in my opinion i think Zaitsev, is enough for Benning,

i love the the trade with the jerks

Nope. He costs more and isn't as good a player.




Benning has played top-4 effectively even though he's been mostly used as a 3rd pairing defender. I don't believe Zaitsev has been effective in top-4 minutes. But lets look at it, shall we?

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)

2016-17: Rielly(42.8%), Gardiner (28.9%)
2017-18: Rielly(44.1%), Gardiner (33.8%)
2018-19: Rielly(40.3%), Gardiner (32.7%)

Next I went to naturalstattrick.com and, using their “Teammates” tool, filtered all the stats for each year for the TOI Benning [and Zaitsev] spent with each player listed above. So I built an excel spreadsheet combining all the figures for Benning’s [Zaitsev'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:

Benning [Zaitsev]
TOI: 1250:19 [2885:56]
CF%: 52.79 [49.20]
FF%: 53.00 [47.50]
SF%: 53.17 [46.87]
GF%: 55.65 [47.54]

xGF%: 53.71 [49.74]
SCF%: 52.75 [51.60]
SCGF%: 56.99 [49.75]
HDCF%: 52.69 [51.98]
HDGF%: 56.72 [54.74]

Sh%: 9.51 [8.08]
Sv%: 91.75 [91.34]
PDO: 1.013 [.994]

Again, this is just the time they spent in the top-4, these numbers don’t include any bottom-pairing play at all. Benning 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:

Benning w/ McDavid [Zaitsev w/ Matthews]

TOI: 420:30 [774:43]
CF%: 55.19 [49.46]
FF%: 56.65 [47.75]
SF%: 56.14 [46.80]
GF%: 62.96 [48.05]

xGF%: 56.10 [49.54]
SCF%: 55.27 [51.37]
HDCF%: 55.10 [51.27]
HDGF%: 59.38 [52.63]

Sh%: 14.05 [9.03]
Sv%: 90.73 [89.35]
PDO: 1.048 [.984]

Benning w/o McDavid [Zaitsev w/o Matthews]

TOI: 829:47 [2111:13]
CF%: 51.39 [49.10]
FF%: 50.88 [47.41]
SF%: 51.49 [46.89]
GF%: 49.18 [47.31]

xGF%: 52.06 [49.82]
SCF%: 50.97 [51.69]
HDCF%: 50.80 [52.27]
HDGF%: 54.29 [55.56]

Sh%: 8.20 [7.71]
Sv%: 94.67 [91.88]
PDO: 1.029 [.996]

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. [Zatisev on the other hand, performed about the same whether with Matthews or not. A testament to Toronto's forward depth perhaps?]

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. 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. [Zaitsev's p/60 over the same period was 0.68]

NONE of the other Oilers' 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 (including 3rd pairing TOI) is 51.45%.

Then there's this:

https://public.tableau.com/profile/christopher.turtoro#!/vizhome/2-yearA3ZPlayerComps/ComparisonDashboard

I see Zaitsev as a grossly overpaid 3rd pairing d-man who is playing over his head in Toronto. Benning is a young player who plays 3rd pairing effectively and has moved up into the top-4 regularly and is also effective in those minutes. Also, keep in mind that none of these stats have any sort of modifier for the fact that Zaitsev was on a much better team over this period than Benning was.

Toronto had a .610 winning pct over this period and posted a 53.47 GF% at 5v5.
Edmonton had a .528 winning pct over this period and posted a 49.02 GF% at 5v5.