NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Penguins met with nearly 60 prospects at the scouting combine earlier this month in Buffalo, N.Y.
A select few of them were thought of highly enough to be invited out to dinners with the Penguins' scouting staff, like Brayden Yager and Gabriel Perreault.
Kyle Dubas wasn't around for all of the dinners -- he wasn't in Buffalo for every day of the combine.
Dubas took at least one prospect out to dinner during the combine in Buffalo, though -- Zach Benson, a forward playing for the Winnipeg ICE in the WHL.
"It's obviously super cool," Benson told me with a big grin of the meeting here in Nashville on Tuesday. "I got to have dinner with Kyle Dubas. Growing up in Canada, you hear a lot about Dubas and his time in Toronto. He's done an exceptional job in the NHL. So getting tips from him and getting to have dinner with him was obviously super cool."
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton general manager Erik Heasley and other members of the scouting staff were at the dinner with Dubas and Benson as well.
If Benson falls to the Penguins at No. 14 on Wednesday -- and there's a real possibility he might -- he would be a steal of a pick.
Earlier mock drafts and rankings throughout the year had Benson a consensus top-10 pick, even top-5 in some eyes. But so many late risers in the first round have created a pretty cloudy picture as far as the order goes in the first round, and Benson being available at No. 14 isn't out of the question at all.
Benson, who just turned 18 last month, is a left-handed shot who can play both center and wing. He has incredibly hockey IQ, detailed in his own end, and has a great shot and is a strong skater. His 98 points (36 goals, 62 assists) in 60 games this season ranked No. 2 in the WHL among prospects who have yet to be drafted into the NHL, trailing only Connor Bedard's absurd 143 points in 57 games.
Benson's production was quite the step up from his first full season in the WHL in 2021-22, a year in which he scored 25 goals and 38 assists in 58 games. Benson was a big contributor in the WHL postseason both of the last two years. He scored seven goals and 10 assists in 15 postseason games this year, and nine goals and 14 assists in 15 postseason games the year before.
If you ask Benson what he thinks sets him apart from other prospects in this draft class, though, he doesn't point to that scoring at all.
"I'm a 200-foot player," he said. "Smart, can play in any situation. I raise my game when it gets to the playoffs and the Finals time."
The prospect scouting website Dobber Prospects say that Benson "may be the class’ best defensive forward."
Benson says he likes to model his game after that of Tampa's Brayden Point, because Point is skilled, smart and plays a 200-foot game as well.
There really isn't much to criticize at all when it comes to Benson's actual game. The major knock on Benson that might have him drop out of the top 10 is his size. He's on the shorter side at 5-10, and he doesn't have the strength yet to make up for where he lacks in height. He's currently listed at 170 pounds, whereas most of the other 10 best North American skaters are 10 to 25 pounds heavier than he is.
Benson can't train to get any taller, but he can obviously put in the hours in the weight room to get bigger that way. That's his biggest goal at this point.
"My strength is kind of my main area of focus this summer, getting more explosive," Benson told me. "I think that's two keys for me to make that jump to the next level."
Even though Benson lacks in size, he doesn't shy away from going to the dirty areas of the ice where he's bound to face contact.
"Being a smaller guy growing up, I think you had to learn how to get to those dirty areas and find the right spots to be in," he said. "I attribute a lot of that to just growing up always being on the smaller side."
Benson's still a couple of years away from making the NHL. He's not even eligible for the AHL yet either -- until he turns 20 years old, his options are to play in the NHL or to go back to junior, a result of the NHL-CHL transfer agreement. He needs to continue to get stronger, but it's hard to see him being too far off from competing from an NHL spot when the time does come for him to turn pro.
For now, he'll go back to the WHL next season. He won't be going back to Winnipeg, though. Earlier this month the ICE were sold, and it was announced that the franchise will be relocating to Wenatchee, Wash.
This is the 14th story in a series of player profiles focusing on potential first-round picks for the Penguins.
