed, they got smoked 4-1 by the Colorado Avalanche. But again, Bennett stood out as one of the few bright spots, leading the team with five points (1 goal, 4 assists), despite ranking ninth among forwards in ice time. Used as a winger, he compiled those numbers while playing mostly with Jankowski and Neal before eventually getting a look with Gaudreau and Monahan.
2019-20 regular season
Bennett opened this season on the wing once again and played most of the season on the wing other than some mostly one-off returns to centre here and there. The only thing resembling a prolonged stretch at centre were four games in February when he centered Milan Lucic and Dillon Dube, in what end up being a sneak preview of what was to come six months later. Mostly he was on a line with Jankowski and Czarnik.
Bennett was being used as a fourth-line winger when COVID-19 shut down the NHL season in March. In the end, Bennett ended up playing centre for 11 of his 52 games. His output dropped to a career-low 12 points (8 goals, 4 assists).
2020 post season
As noted above, his line with Lucic and Dube were excellent through the qualifying round series with Winnipeg and the first-round match-up with the Dallas Stars. Bennett again paced the team in scoring tying for the lead with eight points (5 goals, 3 assists).
2020-21 regular season
You know when you get your wish, but it wasn't what you expected? When Bennett was asked by the club in the off-season where he wanted to play, safe to say that when he responded with "centre" -- and considering his impactful post-season -- that he didn't think it would be centre on the fourth line. But sure enough, he began the season between Lucic and free agent-signing Joakim Nordstrom.
After one game, he requested a move back to the wing for an increased role and joined Andrew Mangiapane and Backlund.
In his final stint with Calgary, he would end up spending about a quarter of the season at centre, but like a vast majority of his time with the Flames when he played at centre, it was in the bottom-six and with that comes less ice time, less opportunity, less-talented linemates, and often pedestrian results.
He finally did get some looks in spurts in the top-six playing his off-wing, but that shouldn't be confused with playing centre in the top-six which he's doing in Miami.
There are couple things we don't know:
1. Will this torrid stretch continue?
2. Had he been tried in Calgary in the role he is being used in Florida, would he have reached the level he's playing at right now?
We'll get an answer to the first question eventually. It was easy to shrug off two assists in his first game as a lucky night, but as that sample size continues to get bigger and bigger without any sign of him slowing down, you can't help but wonder if he's actually turned a corner here with this opportunity he's getting to play with two skilled wingers.
His current 100-point pace is unrealistic, but he's looking far more impactful than the 26-point guy that played for the Flames.
That said, in a league that plays 82-game regular seasons when there isn't a pandemic, this is still very much a small sample and there are many chapters still to be written.
The second question, however, is the one we'll never know. What might have been?
The way Bennett is playing right now, he's a player Calgary could really use. The whole argument about him not being protected in the expansion draft becomes a moot point at this point because lets not be silly, this version of Bennett most definitely would have been protected.
Since trading away Bennett on April 12, the Flames have also played nine games. During that span in which Bennett has put up those 13 points, only Gaudreau (4-6-10), Elias Lindholm (7-2-9) and Tkachuk (0-6-6) have more than four points. They've needed more offence.
They were only able to muster one goal last Monday in a 2-1 loss to Montreal that was a crushing blow to their playoff hopes. Any flickers of hope remaining were extinguished on Saturday night when again, Calgary was held to just a single goal, in what was essentially another one-goal loss to Edmonton, who added two empty net goals late.
While Calgary generated only five goals this week, Florida put up 16 goals over its last three games -- winning all three games.
Given the theme at play here and the disparity in his usage, it was fitting that Bennett authored the overtime winner in the Panthers' 5-4 overtime win on Thursday.
He had never scored an OT goal with Calgary, mostly because he rarely got onto the ice.
So what's the learning?
Give players the opportunity to show what they can do because Bennett -- should this stretch continue --- wouldn't be the first example of star that got away..
The Flames once had Marty St. Louis, but used him on the fourth line and then released him when he failed to produce like he had when he lit up the minors. Now he's in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
It's unlikely that Bennett's situation turn into a St. Louis-sized faux pas by the organization, but for longtime card-carrying members of Flames nation, can't fault you for going there as the PTSD is real.
Set up players for success and know for certain what you have, or don't have, or risk the consequences.
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