You lost me at "but Benning"

His WAR is through the roof and maintains a CF% well above 50%. I think he looked bad because he was either anchored by Russell or half of a Sekera. His gaffes on the PK can be straight up chalked up to how bad the PK was in general.

Didn't he come back from a concussion last year too? Hard to play hockey remotely well while your brain is sliding out your nose.

I feel like that last line would be a good reason to avoid Benning? "He was only bad because of massive brain damage" isn't exactly a vote of confidence. Also as per Cosica his 5V5 CF% last year was a whopping 48.2%...

Well as long as his brain stops sliding out of his nose he should be back in form with absolutely no issues at all.

Brain damage / 60 is an overrated stat.

That would be correct, for some reason I had his previous shot metrics on my mind. I find it curious that his CF Rel is still positive.

Err yes and no for the concussion thing. If he had a history and it wasn't his first, I'd be much more leery of Benning as anything more than a #6/7 defender. The Oilers brass is notorious for having players play hurt or come back too soon. In recent memory:

-Puljujarvi played with double hip spurs for an undisclosed portion of last season
-They were showcasing Klefbom when his hand was broken
-Sekera playing any games whatsoever in 17/18

Running Benning, assuming he's healthy as the "anchor" of the second pair is far from ideal and the likely outcome is Klefbom and Larsson eating upwards of 30 minutes a night in order to shelter the second and third pairs. It's easier to plug him into that middle pairing when Nurse is around - and holding off on the Drouin trade until the draft might be necessary for that exact reason - but my main concern was acquiring the picks and shuffling some of the roster spots.