Calgary Flames: Who will be playing on Sam Bennett’s wing?
By Ramina Shlah
With the season rapidly approaching and training camp underway, let’s see who will be playing on Calgary Flames struggling forward, Sam Bennett’s wing.
Oh, Sam Bennett. He’s been a special case, hasn’t he? The 21-year old Calgary Flames forward was their highest ever draft pick at fourth overall. But he hasn’t quite lived up to that name, yet. In 159 career regular season games, he has just 31 goals and 63 points. Leon Draisaitl, who was taken right before Bennett at the 2014 NHL Draft by the Edmonton Oilers, had more points this last season.
But the Flames still see potential in him. After all, they did protect him in the expansion draft. And after some long negotiations, they re-signed him to a bridge deal. Everyone was predicting it would be a bridge deal, but nobody quite knew how much. He was signed to a two-year $1.95 million AAV. Slightly lower than I was expecting, but kudos to Brad Treliving for being able to sign him at less than $2 million. Now with only two years on a low-paying contract, he has these next two years to prove himself.
Now the question is, who’s going to be playing on his wing this upcoming season?
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Last season, Bennett spent a good chunk of the season playing alongside Kris Versteeg. And during the playoffs, although they were swept, them two together were a force. Versteeg’s veteran playoff experience showed and Bennett was a completely different player in the playoffs than he was in the regular season.
However, something that brought him down which fans and analysts noticed was also being on a line alongside Troy Brouwer. Brouwer was signed as a free-agent last off-season to a four-year, $4.5 million AAV contract. After being brought in as an experienced Cup winner, it was clear early on that he was not going to be as effective as initially thought.
But there’s some good news here. So far during training camp, Spencer Foo has been paired on that Versteeg-Bennett line. When NCAA RW free agent Spencer Foo was initially signed by the Calgary Flames, fans were hoping we’d be seeing him paired with Bennett. The Flames were dealing with depth problems in their RW department. And after the Foo signing, they were having quite the successful off-season.
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There were also some questions on Foo potentially joining that top line alongside Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau. But that first line will need some grit. And after a successful run when Micheal Ferland joined that line in February and the Flames went on to win ten in a row, head coach Glen Gulutzan has said that he’ll be starting the season off on that line. But that also includes training camp and pre-season.
Ferland will be on that top line tonight for the first game of pre-season, so if everything goes smoothly, then he’ll stay there. However, Versteeg and Bennett won’t be together. With Matthew Tkachuk favouring his hip and him sitting out for precautionary reasons, Versteeg will join the Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik line. Bennett and Foo will be playing together however in Edmonton tonight for the Split Squad games, and they’ll be that first line there with Emile Poirier joining them.
If all goes well, I’m confident we’ll not only be seeing Spencer Foo making the team this year, but also playing alongside Bennett. As we saw at the Young Stars tournament, Foo was one of the most impressive players. It seemed like every time he was on the ice, he was making plays and creating chances. He led all Calgary Flames skaters with one goal and three points. But he also hit the goal post and crossbar a few times.
Foo’s hunger to shoot and score paired with Bennett’s play-making abilities can be paired very well with Versteeg’s experience. We’ll just have to wait and see how they play together tonight. But remember, pre-season games aren’t always a telling tale of what’s to come in the season.
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I mean, the Colorado Avalanche won all their pre-season games last year and we saw how their season turned out.
And let’s just hope we won’t be seeing Troy Brouwer on that line…