What the Faulk were you thinking here?

Carolina laugh, why would they take your cap dump and your contract disaster for one of their top 4 D men?

Who is the cap dump and who is the contract disaster!

Are you serious? The guy that just went to finland because he doesn't wnna play for this organisation? That's the contract disaster. And the AHL calibre D man making way too much? That's the cap dump, Carolina can get a laste conditional 1st at the deadline for Faulk. This is a HORRIFIC deal

Poolparty does not have a contract and you might want to check Bennings stats and corsi, he is a very servicable right shot NHL D, I never said anything about the trade for a year year remaining 27 year old D

His XGA/60 is among the worst in the NHL, his SA/60 are worse, he is not an NHL calibre D man.. Pulju is in Finland right now, and he has shown nothing like his potential in Edmonton, you'd be buying a lottery ticket not a proven asset, this isn't worth it for a team that just got out of the conference finalists

XGA yes I see Benning is right under Erik Karlsson who also sucks

You are clueless if you think Benning isn't an NHL defenseman. He has been successful in his time in the top 4, he's more than a bottom pair guy even.

So has Cody Ceci, Jack Johnson, Erik Gudbransen, doesn't mean they're good.

Lots of people have played in the top-4 without being successful. Benning has won his minutes.

OMFG..... okay I cannot argue with you anymore thank you for the debate and enjoy your day! I'd continue this if I felt like I wouldn't get another damn infraction...

I didn't know they gave out infractions for being wrong. Have a great day!

I'M WRONG????????????????????? Okay.... sure bud okay

I'm sorry it had to be me that broke it to you... devastating, I imagine.

Look, I'm not arguing that the trade above is fair, I'm taking issue with your characterization of Benning as a cap dump. He's not.

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Is 1250 minutes over 3 years a large enough sample size to prove anything? I’m genuinely asking, because on another forum I’m the only guy that sees any value in Matt Benning at all, and looking at the numbers I think he can play 2RD. Certainly between him, Sekera and Russell we should be able to cover 2RD next season, but the numbers for Benning are intriguing.

To start with I used a proxy for “top-4” each year going back to 2016-17, based on TOI v Elites taken from puckiq.com, as follows:

2016-17: Sekera (35.5%), Klefbom (34.6)
2017-18: Nurse (34.9), Klefbom (32.3)
2018-19: Klefbom (35.1), Nurse (33.8)

Next I went to naturalstattrick.com and, using their “Teammates” tool, filtered all the stats for each year for the TOI Benning spent with each player listed above. I realize there were times when Russell-Benning were the 2nd pairing, but there may have been games that they were 3rd pairing too and I didn’t want to confuse the numbers with 3rd pairing data. Then too, who you play with is as important as who you play against, so showing those games where Russell-Benning played 2nd pairing probably doesn’t give us much information about potential combos this coming season, unless the injury bug strikes down 2-3 of the top-5 guys. For reference though, Russell-Benning were together just 21:04 in 2018-19 and outscored the competition 2-1. Negligible.

So I built an excel spreadsheet combining all the figures for Benning’s ice-time with the top two LHD for each season and the results were interesting to say the least. For the 3 years combined, 5v5 minutes in the top-4 only:

TOI: 1250:19
CF%: 52.79
FF%: 53.00
SF%: 53.17
GF%: 55.65

xGF%: 53.71
SCF%: 52.75
SCGF%: 56.99
HDCF%: 52.69
HDGF%: 56.72

Sh%: 9.51
Sv%: 91.75
PDO: 1.013

Again, this is just the time he spent in the top-4, these numbers don’t include any bottom-pairing play at all. This looks like a decent top-4 blueliner from here. Is it the McDavid push? Let’s look at the numbers with and without McDavid, filtered by the aforementioned top two LHD:

With McDavid

TOI: 420:30
CF%: 55.19
FF%: 56.65
SF%: 56.14
GF%: 62.96

xGF%: 56.10
SCF%: 55.27
HDCF%: 55.10
HDGF%: 59.38

Sh%: 14.05
Sv%: 90.73
PDO: 1.048

Without McDavid:

TOI: 829:47
CF%: 51.39
FF%: 50.88
SF%: 51.49
GF%: 49.18

xGF%: 52.06
SCF%: 50.97
HDCF%: 50.80
HDGF%: 54.29

Sh%: 8.20
Sv%: 94.67
PDO: 1.029

The truth is that Benning, even when playing top-4 minutes, isn’t getting a ton of “McDavid time”, just 33.6% of his TOI was spent with the world’s best center. Of course his numbers in those minutes are better, but he performed quite well even without the CMD push.

And then there’s this: Benning personally posted amazing boxcars during these minutes. His .912 points/60 puts him tied for 58th best defenseman in the NHL over the past 3 years, while his .29 goals/60 puts him in a 5 way tie for 24th, with Jones, Ekblad, Markov and our own Darnell Nurse. (I can’t believe so many Oilers fans are calling for these two to be traded). These are phenomenal numbers.

The list of marquee players that couldn’t match Benning’s .912 p/60 over the past 3 years is long, including Slavin, Petry, Morrissey, Ekholm, Heiskanen, Gostisbehere, Miller, Pesce, Ekman-Larsson, Parayko, Ekblad, Brodin, Doughty, Lindholm, Fowler, Ristolainen, Klefbom, Hamonic and Vatanen.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Matt Benning is a top-pairing guy or even a sure-fire top 4. I do know for sure that he’s played a reasonable amount of top-4 minutes over the past 3 years and has won those minutes even playing behind a piss-poor forward group. NONE of the other top blueliners can touch Benning’s GF% without McDavid, and it isn’t close:

Benning: 49.18 (while in the top-4 only)
Nurse: 44.51
Russell: 43.87
Larsson: 43.68
Klefbom: 40.27
Sekera: 40.00 (includes bottom-pairing time)

For reference, Benning’s overall GF% without McDavid (just so we’re comparing apples-to-apples) is 51.45%.

AHL Calibre? Way to out yourself as someone who has never seen him play.

Just for the record, according to naturalstattrick.com Benning has the best xGA/60 (2.24) of any Oilers defenseman in 2018-19, good for 80th of 209 in the league who played more than 500 minutes. Let's compare this with the Canes top defenders:

Pesce: 2.21
Benning: 2.24
de Haan: 2.32
Hamilton: 2.32
Slavin: 2.43
Faulk: 2.48