Player Profile - #16 Tyler Benson

The following is an except from the intro of an upcoming article of mine that talks about the status of my tracking project for the 2018-19 Bakersfield Condors:

About a month ago I realised that if I only published the numbers from my tracking project for the Bakersfield Condors after every single player was up to date with each of the data points I was tracking, I'd be doing this stuff way further past real-time than I wanted to be, maybe even into the summer.

I found this unacceptable; so instead we're going to build this thing on the fly.

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, over this AHL season I've been manually tracking certain events that I find invaluable for evaluating both what a team is attempting to do and how much they're succeeding at it, and sussing out the same in terms of individual player's identities and how much they're succeeding with them.

One of the players I have a decent enough sample size (16 games;) to share the data for is one of the Oilers fanbase's deserved intrigue: LW Tyler Benson.

I've got his individual shot events vetted and ready to go, so I thought I'd give a profile on his work this season so far. The following is entirely from the 5-on-5 game-state.

On-ice Totals:

CF - 222

CA - 112

CD - (+110)

CF% - 66.47%

Condors without Benson:

CF - 622

CA - 500

CD - (+122)

CF% - 55.44%

iCF - 42

iCF/GP - 2.63

iFF - 34

iFF/GP - 2.13

iCFA - 67

iCFA/GP - 4.19

iFFA - 55

iFFA/GP - 3.44

(iCF is an individual shot attempt, iCFA is a shot attempt assist, iFF is an individual unblocked shot, iFFA is an unblocked shot assist. I should also mention that I only count primary shot assists; there is only one assist credit given out for each shot - if there is one - and it goes to the player who makes the last pass before the shot is taken)

So, spoiler alert - you'll see this in the team-based post - the Condors are a strong possession team (in my sample), and look to drive their collective 54.8 even-strength goalshare (a data-point from their 42-game body of work that I grabbed manually from available stuff on theAHL.com/stats/standings and https://theahl.com/stats/standings?specialteams=true) by sheer shot volume. Benson succeeds through this system to a staggering degree in my sample, but remember that if he plays the 13.01 5v5 minutes prospect-stats.com estimates him to, we're only looking at about 200 minutes here.

They're a McLellanite team, a lot of their breakout style runs along the walls and the way that they're heavy shot-blockers combines with hammering from the point in the offensive zone into a system that in effect reminds me most of the early season 2017-18 Edmonton Oilers - and I don't mean that in an inflammatory way. Again, more on this in the team-based post.

Benson is in the upper group among the entire team in many areas and vies with Marody for the lead in passing categories. The Condors will often times utilise a hard top-six type deployment, where Benson plays on a skill line with some of Marody, Hebig and Currie. The other main line always features Malone at centre, often with Gambardella and Russell or Christoffer and they bear such responsibilities that indirectly inflate Benson and co's possession shares.

He was centred by Marody or Currie (often with both splitting centre duties, again McLellan-like) 14 of the 16 games, spending the other two with Tyler Vesel in games where Woodcroft spread the wealth - typically games where Cameron Hebig was his opposite wing.)

His most impressive game in puck distribution was November 17th versus the Colorado Eagles, where he assisted nine shot attempts and seven went unblocked. On December 19th versus the Stockton Heat, he had seven shot attempts himself and assisted on 7 more shots attempts.

Benson's sense and his understanding of checking is the reason he scores, but his sense and his understanding of timing is the reason he's dominant territorially. Woodcroft's Condors love to break out like McLellan's Oilers, but when Benson's on the ice he appears to be trusted to take plays through the middle and frequently finds teammates moving up the ice after he takes the first pass from a defenceman on the breakout.

I could show you a million clips like this, where he makes things very easy on his teammates:

And then once he's in-zone, there's a number of tricks up his sleeve. He's a crafty forechecker  and disrupter of breakouts, knowing just how to punish turnovers. Note too his positioning in front of the net on the Bear goal, and how he frequently occupies would-be shot-blockers or keeps defensemen engaged on him. A favourite move of his, which you'll see a couple examples of, is the spin-o-rama or behind the back pass:

(The following also features a slick play by Ethan Bear)

But he was perhaps at his strongest in the forechecking discipline when he was paired up with Puljujärvi during the latter's dominant stint in the AHL this year.

In the second part of the last clip, you can see Benson use his edges to shake a check, which is extremely important for him to be able to do because although he does want to draw attention to himself by holding onto the puck, he's not of the frame to bully checkers physically like a power forward might. Because of this combined with his inability to outright burn opposing players with speed, he's essentially got to be able to both know where he's going to send the puck far before he lets it go, and pass through layers of checking when he does. He's usually able to do so.

Should Benson play at the next level, you'd get the most out of him by playing him on at least your secondary powerplay unit. He often plays off of the half-wall, but given his threat level behind the net, he's likely able to perform as a goal-line player as well.

We should note that Benson's outsized shot share hasn't fully translated into goals-for percentage. His GF% via prospect-stats is still 55% and +3.46 relative to team, and it's not uncommon in the NHL for rookie players (who go on to be good NHLers) to have a similar effect of impacting possession before the goal-share catches up.

A certain factor is his own 4.55 shooting percentage at all strengths, despite sharing the team lead in total shots-on-goal with 110. He's still figuring out how to beat professional goalies, which is certainly a hint that the organisation is doing him a great favour in letting him develop on the farm. If he had an individual shooting percentage closer to some of his fellow teammates who also play leading roles on the power-play, he would have closer to 10-11 goals - putting him right at a point per game in the AHL.

He doesn't, and I believe the time at which he advances through this phase is an indicator for or not he plays years on a second line in the NHL, or a third, should he make it. There's enough work here at an early age to suggest it's more likely than not he plays 100 NHL games in an organisation that operates like Edmonton does, but there's also a chance for much more. His elevated scoring play when partnered with other NHL-calibre futures like Jesse Puljujärvi, Cooper Marody and Kailer Yamamoto reads like a player who can play-up in terms of offense, which in tandem with the players ability to extend offensive zone play and get the puck there in the first place gives him a chance to be the complementary third-best offensive player on a line that scores well during the hardest game-state of the hardest league.

My prescription would be to leave he, Kailer Yamamoto, and Cooper Marody together on the farm to give all three the best chance to be full-time contributors to the 2019-20 Edmonton Oilers.