It’s funny because if you were to ask me about how I would have felt about adding a player like Beniers at some point during the season (pretending I didn’t know who players were) I would have given it a big thumbs up. And now that we are sitting here, I can’t help but feel almost underwhelmed at the thought of picking him.
He is incredibly good at what he does, and I have no doubts at all about his NHL future. I just can’t help but feeling TOO safe. While I have outwardly stated that I am pushing Johnson down my ranking because I’m happier with the safer bets, I feel like I’m doing the same to Beniers for the opposite reason, and I’m not sure I completely understand it.
But on a semi-related note, I was listening to Winged Wheel passively this afternoon while mindlessly plugging away on some project at work, and they had Scott Wheeler on, and he said something that I think stood out to me, especially when I connected that comment with a comment I read by Mark Edwards on this site regarding Sillinger.
Scott said (of Eklund) that a lot of people will make something of his position. While there’s a good chance he ends up on the wing, you have to look at his peers and see how confident are you in any of them ending up as an impactful center. Sure, you’ve got Beniers, and I have faith in McTavish, although Scott also said that people who have worked with McTavish think he might be more suited for a winger just based on how he plays the game (aggressive on forecheck, not a guy who necessarily excels lugging the puck through the NZ). But when you look at Eklund or Johnson or McTavish or Sillinger, Coronato, etc. you aren’t really talking about anyone that comfortably projects as a center. Are you going to take Svechkov at 6 because he’s the first guy that is a true center? Probably not. Does that mean you HAVE to pick D because there’s no surefire center? No.
Same thing with Mark Edwards on Sillinger’s skating. He’s in a draft with very few high end skaters. Should we knock Sillinger way lower because he’s an average at best skater when his peers are only slightly better than average? I mean Sillinger is more skilled than a lot of his peers, and his skating is the one area that truly holds him back. In the case of Eklund, he’s more skilled than a majority of his peers, but positional value says he should be knocked some.
At what point do you take the class at face value? This isn’t a class that I’m likely getting a mobile center. I can make sacrifices in the quality of player based on how I see them just to get a center. Or I can get the better player and accept that the position won’t be ideal. I think this has been a big shift in the way I’m viewing guys like Eklund as a smaller winger, or McTavish and Sillinger not being all that impressive skaters. The something that is there is still more valuable to me than the things that seem to be behind the curve.
