Tag Archives: Matthew Benning

Armchair GM, Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rumors, Trades

Edmonton Oilers Rumors: Chiarelli On the Hunt for a 3C

Since the coaching change, I’ve been listening to media types like Jason Gregor say that Ken Hitchcock has nothing to lose by coaching the Edmonton Oilers.

“He’s on a 4-month contract! He can do as he pleases!”

But I’m here to tell you that if you hear anybody say that you should kick them square in the shins and tell them to get their heads out of their asses.

Ken Hitchcock is 66-years-old and his dream has been to coach the Edmonton Oilers his whole coaching career. Do you really think that he’s some sort of coaching mercenary just looking to make some money for a few months and then walk away emotionless?

No! Of course he isn’t. This is his dream for Christ’s sake. He wants to come in and do the best he can and help the Oilers go as far as possible in what might be his final kick at the can. He most certainly does have something to lose if this doesn’t end in substantial improvement for the Oilers.

Consider it his tribute to Clare Drake and all the other local friends he’s made over the years, if you will.

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Trade Whispers

Now that the Oilers have Chris Wideman I do believe that spells the end for one of Matt Benning, Kevin Gravel, or Jason Garrison. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the end for two of them.

My picks would be Benning and Garrison.

Everyone on the team loves Garrison. He really is well-thought-of within the organization and It’s my belief that the Oilers would do their best to accommodate his wishes whatever those would be if Edmonton wanted to cut ties. His foot speed simply isn’t where it needs to be in today’s NHL.

According to those who are close to the team, Matt Benning has lost confidence and for unknown reasons, his hockey IQ has gone down the drain. He can’t make a pass for the life of him and it’s costing the Oilers in goals against and chances against.

Benning is a very decent option on the 3rd pairing but if I’m being honest and I’ll ask you, do you think he’s any better than a no.7 defender in the NHL?

There’s a thought out there that Garrison or Benning could be sent to the minors but personally, and this leans more towards Benning, I think a trade would be more likely and I wonder if a team like the Dallas Stars would be someone worth talking to for the Oilers.

Chiarelli and Hitchcock have obvious connections to Stars GM Jim Nill through Hockey Canada, right? Also, Nill was Hitchcock’s boss last season.

I think that Edmonton is after Radek Faksa. A 6-foot-3 215-pound center who only has 6pts this season.

The folks that I’ve chatted with have said they reckon that Dallas might consider moving him because they’ve got some players in the minors that are pushing and they could use the cap space.

But I’m not so sure a trade between the two teams would be a cap space saver for either of them. Edmonton and Dallas are both slightly overdrawn at the moment.

What was suggested to me was a Benning and the Islanders 3rd round pick this year for Radek Faksa.

I’m not 100% sold on a deal that would see Dallas move a center like Faksa when they’re right in the playoff mix unless Edmonton was overpaying OR Martin Hanzal was close to returning.

The money is near a wash as Faksa makes $2.2M per year and Benning is on a $1.9M per year contract. Both deals expire after next season and so maybe Chiarelli convinces Nill to even out the money a bit there and eat 300k.

Dallas’ defense is in tatters. They’ve got four of their top-6 dmen out of the lineup right now and they’re barely sitting in a wildcard spot. Esa Lindell and Miro Heiskanen are their top-pairing!

Last season Faksa played in 79 games and racked up 17 goals and 16 assists for 33 points. He was also +21. It was the 2nd season in a row where he accrued 33points. This year he’s on pace for around 24 points.

I think the Oilers are looking to solidify that middle six of theirs and if we look at a potential lineup that includes the big Czech center, you can see where Faksa would definitely accomplish that.

Caggiula-McDavid-Draisaitl
Rieder-RNH-Puljujarvi
Spooner-Faksa-Chiasson
Lucic-Brodziak-Kassian

So in this scenario, JJ Khaira and Ty Rattie are out of the lineup. I have a feeling that Spooner might find himself in the doghouse more often than not but the good thing about this roster is its fluidity. Apart from Brodziak, Kassian, and McDavid, the rest of the players can be slotted in anywhere.

Then on defense, you’d have,

Klefbom-Larsson
Nurse-Russell
Gravel-Wideman
Garrison

This isn’t so bad. I can’t see any of the kids coming up anytime soon. Players like Ethan Bear, Caleb Jones, and William Lagesson have the greatest chance to get called up but in my opinion, they are better served playing and honing their crafts in Bakersfield this season.

So what do you think? Would you be interested in the Oilers acquiring Radek Faksa? Let us know in the comments below but not before you check out some of our BLH swag!

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Edmonton Oilers, Fancy Stats, Michael Gerber, NHL

Is the Edmonton Oilers Success Sustainable?

The Oilers are off to a great start, second in the Pacific Division and 5 points clear of a playoff spot but is this anything more than a McDavid fueled hot start?

A good indicator of whether a team as a whole is over achieving is to look at a larger sample size than wins or team +/-. The largest data set available is the team’s Corsi For %. This indicates whether a team has possession of the puck more than their opponents.  The Oilers rank 11th in the NHL in CF% and 3rd in the Pacific Division. This shows that the Oilers are not winning games by luck, there is real improvement over the teams 48.9% 2015-16 season which ranked 12th worst in the NHL.

Among smaller but also reliable data sets the Oilers also show well with:

–          51.16% Fenwick For % (11th NHL) ,

–          51.91% Goals For % (12th NHL)

–          50.87% Shots For % (10th NHL) and

–          50.1% Scoring Chances For%

There are only 7 teams in the NHL to have a positive number in every category listed above and the Oilers are one of them. Combine these with the fact that the Oilers have an average shooting percentage and average save percentage and you have a team that is performing well across the board without running hot, unsustainable goaltending or lucky shooting.

Individually let’s start with the new captain McDavid, he’s co-leader for the scoring race in the NHL and providing consistent, elite offense with a rotating set of wingers. He’s been excellent as expected and his contribution to the Oilers position in the standings shouldn’t and won’t be ignored. Past the obvious impact of the captain is there room for optimism?

The Oilers latest winning streak is a great example, it has come at a time where the offense has not been coming in piles for McDavid. Despite this, the team has been able to come from behind to tie and win games, pushing teams around and grinding out wins along the way when finesse alone isn’t cutting it. There is real depth to this team (including defensively) and it is really showing of late.

Leon Draisaitl has been fantastic despite playing a lot of minutes with 3rd line quality wingers, putting up 1st line quality stats.

 Patrick Maroon has continued to show himself to be a capable top 6 winger on the score sheet.

Milan Lucic, despite his detractors, has been putting up good numbers and is 3rd on the team in scoring.

Mark Letestu has proven me entirely wrong as a capable power play specialist along with killing penalties and centering a 4th line that is a 5 on 5 force.

Zack Kassian continues to Kass and if he were to find a little luck from the officials might have 12-15 points from a depth role.

Matthew Benning has been fantastic, building on the Brandon Davidson happy surprise of 15-16 and giving the Oilers a very usable right shot defender.

Adam Larsson is a capable right shot 1st pairing defender.

Darnell Nurse had been very good prior to injury and has a complete skill set to go along with a maturing positional understanding of the game.

Andrej Sekera has been everything the Oilers thought they were getting when they signed him; capable and reliable in all situations.

Oscar Klefbom has been up and down but is coming off of a major period of long-term recovery and has proven every bit capable as a top 4 defender.

Cam Talbot has been a legitimate starting goaltender providing dependable regular starts.

Contributing further to that depth are a few players that have yet to contribute to full effect this season that we know have the potential to do more should the performance of others slide. The entire unit recently used for long stretches as a top line of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Benoit Pouliot and Jordan Eberle are underperforming based on their abilities and could very well have a rebound in 2017.

Jesse Puljuajrvi is a highly talented rookie that has been in and out of the lineup. He is the youngest player in the NHL, was and was regarded in his draft year as a better prospect than Leon Draisaitl was and was in the conversation around this time last year to unseat Auston Matthews as the #1 pick. Arguably his rookie season has been as or more successful than Draisaitl’s was and he has the potential to break out as early as the second half of this season.

The Oilers are legitimately outplaying their opponents more often than not and although as Oiler fans are all too aware key injuries can derail a season (as they can any teams) there is no reason to believe that the team is anything but for real.

Enjoy 2017 everyone!!

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Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, Fancy Stats, NHL

Matt Benning: The Oilers’ Best Defenseman… Really? Maybe. #SmallSampleSize

Before we get into the meat of this beast I’d like to preface it by letting you know that you don’t have to believe what you’re about to read and you should probably do yourself a favor and check out the data for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

  • corsica.hockey (here)
  • stats.hockeyanalysis.com (here)

Also… #SmallSampleSize

The Oilers have a handful of very nice young dmen patrolling their blue line this season. Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, Andrej Sekera, Eric Gryba, Kris Russell, and most notably Adam Larsson but has Matt Benning been the best of the bunch since being called up on the 21st of October?

Let’s toss some numbers out there to gander upon.

For this part, I enlisted the help of our in-house stats guru, G-Money (@oilersnerdalert) and asked him this:

If you were to take a handful of stats from corsica.hockey in search of the best dman on the Oilers, which stats would you take?

To which G-Money replied:

First and foremost would be the ‘against’ metrics: CA (raw shot attempts), FA (unblocked shot attempts), and xGA (expected goals against).  I like them as rates, so you adjust for ice time.  CA/60 etc. To my mind, that’s a primary marker. 

Secondary are the balanced metrics e.g. CF%/FF%/xGF%, since a high ‘against’ number can be offset if the defender also creates a lot.  And either way, you want those to be above 50% if you can, and if you can’t, at least the “Rel” version to be positive so he’s showing better than his team. 

And of course, the WoodMoneys! Which show you how the numbers break down vs comp. I have the numbers generating for this season so I can supply you with those if you like, though the sample sizes are still smaller than I’d like.

So… We are here and here we are. The numbas!!

Matt Benning (9gp 0g 2a 2pts +3)

CA 101 (1)
FA 74 (1)
xGA 4.41 (1)
CA/60 47.53 (1)
FA/60 34.82 (1)
xGA/60 2.08 (1)
CF% 57.2% (1)
FF% 34.82% (1)
xGF% 60.4%(1)

Stats courtesy of Corsica.Hockey.

Benning’s rank within the Oilers defense is the number in brackets.

We still need to remember that he has only played a handful of games and according to Corsica.Hockey, he’s only been on the ice for 127 minutes. The next player with the least amount of regular ice time is Kris Russell and he is last in most of the categories above… Could that be due to missing training camp? Who knows?…

So apart from that FF% (which we want over 50%), we find Benning at the top of every major statistic G-Money has instructed us to use in our search to determine the Oilers best dman.

But how about to our eye?

For me, his best game was the last one versus the Kings and that’s probably because he was smashing bodies left and right and didn’t make any major mistakes.

I like what Bruce McCurdy had to say about that performance in the Cult of Hockey’s post-gamer:

#83 Matt Benning, 6. Joined the back end hitting spree with his most physical game as an Oiler. Really cranked a couple of guys, even as one booming hit took him out of position to enable the Nolan breakaway that his partner Sekera thwarted. Later crushed Kings banger Kyle Clifford with a solid wallop. Excellent shot and scoring chance shares, and the only Oiler to post a +2 on the night.

WoodMoney

G-Money introduced us to Dangerous Fenwick last year and that is basically the Fenwick stat (unblocked shots for/against) but it takes into consideration where the shot was released. Read more about it HERE.

What WoodMoney does is it calculates a player’s fancy stats versus different “calibers” of player. Elite, Middle, and Gritensity. Read more about that HERE.

I just want to focus on Benning’s Dangerous Fenwick For/Against (DFF/DFA) here because I feel like we’ve already gone over the other fancies above. Also, these numbers are good up to last Thursday.

Stat Elite Middle Gritensity
DFF 16.9 (7) 50.3 (6) 28.7 (6)
DFA 17.4 (1) 39.6 (1) 12.6 (1)
DFF% 49.3 (1) 56 (7) 69.5 (1)
DFF/60 32.1 (6) 55.3 (1) 66.7 (1)
DFA/60 33 (1) 43.6 (6) 29.3 (1)
TOI 31.37 54:32 25.50

Again, numbers in brackets are where Benning ranks within the Oilers defense. That defense being Klefbom, Larsson, Nurse, Sekera, Gryba, Russell, and Benning himself.

So my understanding is that for the “against” numbers, we want that to be as low as possible and the “for” numbers to be as high as possible. Naturally. what I’m reading in Benning’s numbers here is that

Now, what I’m reading in Benning’s numbers:

  • Versus “Elite” competition, he struggles… As he should.
  • Versus “Middle” competition he does better
  • Versus “Gritensity” competition he does worse than versus “Middle”…

I think that since the rookie has been playing the majority of his hockey versus “Middle” competition, the numbers are less up-and-down. I mean look at his DFA. Very low versus “Elite” and “Gritensity” but much higher versus “Middle”…

If you can’t tell, I’m not all that versed in the fancies and reading G-Money’s numbers is like having a driving wheel in my zipper… It’s driving me nuts.

Look, I could be reading all of these numbers all wrong. I could be jumping the gun too because Benning has only played such a low number of games. But can we take into consideration that he basically came on when the Oilers losing streak started (It’s all HIS fault!! BURN THE WITCH!!) and the fact that he’s putting up these kinds of numbers is pretty bloody rad! One only wishes he could have a cannon of a slapshot and was putting up Weber-like numbers…

I know that Russell and Gryba are coming back but I’d be hard pressed to send this guy back to Bakersfield with the way he’s playing right now. Benning is a right-handed defender (something the Oilers need), he can skate and move the puck, he can hit and I believe he’s been getting some time on the powerplay as well.

I vote he stays ON the island and maybe it’s time we shipped Gryba out. At the very least you have Benning and Nurse playing together. I know they had a shift or two against LA together and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they did in that limited time. #SmallSampleSize

What do you think? If I’ve missed anything or misunderstood something, please let me know in the comments below or on the Twitter machine @beerleagueheroe!

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