BUFFALO, N.Y. — In the summer of 2023, the Buffalo Sabres invited Danny Gare to speak with the team’s prospects ahead of development camp. Gare played for the Sabres from 1974 until 1981, scored 50 goals in a season twice and has his number retired by the franchise.
Gare stood in front of players who were 50 years his junior and to break the ice, he did what any proud Western Canadian would do.
“Anybody here from British Columbia?” Gare asked.
A few players raised their hands. One in the front row was Zach Benson, Buffalo’s No. 13 pick the week prior. The two chatted for a while and got a picture together afterwards. Their hometowns are six hours away from each other in British Columbia. They’re the same height and both have long hair. Benson was born on May 12, Gare on May 14. And in the year and a half since he was drafted, Benson has shown some of the traits on the ice that have caused some fans to compare him to Gare, one of Buffalo’s all-time fan favorites.
“Similarities? Well I look at, good looking, lots of hair and a British Columbia boy,” Gare said with a laugh. “No, he’s a feisty kid, protects the puck well, very smart, the hockey IQ is high. I like him. He’s got good upside and he’s not afraid to get his nose dirty.
These days, you don’t see a lot of players compared to those from the ’70s and ’80s. The game has changed in a lot of ways. But Benson is a throwback because of the way he competes at his size. He wins 50-50 battles against much bigger players, always finds his way to the front of the net and isn’t afraid to mix it up after the whistle.
“I take pride in that,” Benson said. “I’ve been like that since I was a young, young guy. I’ve always loved getting in the middle of things and just being a s— disturber. I’ve loved it since I was young. I would say it’s more natural than anything.”
Growing up as an Edmonton Oilers fan, he, his brother and his dad always gravitated to the players doing the dirty work. Of course Benson liked the young talents like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle, but he also rattled off Shawn Horcoff, Sheldon Souray, Ales Hemsky and Zack Stortini when mentioning his favorite players who left an impression on him.
“They didn’t have the best teams, so a lot of those guys were mucking and grinding,” Benson said. “Watching them I just thought you want to be skilled but you also want to have a little sandpaper.”
Benson has plenty of that. It seems like every game Benson is doing something to get under the other team’s skin. He’s battling for position in front of the net, bumping a player after the whistle or using his quickness and stick skills to win battles in the corner. And that, along with the size and hair, is what causes some to think of Gare when watching Benson. After meeting Gare, Benson pulled up some of the old clips he could find and loved what he saw.
“I don’t think he was afraid of anybody,” Benson said. “He was definitely an elite player.”
Nobody in Buffalo would complain if Benson developed into a 50-goal scorer like Gare did. Sabres coach Lindy Ruff played with Gare in Buffalo and now coaches Benson. So nobody has a better perspective on how the two compare than Ruff does.
“They’re both highly competitive people which is the common thread for me,” Ruff said. “Both fearless. They both play a game that annoys the opposition. (Benson) is a little bit more of a down low guy that can operate in a phonebooth type. Danny was a shoot and score off the rush, so that’s a little bit different. But when you’re talking about characteristics and how hard to play against, they’re very similar. Danny was a great guy to be around and Zach’s the same. It doesn’t seem like they have a bad day and that’s a quality if you can bring that, it’s infectious.”
Gare can tell watching the games that Ruff has a lot of faith in Benson because the 19-year-old was on the ice for almost the final three minutes of the 1-0 win over the Kings while Los Angeles had the extra attacker. Because of how well Benson understands the details of the game and the way he competes, Ruff doesn’t hesitate to put him in those situations. That’s why he was on Buffalo’s roster as an 18-year-old last season. Gare remembered having to establish himself with the same playing style to earn respect.
“Nowadays they don’t fight as much as we did, but Benson’s sticking up for himself and his teammates,” Gare said. “I think that says a lot about him and that’s how you get the trust from your teammates and coaches.”
Benson has repeatedly proven his toughness. He injured his ankle right before the start of the season, played the first game but then sat out a game before playing through the injury for five more games. Finally, Ruff pulled him into his office and told him he would be sitting him until the injury got back to 100 percent. He knew Benson wouldn’t admit the full extent of the pain, but he also realized the ankle injury would never fully heal if he kept playing and it was negatively impacting his game.
“You want to play every game and don’t want anyone to think you’re milking an injury,” Benson said. “It would have been hard for me to say I need a couple games to get it back to feeling good. The night before Ruff talked to me I was talking to my dad about how much the ankle was bothering me. It was nice to get that from Lindy.”
Benson has been a natural fit with Ruff. He said a lot of the coaching tactics and drills Ruff uses remind him of his junior coach James Patrick, who played for Ruff and then was one of his assistant coaches. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Benson loves the priority Ruff places on hard work and competitiveness, because those are the traits that make him who he is.
At this point, nothing Benson does surprises his teammates. Against the Flyers, Matvei Michkov assisted on a Travis Konecny goal to put the Flyers up 4-0. Benson bumped Michkov behind the net after the whistle, knowing the reaction it would get from the Flyers. Konecny went after him immediately, and Benson didn’t back down. Peyton Krebs, who played with Benson in the WHL, noticed the same tendencies from him when he broke into that league at 15 years old.
Michkov with the deceptive pass across to TK.
Konecny immediately starts a fight with Benson to defend Michkov.#LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/M3BRqhA5Tu https://t.co/vlA5pt8jtz
— Flyers Zone (@TheFlyersZone) November 17, 2024
“When you have a passion for hockey and you love to win, fear goes out the door in a lot of cases,” Krebs said. “That’s how he plays.”
Now if he’s going to live up to the Gare comparison, he’ll need to add the scoring touch to that feistiness. Benson had 11 goals as an 18-year-old rookie and has three goals in 15 games this season. But the Sabres also have 54 percent of the expected goals when Benson is on the ice at five-on-five. Often the concern with a player being in the NHL so young is that he will lose confidence in his scoring. That hasn’t been the case with Benson, who is carrying himself with the same swagger he did in junior. Benson knows it’s a challenging league of ups and downs and said, “I’ll never lose confidence in my scoring ability.”
His first NHL goal may have been the prettiest one he’ll ever score. He went between the legs to roof the puck after collecting a pass near the front of the net. But he’s not worried about how pretty the goals look as he tries to generate more offense for the Sabres.
#OTD in 2023 Zach Benson scores his first NHL goal and it is a beauty! pic.twitter.com/63xJyMy9zu
— ThisDateInBuffaloSportsHistory (@BuffSportsHstry) November 22, 2024
“If the puck hits me in my face and goes in I’d be just as happy as my first goal,” Benson said. “I take pride getting to the dirty areas. Even watching back, in junior, I scored a lot of different goals, but a lot of them came in that tight space around the net. That’s where I like to hang around and a lot of good things happen when you’re around the net. It’s a habit for me, hanging around the net and getting some dirty ones.”
Ruff sees the offensive upside in Benson, too, and not just because of what he did in junior hockey. The way he creates in the offensive zone might be different from Gare, but it’s a comparison he thinks Benson should embrace. It’s high praise, after all.
“Well if people were saying, ‘He reminds me a lot of Lindy,’ I would feel sorry for the kid,” Ruff said.
