Buffalo Sabres winger Zach Benson has already given plenty of reason to believe he belongs much higher in the conversation than Corey Pronman’s latest ranking suggests.
Benson piled up 98 points in 60 games in his final WHL season, went No. 13 overall in the 2023 draft, made the leap to the NHL right away and has already reached 101 points at hockey’s highest level before turning 21 in May. Even with that track record, Pronman of The Athletic placed him sixth among the Sabres’ U23 players and No. 124 overall in that age group across the league.
Pronman stuck by the ranking on Thursday’s The Athletic Hockey Show, brushing off Benson’s postseason production against Boston and Montreal. Benson finished with nine points, including five goals and four assists, in 13 playoff games last season.
"Yeah, he played against two shitty teams, two shitty playoff-caliber teams. Like, the Bruins were not a good playoff team. The Habs were not a good playoff team," Pronman said.
There are plenty of players ranked ahead of Benson who have not played an NHL game yet, and some of them may never get there. Vojtech Hradec, a 2024 sixth-round pick of the Utah Mammoth, sits 17 spots above Benson at No. 107, even though HockeyStats.com gives him just a 1% chance of becoming a full-time NHL player.
That’s the trap with prospect lists: the farther you get from the draft, the more guesses start masquerading as certainty. Pronman is going to miss on some of them, because that’s the nature of projecting teenagers and young pros. But Benson looks like a tough one to push down that far, especially when the comparison points include players with far less proven upside.
The Sabres forward is coming off a career year in which he posted 43 points, with 13 goals and 30 assists, in 65 games and then became one of Buffalo’s most reliable players in the playoffs. And the numbers only tell part of the story.
At 5-foot-10, Benson spent a good chunk of the season on the fourth line after head coach Lindy Ruff trusted Peyton Krebs on the top line, which pushed Benson into a more defensive role. Even with that usage, he kept producing.
That should change this season. Buffalo gave him a seven-year, $52.5 million extension in June, and Benson is set to get a real shot at the first line, potentially with Tage Thompson and Josh Doan. His power-play work should also rise after Alex Tuch’s departure.
There’s more offensive upside here, too. Benson has 34 NHL goals, but MoneyPuck has him at 51.9 expected goals, a sign that the finishing could climb as he gets more comfortable around the net. He flashed more of that in the playoffs, and his final WHL season - 36 goals with the Winnipeg Ice - shows the scoring touch has been there.
Will he ever lead the league in goals? Probably not.
But players without a top-tier shot can take longer to hit their stride, and former Sabre Sam Reinhart is the example that stands out. Reinhart eventually exploded for 57 goals with the Florida Panthers.
However it plays out, Benson already looks like a dependable two-way player with plenty of runway left. That’s more than can be said for a lot of the names sitting above him on Pronman’s list.
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