Has Giants star been playing hurt?
Apparent injury to potential first-round pick raises a number of questions
Vancouver Giants star left-winger Tyler Benson apparently has been playing hurt all season. It’s going to be interesting to see what’s most compelling: how the Giants handle Benson the rest of the way, or how the scouts gauge his campaign, with Benson projected by many as a first-round pick in June’s NHL draft.
Benson, 17, Vancouver’s captain, made the bus trip to Prince George for a weekend twin bill, but was in enough discomfort that the club sent him back to their Ladner-area base before the opening game Saturday. The team played again Sunday.
Benson, a 6-foot, 196-pound left-handed shot, will be reassessed by team medical staff Monday. There are clocks ticking. The WHL trade deadline is next Sunday. The CHL Top Prospects game, which the Giants are hosting and have been using Benson as the poster boy for, is Jan. 28.
As well, the WHL playoffs are slated to begin March 25, and the Giants are still on the outside looking in at a postseason spot, although they’ve been playing better of late.
Benson was dominant in his season debut against the Seattle Thunderbirds Oct. 23. His play levelled off for four or five games, then he went on another roll with linemates Chase Lang and Alec Baer. He hasn’t been as noticeable the past couple weeks.
If you were picking a Giants most valuable player to date, it would undoubtedly be Ty Ronning, and Benson would be somewhere in that runner-up group.
Vancouver coach Lorne Molleken refused to speculate Sunday morning on when Benson might return to Vancouver’s lineup. He said Benson has been playing at “basically 70 to 80 per cent the entire time.”
“It speaks volumes for his character,” Molleken continued. “All I’ve asked of Tyler is to be honest with me. He’s got a bright future ahead of him and the biggest thing for us is to make sure we are doing the right things with him.”
Molleken wouldn’t say exactly what is bothering Benson, but Benson did miss the first 10 games after undergoing surgery to remove a cyst near his tailbone. There have also been times since then where he’s looked sore merely walking around the rink.
Tuesday was one of those. He watched practice from the stands that morning in Ladner, on what the Giants tagged at the time as a “maintenance day.”
The Giants played the Prince George Cougars the next evening at Pacific Coliseum. They had one extra player, defenceman Dylan Plouffe, listed as questionable for the game going into the warm-up. Vancouver staff were playing coy about it then, but it’s easy to suggest now that Benson was in jeopardy of not suiting up.
He did play that night and got in a scrap with Prince George forward Colby McAuley.
McAuley, 19, went into Sunday leading the WHL in fights, with 10, and by various accounts on the Vancouver side it was Benson who prompted their bout. It was Benson’s second fighting major of the campaign, and of his two-year WHL career.
Prince George is a hard-charging, edgy team. The 6-foot, 183-pound McAuley helps set that tone, and he was causing commotion all over the ice Wednesday. (His check on Trevor Cox Saturday knocked the Vancouver forward out of the game with an upper-body injury, and, although he was not penalized on the play, McAuley was suspended Sunday morning pending a review after the Giants sent game tape to the league office.)
Will NHL scouts look at Benson challenging McAuley as him stepping up for the team or making a poor decision considering his physical situation?
Now that it’s come out he’s having some difficulties, will they look differently at the eight goals and 18 assists he’s put up in his first 28 games? He was fourth in team scoring going into Sunday; he finished fifth last season with 14 goals and 31 assists in 62 games.
Will the Giants, too, look at the trade deadline differently, especially if Benson and now Cox are on the shelf for any length of time? And how is the Prospects game marketing affected by all of this?
It’s been a deliciously intriguing season, albeit not always for the reasons the Giants want.