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I disagree with your assessment of him. And it should be noted that you don’t have to be an elite talent to be a first or second line forward. I consider him to be more than a suitable first or second line complementary type player. And it shouldn’t be discounted that his gritty style of play enhances the team beyond his stats. It’s still going to take some time for him to get his man strength. So there will be more upside to him. This isn’t a young player that you should be too impatient with; this is a player that you should value because he is on your team.

I guess we shall see

I would have voted for “He will be better than last year but I don’t expect an eye-popping breakout season”.

I like the player, I really do... this isn't a jab at him, but he's simply not a top 6 talent on a playoff team, not will he ever be. It has nothing to do with his size. Love the work ethic and he's remarkably responsible on the defenive side of the puck for his age, which is fantastic. He just doesn't have the elite skill/awareness to consistently produce offense at the level required to plant himself in the top 6 of a playoff lineup.

You don't agree that Zach Benson passing to Dylan Cozens, Jack Quinn, and Peyton Krebs for large chunks of the year impacted his assists? Ok. What's more likely, Benson shoots below average forever, or he had bad shooting luck mixed with not enough skill that can be corrected? Yup.

Have people watched the video?

I don't agree with blaming Zach Bensons numbers on other players on the team. Just about every other player scored at or above expected goals last year according to Money Puck. Who was the worst? Zach Benson. https://moneypuck.com/player.htm?p=8484145 0.98 Expected Goals Per 60 Minutes Played in 2024 10 Goals From 18.08 Expected Goals During 1,111 Minutes Played 12.68 Expected Goals After Adjusting For Shooting Talent Predicted Shooting Talent is 29.9% Below Average for 2024 Not only is that the lowest predicted shooting talent on the team as far as I can tell it was the lowest in the NHL. If not it is pretty close. You can't blame that on other players and if anything you could turn around and say some of the others scoring was depressed because of it.

Truth, NMCs may be a competitive disadvantage, but they are not the problem... you can change whatever you want about them, until the FO drastically reforms and changes there is nothing gonna save them... they will continually flap in the top 5-10 pick range and operate like a row bow set adrift until there are fundamental changes.

Let's look at the production of the 4th forward from the 2024 playoff teams in the regular season. I am using forward because teams often switch centers and wings around for chemistry so lets just look at forwards. The criteria is play forward, are the 4th guy on that team in points. Dallas: Hintz, 28g, 67pts Vegas: Stone, 16g, 53pts Vancouver: Garland, 20g, 47pts Nashville: Novak, 18g, 45pts Winnipeg: Perfetti, 19g, 38pts Edmonton: RNH, 18g, 67pts LA: Moore, 31g, 57pts Florida: Verhaeghe 34g, 72pts (interestingly the next forward is at 41pts) Tampa: Haegel 26g, 75pts (and then you drop to 46pts) Boston: Zacha 21g, 59pts Toronto: Tavares, 29g, 65pts New York: Zibanejad, 26g, 72pts Washington: Mantha, 20g, 35pts Carolina: Necas, 24g, 53pts Long Island: Palmieri, 30g, 54pts Without even going with the 6th best forward in terms of points (which could be a teams 2nd line LW) we get an average of 53.7points for the 2023-2024 season. This means that your statement of "I'll say this, if they deploy him on the first line and gets regular PP minutes, he could get close to 60pts.... which would be acceptable on a non-playoff team like Buffalo. That said, you want to be taken seriously as a playoff contender? Do. Better." isnonsense not backed up by anything when I used the best "2nd" line point producers from each team to run this. The 4th best point producing forward on all 16 of the playoffs teams in 2023/2024 averaged below 60pts and only 6 teams managed to have a 4th forward top 60pts. The only logical conclusion is that a top 6 forward who gets 60pts is really good, certainly in the mix to be called a top line forward, and heavily valuable to EVERY playoff team. If Zach Benson puts up 60pts (I doubt he will but idk, crazier things have happened) the Sabres would be sitting pretty. Of course if Buffalo does not get its goals against down, it won't really matter. If we go to the 5th best forward on each team that 53.7 drops considerably. Thought I should note that. Even if I do it for just the two florida teams that see a massive drop at 5th forward, that brings us down to 49.9pts. Do better is great advice, I encourage you to take it.

Zach Benson 5v5 minutes per linemate, he had about 908 total minutes of 5v5 ice time. Jiri Kulich: 286mins (31.5%) Peyton Krebs: 282mins (31.1%) Dylan Cozens: 238mins (26.2%) Tage Thompson: 238mins (26.2%) Jack Quinn: 217mins (23.9%) Ryan McLeod: 149mins (16.4%) Alex Tuch: 103mins (11.3%) Sam Lafferty: 65mins (7.2%) JJ Peterka: 63mins (6.9%) Jason Zucker: 55mins (6.1%) Now the first thing that will happen is someone will be like, "SEE! He played all those minutes with Tage and Kulich and couldn't do anything!" Zach Benson played 152mins with Kulich and Thompson (BOTH). Benson played 908mins of 5v5 roughly, so that means that Zach Benson played on a line with both of the players that he played SOOO much time with, 16.7% of the season (at 5v5). To put this in perspective, JJ Peterka spent 459mins with Tage Thompson last year or about 42.7% of all his 5v5 time. Ryan McLeod spent 223mins with Tuch, or 21.7% of this 5v5 toi. Other line combos with more than 70mins TOI: Benson - Krebs - Quinn: 92mins or 10% Benson - Cozens - Quinn: 70mins or 7.7% Zach Benson spent massive chunks of his time with Krebs (10g), Cozens (11g), Thompson (44g), and Kulich (15g) with some healthy doses of Jack Quinn (19g) in there. You wanna know why Zach Benson didn't have better assist numbers? Because Lindy Ruff, a guy who needs to retire, spent large chunks of the season wasting Zach Benson with guys who can't ***** shoot and moving him alllllllll over the lineup. Finally near the end he put Benson with guys who could shoot. Let's see if lines stay a bit more stable so ppl can develop some chemistry. Truly it amazes me that after spending all that time with Quinn or Cozens, Benson managed to still post good underlying metrics. It is truly a miracle if you think about it.

UPL is the big unknown factor in young players reaching their prime. That's the problem. You don't know where he is at in his development. Two years ago, he looked as if he was on an upward trajectory. Last year, he regressed. He seemed to have lost his confidence and fundamentals for the position. That's a scary position to be in. I just don't know.

There are number of reasons why players put teams in their NMC. It’s a safe bet to believe that Buffalo is most often cited on that ignominious list due to a negative perception. For Buffalo, that perception is tough to shed because the perception matches reality. It’s bad enough that many players don’t want to come here but also some coaches also want to avoid this troubled organization. The moral of the story is that when you shoot yourself because of your own recklessness you become damaged goods.

Again with the facts….

Y'all are aware that the Sabres scored more goals than both Florida and Edmonton last year correct? Right?

Nobody is disputing Benson’s work ethic. He just doesn’t strike everyone as a significant offensive threat. Now 23 year old Benson is a different story. KA sucks so I get the pro top six group being in favor of Benson in that role. Probably unlikely KA gets an established veteran to replace JJ. Everyone else sees it as a situation where we are promoting a guy who on a really good team would likely not be in the top six for another couple years. Therefore his promotion might be a sign of another year the roster still sucks.

Well, you want me to say Buffalo, and it's a safe choice as I'm sure it's one of the most if not the most, but I'd say it doesn't have to be. They have created this situation and I'd be confident suggesting Buffalo was not on the most lists when Pegula bought the team but it has progressively risen in that list over these years. The perception is that much harder to change now. Otherwise I think it varies. Depends on where the players are from too. Some players get to submit lists when they kick in as well and they can be strategic. For example I hear Ullmark listed all the teams he thought wanted or needed goalies to try to avoid a trade from Boston. I imagine that sort of thing can happen often.

I'm hoping what we saw last year is nowhere near Luukkonen's prime.

Two things have changed about the Sabres still-youthful roster: The number of very inexperienced players in crucial roles has declined considerably. The number of players in their prime in key positions has increased considerably. Two years ago, they started the season with 2 players in their top 9 F/top 4 D/starting G who were in their prime (older than 25, younger than 30, Greenway and Tuch), and 4 who had yet to play 80 NHL games (Luukkonen, Quinn, Peterka and Power) This year, they project to start the season with 6 in their prime (Luukkonen, Dahlin, Norris, Thompson, Greenway and Tuch), and one who has yet to play 80 games (Kulich). Benson ended up cracking the top 9 two years ago and Doan may do the same this year.

It seems odd that top 6 is a distinction for a forward and not top 3. There are a number of lower scoring forwards on what would be the group between 4 and 6 but few on good teams between 1 and 3. The more I think about how many goals Tage Thompson scored with sub optimal line mates I can't help but be impressed with what he did. Although he started the year with Tuch and Peterka after the second line failed and Tuch was moved off he spent a Lot of time with Kulich and or Benson. No other high goal scoring forward had less qualified help than he did. Some examples. Draisaitl / Arvidson, Podkolzin or almost equal with McDavid and Hyman. Nylander/ Pacioretty, Tavares Ovechkin/ Strome, Protas Pasternack/ Zacha, Geekie Point/ Kucherov, Gentzel Connor/ Scheifele, Vilardi I could keep going but you should get the idea by now. Thompson must be going out of his mind. I don't know how he felt about Skinner but the guy could put pucks in the net. The same goes for Peterka. What now for a left wing on the first line? Thompson plays better when he plays with guys he trusts at his skill level. If he does not trust what the other guy is doing he plays a very individual game. I don't see the trust with Benson or Kulich that I would like to see with Thompson on a regular basis. Those guys have a lot of development ahead before they should be on the top line.

Which team do you think is listed more than any other team in the NMC?

You've literally been disproven, multiple times. Do better.

Can't stand NMCs and yes I think they definitely hurt teams. There used to be only a few of them but now it's like every single player demands some form of one. I can see why the players love them, but from a fan point of view they suck and teams like the Sabres are heavily screwed by them. Also hate tax inequalities but there's nothing we can do about either.

If he gets around 60 points for a playoff or non-playoff team, he would be doing well. You have to also include his prowess in the defensive side of the game when evaluating him. Was he playing a role higher than he should have last year? Probably so. However, if you consider how well he acquitted himself as a 19 year old, I would consider his season a success and would be excited about his prospects this season.

I'll say this, if they deploy him on the first line and gets regular PP minutes, he could get close to 60pts.... which would be acceptable on a non-playoff team like Buffalo. That said, you want to be taken seriously as a playoff contender? Do. Better.