People spend most of the day talking about Benning who has been gone for years.
I think talking about a contract that lasts 8 years and started this year is relevant.
He absolutely can and should be traded if his on ice play and body language continue.
I want him to play like he has the potential to but this version of him that’s been here almost half a season needs to shape up or be shipped out.
How unfair is his current play to Miller, Hughes, Boeser and Garland who show up 80-90% of the time? Can’t have a financial and production boat anchor around people who are trying to win.
10 more games of his Naslund impression and start shopping him.
Miller went pretty much a full year being bad during the Covid season.
He also had a terrible 50 game stretch of poor defensive performances in the 2022-2023 season until Tocchet arrived. Meanwhile Pettersson (and if you want references of the games I’m talking about I can give them to you) single-handedly won us games we had no business being in. That whole year he was an absolute two-way beast and finished with Selke votes on a bottom league team. Yet somehow this fanbase selectively ignores this fact.
The last 3 years his most consistent linemates have been:
Mikheyev, Lafferty, Kuzmenko, Hoglander, Chiasson, Beauvillier, Sprong, Podkolzin, and now Debrusk. No other $11M player has linemates anywhere close to this level. Yet Kuzmenko, Mikheyev, Beauvillier have all had or were projected to have CAREER seasons playing beside Pettersson, and I’m not even counting Hoglander who himself also had a career year but admittedly played up and down the line up.
Petey has had 5 5+ point games. Draisaitl and Kucherov have had 6. Mackinnon 7. McDavid/Crosby/Malkin have more than 8.
He has 413pts in 407 games. there are only 11 players with a career PPG at the moment in the NHL.
I agree the last 40 games (6g, 17a, 23pts) he’s been dogshit. Tendinitis, contract, mental/confidence etc has played a large part in his current struggles, but the amount of disrespect he’s had by our fanbase is completely and disproportionately disingenuous.
