The zone starts is so misleading... you can use it as a coach not trusting him, but he starts 1 more shift out of 10 in the offensive zone than our defensive pairing.
Zone starts is overrated because 70% of the starts are on the fly.
Benoit started once every 20 shift in offensive start and 1 every 5 shift in defensive start.
Yes most of the time player start on the fly but when they started in defensive... The chance to play the next 20-30-45-60 second in your territory are pretty high and he did it most of the time against top opponent weapon.
Unstead of playing exemple
36,7 % of time in offensive end
36,7% in neutral zone
36,7% in defensive zone
Just the fact to start as much in defensive end is enough to result exemple
27% in offensive end
37 in neutral zone
47% in defensive zone
So yes at the end that's making a pretty huge difference on stats even if 65% of starts come on the rush