Ice forward Benson small, extremely dangerous

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This article was published 17/09/2021 (1573 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT’S hockey season again. Cooler temperatures and the sound of skate blades are part of the natural rhythm of the season.

Some players, like 16-year-old Winnipeg Ice forward Zach Benson, have a natural flow, too. He’s the kind of player who make the hard parts of the game look easier.

Six months ago, when he made his WHL debut in the Regina hub, there was a bit of fanfare.

The Ice had chosen him 14th overall out of Abbottsford, B.C., in the 2020 WHL Draft, but as a 15-year-old, his invitation to join the team was mostly a get-to-know-you session for both player and club.

“Coming into the bubble we’re hoping we could get him in three to five games — that was the plan,” said Ice head coach James Patrick Friday afternoon. “Maybe the day before we got there… or during the first week of practice in the bubble, B.C. minor hockey cancelled the season and that allowed him to play as many games as we saw fit.

“The very first day practice, he was by far the best player as far as his skating and puck-handling and doing the drills.”

His slight frame — 5-7 and 150 pounds — was a concern but he quickly overcame those doubts, just as he had done two years earlier when he joined the first-year bantam squad at Yale Hockey Academy.

“Our teams are always pretty strong at Yale and he made our team as a 4-foot-2 guy,” said Brad Bowen, who coached Benson during his first two seasons at YHA. “His hockey sense was through the roof and his compete level for such a small player was real good. And then as a second year bantam, he just basically owned the puck the whole time.”

A play early in his first season convinced his coach that Benson was sturdy enough to handle whatever pounding he might be required to take.

“They rimmed the puck and he had to chip it out of his zone and some big defenceman ran him over,” remembered Bowen. “And he got the puck out, chipped it out, and from that day forward he just grew as a player.”

So did his reputation for fearlessness.

“I don’t remember that play but I had that happen a couple times that year — I was a pretty small guy,” said Benson. “I don’t think they were trying to scare me. I think it was just the right hockey play but I wouldn’t say it worked.”

Benson was a good producer in that first year in which bodychecking was permitted, tallying 23 points in 33 games. In his second year at U15 level, he exploded for 33 goals and 91 points in 32 games to lead Canadian Sport School Hockey League in scoring.

And where did his inspiration come from?

“I think just watching the NHL and seeing like smaller guys like Kailer Yamamoto (of the Edmonton Oilers) — play and get hit and go into the corners, be feisty,” said Benson, who’s now two inches taller and five pounds heavier than he was in spring. “I kind of just look at that and go, ‘I want to be that type of player.’ “

While playing for Bowen, Benson migrated from left wing to centre when he grew big enough to handle the physical demands of playing in the middle. In Winnipeg, the pattern will probably be the same.

He’s made an immediate impression in practice, started the hub as a left-winger and went on to score 10 goals and 20 points in 24 games.

In Regina, Patrick mapped out three priorities: win games, match lines and avoid exposing Benson to unnecessary physical risk. His plan was put to the test in Game 1 was against the Brandon Wheat Kings, the most physical club in the East Division.

“Well sure enough there’s an icing (call) or something in the second period and he’s on and who’s he lined up against? It’s (Brandon’s Reid) Perepeluk, who 6-4, 230,” said Patrick. “What we quickly learned is he’s so smart and he reads the ice so well that he doesn’t put himself in a position to get hit.

“Now over the course of the bubble he got hit a couple of times — a (defenceman) pinched so he had no choice, he to take the hit. But again, it did not faze him one bit. There was no fear. No intimidation. No bailing out. It was just reading the play and hockey sense.”

Benson has also impressed the Ice coaching staff with his grasp of defensive concepts. So why then did he fall to Winnipeg in the second half of the first round of the draft?

“I think the only reason he fell that far is because people thought he was going to go to college,” said Bowen. “…But having said that, I knew from Day 1 his goal was to play in the WHL and go from there.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14