Confirmed with Link: Sam Bennett and 6th (2022) traded to Florida for 2nd (2022) and Emil Heineman

[Lunatik]

Keep living in your happy little world man. If Benny puts a PPG pace playing with Lucic and Dube in the playoffs, it totally makes sense to write it off and push him to play with Nordstrom and Simon. What about his first 11 games with the Panthers? 17 in 11. Definitely too small of a sample size there as well eh?

What about it we extend it to when Sutter came in + Panthers? Only 23 points in 25 games? Is that too small of a sample size as well? That would put him tied with Lucic in 30 less games this season on the team... or tied for 8th on the team.

Just curious, how delusional does one need to be to ignore 350+ mediocre games for 25-30 good ones?

Yes, 25 games is a absolutely a small sample size.

 

[Janks]

Just curious, how delusional does one need to be to ignore 350+ mediocre games for 25-30 good ones?

Yes, 25 games is a absolutely a small sample size.

You can refrain from calling me delusional for having a different opinion, thanks though.

When his primary linemates are plugs, expect poor results. Outside of his rookie season, his primary linemates were the likes of Chiasson, Brouwer, Jankowski, Versteeg.... such a talent pool there. 2 were so good at hockey at the end of their career, they’re guests on SN during Flames games.

 

[Lunatik]

You can refrain from calling me delusional for having a different opinion, thanks though.

When his primary linemates are plugs, expect poor results. Outside of his rookie season, his primary linemates were the likes of Chiasson, Brouwer, Jankowski, Versteeg.... such a talent pool there. 2 were so good at hockey at the end of their career, they’re guests on SN during Flames games.

And somehow JAnkowski who played with similar talent actually out produced Bennett for the majority of the time they were both on the Flames, a guy who never got any top 6 time, never got any PP time. And it is absolutely delusional to ignore how f***ing pathetic Bennett has been during regular seasons as a Flame, the guy didn't deserve any more than he got, hell he didn't even deserve to be the first guy elevated into the top 6 when there were injuries for the majority of his tenure. If Sam Bennett was drafted 21st overall no one would say a f***ing thing about his usage and would see him for the plug he was.

Also fun fact, if we win tomorrow we're .600 since trading Bennett. How much did his trade request really impact the room? All reports have always been how close the room was, it's not crazy to think Bennett asking for a trade fractured it while he was still here.

 

[TheHudlinator]

Definitely - never. After his great playoffs, where he was tied with Monahan for the lead in scoring this past year, he started in the exact right spot on the 4th line...

Yea there is a lot to say about Bennett's time here but the fact that he was our best player in the playoffs and then told he was being demoted is basically all you need to know. He showed he had the ability to play above a bottom lineup role and in the infinite wisdom that was the Flames they decided he had to earn it again for some reason. We were desperate for a RWer this year but made Lindholm a center and pushed Bennett down the lineup. I don't know if the season plays out differently with Lindholm on RW and Bennett as a center but it really couldn't have been much worse. Oh well what's one more shitty coach on the Treliving tree.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

I don't know if the season plays out differently with Lindholm on RW and Bennett as a center

Had Tank Commander Ward everyone slotted properly:

Gaudreau-Bennett-Mangiapane
Tkachuk-Backlund-Lindholm
Lucic-Dube-Monahan
(random waiver wire claim)-Ryan-Leivo

Kylington-Andersson
Giordano-Tanev
Hanifin-Stone

PP1

Tkachuk
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Bennett
Kylington

we're sitting comfortably in first in the North right now

 

[Lunatik]

Yea there is a lot to say about Bennett's time here but the fact that he was our best player in the playoffs and then told he was being demoted is basically all you need to know.

This is a false narrative. He was given a choice by the team, center or wing, he chose center. Lindholm is a better player. Monahan is a better player. Backlund is a better player. Where the f*** did he think he was going to play? A handful of good games wasn't going to put him ahead of any of those 3 players. Then he changed his mind and wanted to go to the wing and was elevated to the third line despite the fact he one of the Flames worst players in the first half.

 

[TheHudlinator]

This is a false narrative. He was given a choice by the team, center or wing, he chose center. Lindholm is a better player. Monahan is a better player. Backlund is a better player. Where the f*** did he think he was going to play? A handful of good games wasn't going to put him ahead of any of those 3 players. Then he changed his mind and wanted to go to the wing and was elevated to the third line despite the fact he one of the Flames worst players in the first half.

It's not false its fact he was the best player in the playoffs as a center. He was told to keep his position he had to get demoted. Lindholm is also a much better winger than Bennett is. The overall team make up is arguably better with Lindholm at RW. It is pretty obvious Bennett had given up on this team, he was disengaged entirely at times this year. Ultimately him moving on is best for him and the team but it didn't have to end this way.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

This is a false narrative. He was given a choice by the team, center or wing, he chose center. Lindholm is a better player. Monahan is a better player. Backlund is a better player. Where the f*** did he think he was going to play? A handful of good games wasn't going to put him ahead of any of those 3 players. Then he changed his mind and wanted to go to the wing and was elevated to the third line despite the fact he one of the Flames worst players in the first half.

Try again.

 

[Lunatik]

It's not false its fact he was the best player in the playoffs as a center. He was told to keep his position he had to get demoted. Lindholm is also a much better winger than Bennett is. The overall team make up is arguably better with Lindholm at RW. It is pretty obvious Bennett had given up on this team, he was disengaged entirely at times this year. Ultimately him moving on is best for him and the team but it didn't have to end this way.

He was arguably the best player for a whole 10(?) f***ing games, 10 games doesn't supercede everything else.

 

[TheHudlinator]

He was arguably the best player for a whole 10(?) f***ing games, 10 games doesn't supercede everything else.

I didn't say it was a large sample size, but f*** man it'd be nice when a player looks to be breaking out or atleast finding a new level we don't weaken our weakest position (RW) to bolster our strongest (center we had 4 nhl centers without Lindholm) and push that player down the depth chart. I'm just a fan but to me that seems like a logical take and I hope one day we higher someone to manage our depth and maybe even the contracts we hand out, other teams do that and a lot of them have had more success the past 7 years.

 

[Janks]

And somehow JAnkowski who played with similar talent actually out produced Bennett for the majority of the time they were both on the Flames, a guy who never got any top 6 time, never got any PP time. And it is absolutely delusional to ignore how f***ing pathetic Bennett has been during regular seasons as a Flame, the guy didn't deserve any more than he got, hell he didn't even deserve to be the first guy elevated into the top 6 when there were injuries for the majority of his tenure. If Sam Bennett was drafted 21st overall no one would say a f***ing thing about his usage and would see him for the plug he was.

Also fun fact, if we win tomorrow we're .600 since trading Bennett. How much did his trade request really impact the room? All reports have always been how close the room was, it's not crazy to think Bennett asking for a trade fractured it while he was still here.

I’m sure you know more than Coach Q, who conveniently isn’t playing him below the rest of the lineup on the 4th line. Why bother considering he was miscast and admit that the org did something wrong when you can just call everyone f***ing delusional and fall back to calling everyone not real “fans” when they don’t brown nose the franchise.

 

[Lunatik]

I didn't say it was a large sample size, but f*** man it'd be nice when a player looks to be breaking out or atleast finding a new level we don't weaken our weakest position (RW) to bolster our strongest (center we had 4 nhl centers without Lindholm) and push that player down the depth chart. I'm just a fan but to me that seems like a logical take and I hope one day we higher someone to manage our depth and maybe even the contracts we hand out, other teams do that and a lot of them have had more success the past 7 years.

The thing is Bennett had done it before and then just reverted back to his old ways, when you have no history of consistency, you aren't going to get the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Lunatik]

I’m sure you know more than Coach Q, who conveniently isn’t playing him below the rest of the lineup on the 4th line. Why bother considering he was miscast and admit that the org did something wrong when you can just call everyone f***ing delusional and fall back to calling everyone not real “fans” when they don’t brown nose the franchise.

If he has a good year next year, I will take back some of what I have said. But I'm not changing my opinion on a tiny f***ing sample size, especially when through the history of this league we've seen players that aren't great ride great players to great numbers.

 

[TheHudlinator]

The thing is Bennett had done it before and then just reverted back to his old ways, when you have no history of consistency, you aren't going to get the benefit of the doubt.

That's fine but this disastrous year needs to be reviewed and we need to figure out where our mistakes were made. I'm not saying Bennett is a 1c or the second coming but you have to wonder does a lineup of

Gaudreau - Monahan - Mangiapane
Tkachuk - Backlund - Lindholm
Lucic - Bennett - Dube

Do better than what we saw this year? Imo it does its a better lineup even if you prefer Lindholm at center over Bennett. Imo its just mismanagement but I clearly think mismanagement from the top down is what is truly holding this team back.

 

[Lunatik]

That's fine but this disastrous year needs to be reviewed and we need to figure out where our mistakes were made. I'm not saying Bennett is a 1c or the second coming but you have to wonder does a lineup of

Gaudreau - Monahan - Mangiapane
Tkachuk - Backlund - Lindholm
Lucic - Bennett - Dube

Do better than what we saw this year? Imo it does its a better lineup even if you prefer Lindholm at center over Bennett. Imo its just mismanagement but I clearly think mismanagement from the top down is what is truly holding this team back.

Personally I was never a fan of moving Lindholm to center. I thought we should have stuck with Gaudreau - Monahan - Lindholm and the Triple M line, then have a 3rd line of Bennett-Ryan-Dube or and find a 4C to play with Lucic and Leivo.

But this season I think there were several factors as why we finished where we did.

In no particular order...

• Geoff Ward was a shitty head coach. A shitty coach in a schedule where you only play a handful of opponents is a very bad thing because the more you play other teams, the more important coaching and making adjustments becomes. I think this was a situation where ownership told Treliving to stick with Ward because he was cheap as f*** and they were still spending to the cap.
• The flat cap, this past summer was supposed to be our year to add to the core, we had 17 million coming off the books and were probably expecting the cap to go up another 4-5 million. But with the flat cap after Andersson's extension and signing Markstrom/Tanev, we had no space left to actually add anyone decent. If we had the cap go we'd have had the cap space to add better uFAs than Nesterov, Nordstrom & Simon.
• Martstrom's injury. Including the game where he was injured in the collision with Pearson, we went 3-5-1 while he was injured. Prior to the injury we were 8-6-1. And of course Markstrom struggled to regain his form post-injury.
• Monahan's injury. Coincidentally he got injured around the same time as Markstrom, which killed the Monahan/Gaudreau line's production during the time we needed it the most.
• Constant loss of quality PKers. In the past 2 offseasons we lost arguably our 2 best PKers in Jankowski and Hathaway. Rieder came in and did well, then we let him walk too. We went from 8th to 15th in the PK.
• The Bennett trade request, we always hear about how close that room is, some may have seen Bennett's trade request as a betrayal. They're tiny sample sized but we were .500 before the request became public and have gone .600 (if we win tomorrow) since he was dealt.
• Covid. We all know how this shit has messed with our mental health staying at home, can you imagine the potential anxiety of staying in hotels and flying around the country right now? There is no way this didn't affect at least a few players. I think our road record reflects this to some degree. I also think Tkachuk is the biggest name impacted by this, he's a guy that is extremely close to his family and his mom and dad would regularly come up for games, suddenly he wasn't able to see them at all.
• Lack of progression from a few young players. Dube didn't progress as expected, Andersson seemed to take a step back this season and Valimaki appeared to be much greener than most of us thought he would, Mackey when in the lineup looked overwhelmed and took too many penalties as a result. Fortunately development isn't linear, so while they didn't grow much, if any this year, it doesn't mean that can't next year.

 

[Figgy44]

Personally I was never a fan of moving Lindholm to center. I thought we should have stuck with Gaudreau - Monahan - Lindholm and the Triple M line, then have a 3rd line of Bennett-Ryan-Dube or and find a 4C to play with Lucic and Leivo.

But this season I think there were several factors as why we finished where we did.

In no particular order...

• Geoff Ward was a shitty head coach. A shitty coach in a schedule where you only play a handful of opponents is a very bad thing because the more you play other teams, the more important coaching and making adjustments becomes. I think this was a situation where ownership told Treliving to stick with Ward because he was cheap as f*** and they were still spending to the cap.
• The flat cap, this past summer was supposed to be our year to add to the core, we had 17 million coming off the books and were probably expecting the cap to go up another 4-5 million. But with the flat cap after Andersson's extension and signing Markstrom/Tanev, we had no space left to actually add anyone decent. If we had the cap go we'd have had the cap space to add better uFAs than Nesterov, Nordstrom & Simon.
• Martstrom's injury. Including the game where he was injured in the collision with Pearson, we went 3-5-1 while he was injured. Prior to the injury we were 8-6-1. And of course Markstrom struggled to regain his form post-injury.
• Monahan's injury. Coincidentally he got injured around the same time as Markstrom, which killed the Monahan/Gaudreau line's production during the time we needed it the most.
• Constant loss of quality PKers. In the past 2 offseasons we lost arguably our 2 best PKers in Jankowski and Hathaway. Rieder came in and did well, then we let him walk too. We went from 8th to 15th in the PK.
• The Bennett trade request, we always hear about how close that room is, some may have seen Bennett's trade request as a betrayal. They're tiny sample sized but we were .500 before the request became public and have gone .600 (if we win tomorrow) since he was dealt.
• Covid. We all know how this shit has messed with our mental health staying at home, can you imagine the potential anxiety of staying in hotels and flying around the country right now? There is no way this didn't affect at least a few players. I think our road record reflects this to some degree. I also think Tkachuk is the biggest name impacted by this, he's a guy that is extremely close to his family and his mom and dad would regularly come up for games, suddenly he wasn't able to see them at all.
• Lack of progression from a few young players. Dube didn't progress as expected, Andersson seemed to take a step back this season and Valimaki appeared to be much greener than most of us thought he would, Mackey when in the lineup looked overwhelmed and took too many penalties as a result. Fortunately development isn't linear, so while they didn't grow much, if any this year, it doesn't mean that can't next year.

Only the first and last point seem valid to me. The rest seem like stuff other teams dealt with as well as the Flames.

But Geoff ward... I have never been so frustrated with a coach. The guy didn't seem like he didn't adjust, he just seemed like a guy who never stopped adjusting so that the players could start building. He started off with some really interesting and good ideas, but he never combined them in any meaningful manner systems/strategy wise.

When other teams started building up their structures, I feel like ward still wasn't ready to pour the foundation yet. He was still trying new thing after new thing. It was absolutely infuriating. Someone like Gulutzan would keep doing the same thing even when old combos stopped working. Ward would break apart combos showing promise/with results to focus on NEW combos that weren't working. It made no sense at all. Like, "Oh, looks like Bennett and Gaudreau are looking good together and getting scoring changes... Let's try winning face offs with Milan lucic for the next 7 minutes!" Or something equally as crazy.

 

[InfinityIggy]

Personally I was never a fan of moving Lindholm to center. I thought we should have stuck with Gaudreau - Monahan - Lindholm and the Triple M line, then have a 3rd line of Bennett-Ryan-Dube or and find a 4C to play with Lucic and Leivo.

But this season I think there were several factors as why we finished where we did.

In no particular order...

• Geoff Ward was a shitty head coach. A shitty coach in a schedule where you only play a handful of opponents is a very bad thing because the more you play other teams, the more important coaching and making adjustments becomes. I think this was a situation where ownership told Treliving to stick with Ward because he was cheap as f*** and they were still spending to the cap.
• The flat cap, this past summer was supposed to be our year to add to the core, we had 17 million coming off the books and were probably expecting the cap to go up another 4-5 million. But with the flat cap after Andersson's extension and signing Markstrom/Tanev, we had no space left to actually add anyone decent. If we had the cap go we'd have had the cap space to add better uFAs than Nesterov, Nordstrom & Simon.
• Martstrom's injury. Including the game where he was injured in the collision with Pearson, we went 3-5-1 while he was injured. Prior to the injury we were 8-6-1. And of course Markstrom struggled to regain his form post-injury.
• Monahan's injury. Coincidentally he got injured around the same time as Markstrom, which killed the Monahan/Gaudreau line's production during the time we needed it the most.
• Constant loss of quality PKers. In the past 2 offseasons we lost arguably our 2 best PKers in Jankowski and Hathaway. Rieder came in and did well, then we let him walk too. We went from 8th to 15th in the PK.
• The Bennett trade request, we always hear about how close that room is, some may have seen Bennett's trade request as a betrayal. They're tiny sample sized but we were .500 before the request became public and have gone .600 (if we win tomorrow) since he was dealt.
• Covid. We all know how this shit has messed with our mental health staying at home, can you imagine the potential anxiety of staying in hotels and flying around the country right now? There is no way this didn't affect at least a few players. I think our road record reflects this to some degree. I also think Tkachuk is the biggest name impacted by this, he's a guy that is extremely close to his family and his mom and dad would regularly come up for games, suddenly he wasn't able to see them at all.
• Lack of progression from a few young players. Dube didn't progress as expected, Andersson seemed to take a step back this season and Valimaki appeared to be much greener than most of us thought he would, Mackey when in the lineup looked overwhelmed and took too many penalties as a result. Fortunately development isn't linear, so while they didn't grow much, if any this year, it doesn't mean that can't next year.

I agree with these points save for Covid and the Flat Cap, as they affected every team. A point I would add and I think it is a big one, is whatever ‘rift’ there is that boiled over after the Tkachuk incident. I think this off-season some bits of that are going to come to light.

 

[Lunatik]

Only the first and last point seem valid to me. The rest seem like stuff other teams dealt with as well as the Flames.

But Geoff ward... I have never been so frustrated with a coach. The guy didn't seem like he didn't adjust, he just seemed like a guy who never stopped adjusting so that the players could start building. He started off with some really interesting and good ideas, but he never combined them in any meaningful manner systems/strategy wise.

When other teams started building up their structures, I feel like ward still wasn't ready to pour the foundation yet. He was still trying new thing after new thing. It was absolutely infuriating. Someone like Gulutzan would keep doing the same thing even when old combos stopped working. Ward would break apart combos showing promise/with results to focus on NEW combos that weren't working. It made no sense at all. Like, "Oh, looks like Bennett and Gaudreau are looking good together and getting scoring changes... Let's try winning face offs with Milan lucic for the next 7 minutes!" Or something equally as crazy.

You don't think losing your #1 goalie and arguably your #1 goal scorer at the same time is valid? Maybe individually, but a the same time it's a bad situation. When you lose your #1 goalie goal scoring becomes even more important and we were a middle of the pack goal scoring team before that.

I agree with these points save for Covid and the Flat Cap, as they affected every team. A point I would add and I think it is a big one, is whatever ‘rift’ there is that boiled over after the Tkachuk incident. I think this off-season some bits of that are going to come to light.

Just because something affects all teams doesn't mean it affects them the same amount. Most teams weren't in a position to big game hunt past off-season and we looking for smaller pieces, or were strong enough in some areas to give a player away to save cap like the Leafs and Knights did with Johansson and Schmidt to redistribute money better. We weren't in that position, we had to choose which holes to plug and could only plug 2 of 3 and the only player we could have given away to crete more cap space was Doc and that would have damaged our PK even further.

As for the Tkachuk thing I actually believe what Gaudreau said; that when Tkachuk was asked to calm down, no one else knew about the puck flip yet. Maybe he still took it to heart, I dunno, none of us do, but I do think Tkachuk may have burnt himself out emotionally, because playing this schedule, every game against a division rival and playing that way, it can't be easy. f***, I got burnt out just watching and hating all our opponents.

 

[Figgy44]

You don't think losing your #1 goalie and arguably your #1 goal scorer at the same time is valid? Maybe individually, but a the same time it's a bad situation. When you lose your #1 goalie goal scoring becomes even more important and we were a middle of the pack goal scoring team before that.

Just because something affects all teams doesn't mean it affects them the same amount. Most teams weren't in a position to big game hunt past off-season and we looking for smaller pieces, or were strong enough in some areas to give a player away to save cap like the Leafs and Knights did with Johansson and Schmidt to redistribute money better. We weren't in that position, we had to choose which holes to plug and could only plug 2 of 3 and the only player we could have given away to crete more cap space was Doc and that would have damaged our PK even further.

As for the Tkachuk thing I actually believe what Gaudreau said; that when Tkachuk was asked to calm down, no one else knew about the puck flip yet. Maybe he still took it to heart, I dunno, none of us do, but I do think Tkachuk may have burnt himself out emotionally, because playing this schedule, every game against a division rival and playing that way, it can't be easy. f***, I got burnt out just watching and hating all our opponents.

Carey Price has been missing for how long? Montreal still got in.
Toronto has been missing Andersen for how long? Same thing.

Their back ups stepped up (Allen, Campbell etc.). We somehow didn't want to rely on Rittich and traded him away instead.

I'm not saying that losing our #1 isn't a bad thing. I'm saying that it's a minor issue that many other teams overcame, but not us. It might be a straw that broke the camel's back, but it wasn't a major issue beyond what other teams were dealing with IMO.

What Ward did and his lack of a bonafide and concrete system (it was obvious he was still tinkering by the end) by the time he was fired was ridiculous and a significant bigger hurdle by a HUGE margin than all the other points you mentioned. Perhaps it's semantics, but I'm saying that I only see your first and last point being major issues. It's a fricken hay bale worth of extra BS. The IMO rest are splitting hairs in terms of comparing with what other teams had to deal with. It's a few stray pieces of extra straw at best IMO.

 

[Lunatik]

Carey Price has been missing for how long? Montreal still got in.
Toronto has been missing Andersen for how long? Same thing.

Their back ups stepped up (Allen, Campbell etc.). We somehow didn't want to rely on Rittich and traded him away instead.

I'm not saying that losing our #1 isn't a bad thing. I'm saying that it's a minor issue that many other teams overcame, but not us. It might be a straw that broke the camel's back, but it wasn't a major issue beyond what other teams were dealing with IMO.

What Ward did and his lack of a bonafide and concrete system (it was obvious he was still tinkering by the end) by the time he was fired was ridiculous and a significant bigger hurdle by a HUGE margin than all the other points you mentioned. Perhaps it's semantics, but I'm saying that I only see your first and last point being major issues. It's a fricken hay bale worth of extra BS. The IMO rest are splitting hairs in terms of comparing with what other teams had to deal with. It's a few stray pieces of extra straw at best IMO.

The point with goaltending and Monahan is the timing though, the fact they happened at the same time, individually they are not major but together it just compounds.

Not sure what your point with Rittich is, he was dealt when Markstrom was already turning it around and we were essentially finished anyways.

And I agree Ward was the biggest issue and I think he was the cause of young players not developing.

 

[Villella McMeans]

I think the most important factor was coaching for sure, with Sutter they entire team plays noticeably better and better.

 

[Villella McMeans]

As for the Tkachuk thing I actually believe what Gaudreau said; that when Tkachuk was asked to calm down, no one else knew about the puck flip yet. Maybe he still took it to heart, I dunno, none of us do, but I do think Tkachuk may have burnt himself out emotionally, because playing this schedule, every game against a division rival and playing that way, it can't be easy. f***, I got burnt out just watching and hating all our opponents.

I think the team should have helped Tkachuk more instead of telling him to stop, this reflects badly on the team not standing by their younger players - and after each big Tkachuk indecent with the puck flip and with Doughty before the playoffs and with kassian etc and it seemed the team told Tkachuk to calm down, Tkachuk was noticeably worse not hitting as much etc.

Everytime others go after our players no matter what reason, the entire team should be fighting back just like the Rangers fought for Panerin - nobody fought for Tkachuk after any of those except for some weak pushing and shoving, Rinaldo challenged kassian and then was sitting out next game against Edmonton...

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

It still hurts. Miss you Sam, love always..

Hox

 

[DFF]

It still hurts. Miss you Sam, love always..

Hox

Mangiapane will make you forget Bennett

 

[GumbyCan2]

I think the most important factor was coaching for sure, with Sutter they entire team plays noticeably better and better.

Still losing/ lost more than won, so...still need a few more key pieces or trade out a couple " over-done " here for new wickered flickering Flame potential.