Should Sabres standout Zach Benson really play in NHL this year?

When Zach Benson slipped to the Buffalo Sabres at 13th overall in this summer's NHL draft, the selection seemed like a steal. And now, given how the 18-year-old has fared during exhibition play, that pick is starting to look like highway robbery by Buffalo.

The 5-foot-9 winger has recorded two goals, five points and 10 scoring chances in five exhibition games. He’s blown the Sabres brass away.

“Lots of intangibles beyond skill,” Sabres coach Don Granato told reporters on Saturday. “Compete. Sense, feel. Situational awareness. He’s a very, very intelligent hockey player.”

Given that Benson was drafted out of the WHL, the NHL-CHL player agreement prohibits him from playing in the AHL this year. There are only two options for Benson this season: stay with Buffalo or join the WHL’s Wenatchee Wild. Once Benson plays 10 NHL games, the first year of his three-year entry-level contract kicks in. If he plays less than that, it slides to the next season.

Given that Benson is skating on the team's top line alongside Jeff Skinner and Tage Thompson, it’d be fair to assume that Benson is poised to play in the NHL. He’ll certainly start there, but will he actually stay the whole year? Barring a spectacular performance in the regular season, he probably shouldn’t.

Over the last decade, only 25 players have played more than nine NHL games in their draft-year-plus-one (DY+1) season. Nineteen of those players were top-10 picks. Three of the other half dozen players — Daniel Sprong, Stefan Matteau and Mikhail Grigorenko — were ultimately re-assigned to junior midseason, even after burning the first year of their entry-level deals. The other three were David Pastrnak, Cole Sillinger and Jakob Chychrun. The latter two were arguably rushed into the NHL far too prematurely. Pastrnak, who was able to start the year in the AHL, is a true outlier of this crop.

“You should never start an 18-year-old unless they’re exceptional and physically ready,” one member of an NHL front office told Yahoo Sports.

Has Benson really been exceptional? He’s been impressive, sure, but this is preseason hockey we’re talking about.

Marco Rossi, the 10th overall selection in the 2020 draft, led the NHL in preseason scoring last year — recording nine points in five games — but once the regular season got underway, his offensive output fizzled out, as he scored just one point in 19 games before being re-assigned to the AHL in late November. And in Benson’s case, we’d be remiss not to mention that he’s currently riding an extremely unsustainable shooting percentage (33%) and just two of his points have come during 5-on-5 play.

The NHL regular season is a whole other ball game than preseason, when games are fewer and farther between and the talent level varies. At whatever level he’s playing at this season, Benson needs to be getting puck touches, log top-six minutes and be "the guy." With a prospect of this pedigree, you don’t want to cut corners.

And envisioning him as an NHL top-six option, for the course of an 82-game season, is rather shortsighted. Not to mention a lot of pressure to put on a teenager.

Benson, who is listed at 163 pounds, is far from a finished product. In the NHL, Benson won’t be able to effortlessly spin off checks like he can in junior. Oftentimes, when prospects like Benson — who recorded 1.49 points per game over his last two seasons — fare well in the preseason, there’s a misconception that the player is “too good” for the junior ranks. But the reality is, Benson needs to fill out his frame more and improve his skating. Benson may not play like an undersized player, but the reality is his fearlessness won’t overcompensate for the fact he’ll be a constant mismatch down low and in one-on-one battles. These things may sound nitpicky, but they matter. Especially when charting out a development plan for a promising prospect.

It’s easy to foresee a scenario where Benson hits a wall once his momentum fades and his confidence starts to take a hit. What do you do when that inevitably happens? You can’t send him to the AHL, you could send him to the junior, in theory, but doing so will chalk up the decision to carry him into the season, past the nine-game threshold, as a giant "L." You sure as heck don’t want to do what the Seattle Kraken did with Shane Wright last season when the 19-year-old was a constant healthy scratch for the Kraken, played sporadically in the AHL on conditioning stints – which is permitted once a player has been scratched consecutively enough — before ultimately being sent to the OHL after the world juniors.

It’s best for the Sabres to play it safe and use this strong preseason, and whatever his next nine NHL games entail, as a stepping stone for another strong year at the junior ranks.

Benson, alongside Sabres prospect Matt Savoie, is set to join a Wild team that looks poised to go on a deep run yet again. There’s also the opportunity for him to shine at the world juniors, which would be an invaluable experience.

In due time, Benson will be a big part of what is becoming a young and exciting Buffalo Sabres team. But it probably won’t be next season.