It's Impossible To Ignore Adam Benak's Ceiling As A Prospect

Adam Benak is the type of prospect that sports fans love to root for; supremely talented and hard-working, yet undersized and therefore overlooked. So, it’s not surprising that Minnesota Wild fans, and the writers here at Hockey Wilderness, instantly became enamored with Benak after the Wild picked him in the fourth round last month.

Our staff voted Benak as the Wild’s tenth-best prospect, and by all accounts, the hype just might be real. I’ll admit that I didn’t have Benak on my ballot, but it’s impossible to ignore his high ceiling as a prospect. He has proven that he can dominate at the junior level.

Last season was special for the 5-foot-7 forward from Plzeň, Czech Republic. He started it off last summer by leading Czechia to a silver medal in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, finishing second in the tournament in scoring with four goals and seven assists in five games.

Later, he joined the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms, where he produced 17 goals and 42 assists in just 56 games. Those numbers led Youngstown in scoring and were good enough for ninth in the entire league.

After Youngstown was eliminated from the playoffs, Benak joined Czechia halfway through the U18 World Championship, where he caught a lot of people’s attention with his play and produced a stat line of two goals and five assists despite only playing four games.

Benak sees the ice really well and is often steps ahead of the play. His anticipation enables him to make quick passes when he gets the puck, find space at the right time to become available for a pass, win races to loose pucks, and quickly apply pressure when opposing players find themselves in a vulnerable position.

He has high-end straight-line speed that he generates with a powerful stride, as well as quick feet that enable him to maneuver in tight and find space and seams to make plays. Benak also has lethal hands that he uses to handle the puck at speed or in traffic, and is a deft, accurate passer. While he spent most of this past season as a center, he’ll more likely be a winger in professional hockey.

As you can see, he does a lot of his damage in space and when exploiting lanes from the outside or in transition. Benak is also lethal on the power play. These are skills that translate up levels, but it’s also fair to question if he can become more than a perimeter player and power-play specialist in professional hockey. While the game seems to be trending toward more skilled, faster play, there’s only so much damage a player can do from the perimeter.

Over 80% of NHL goals are scored from the slot or net-front, and so the key to consistent success remains finding ways to get the puck to that area. That doesn’t mean a player like Benak can’t find success. His ability to use his skating, vision, hands, and passing will enable him to create lanes and exploit seams no matter what league he plays in.

However, perimeter players won’t be able to drive a line by themselves and need to be paired with possession drivers and scorers that can pull defenders to them and create space in the zone. In an era of video coaches and detailed scouting reports that prepare teams for their opponents, Benak will need to be able to effectively find space in the middle enough to keep defenses from keying on his perimeter play.

Benak reminds me of former center David Desharnais, a diminutive player (listed at 5-foot-7 on NHL.com) with superb hockey sense and playmaking ability that managed to carve out an NHL career that included 524 regular-season games. To understand how he did so, I watched some film on Desharnais and saw that he and Benak share some comparable traits as players.

Desharnais did a lot of his damage with the man advantage and often hung out on the perimeter, but not exclusively. He used his anticipation and play-reading ability to find space on the inside, maneuvering into space as it opened up, but he wasn’t stationary when he was in front of the net. He’d weave in at the right time to receive a pass or get a rebound opportunity, but managed to largely avoid battles with larger defensemen that would likely take him out of the play.

While being unable to establish a consistent net-front presence is limiting for smaller players, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a role for them in the right situation. Desharnais weighed more than Benak, but he didn’t have the same skill level and wasn’t nearly as good of a skater. Despite this, he managed to find a niche in the NHL.

I envision a development track where Benak puts on some weight and continues to capitalize on his speed, skill, and hockey sense to adapt his game to higher levels and larger, faster opponents. He should be able to slice and dice to execute quick plays to break down defensive structures and exploit mistakes as a pro.

Suppose he can learn to use his speed and quick feet to weave through the offensive zone without the puck and get to the middle at the right times. Then, he’ll be able to overcome his smaller stature and become a positive possession player in addition to being a playmaker.

There are multiple ways to be tenacious as a forechecker, and consistently forcing defensemen to make quick decisions can be just as effective as physical play. With Benak’s straight-line speed and willingness to pursue the puck in all areas of the ice, Benak has a chance to be an effective player on a line with possession-driving teammates.

That’s what the Wild are also banking on, but there are some big “ifs” when it comes to Benak’s development into a professional player. After all, as Jeff Marek often says, “smaller players have to prove that they can play, while big players have to prove that they can’t.”

Benak recently signed with the OHL’s Brantford Bulldogs for the 2025-26 season, and could very well head to the NCAA after that. Following the newly available USHL-OHL-NCAA ladder, Benak would have the opportunity to develop physically and learn to play against older players on his way to professional hockey. Although he has limited experience doing so in Czechia, it was on larger ice surfaces and in an environment vastly different from professional hockey in North America.  

The Wild have until the summer of 2029 to sign him, and I would guess that they’ll wait as long as they can to lengthen his development path and give him the best chance to develop. Regardless, it should be a lot of fun to track Benak’s progress (and highlight reels) over the coming seasons. You can bet there will be a lot of fans rooting for him along the way.