How the Florida Panthers’ Sam Bennett elevates his game in the Stanley Cup playoffs
Sam Bennett crashed toward the net as Mackie Samoskevich drove down the ice with the puck on his stick. As Samoskevich got into the offensive zone, the Florida Panthers’ winger fluttered a puck toward the net, where Bennett was in position to take the feed. Bennett batted at the puck, redirecting it past Tampa Bay Lightning star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, and the Panthers’ first celebration of the night began.
Bennett’s goal 3:44 into regulation opened scoring Tuesday in the Panthers’ eventual 6-2 win over the Lightning in Game 1 of the best-of-7 Stanley Cup playoffs first-round series.
“It’s important to get the first one,” Bennett said a day later. “Obviously, when you’re the away team, the energy of the crowd’s not on your side, so to take that momentum away is big. It definitely helped us.”
Bennett has shown a knack for getting the scoring started in the playoffs during his Panthers tenure. Of his 15 career playoff goals in 55 career playoff games with the Panthers, five have been game-opening goals. That’s the most in Panthers history, breaking a tie with teammate Sam Reinhart.
Bennett also has a knack for elevating his all-around game when the playoffs begin. His style of play is built for it. The 28-year-old center has a unique blend of brute strength and physicality along with a scoring touch that makes him a threat on both ends of the ice. In addition to his goal Tuesday, Bennett had a game-high seven hits and also tallied an assist on defenseman Nate Schmidt’s game-winning goal early in the second period.
“If Sam Bennett played 30 years ago, he’d be just fine,” coach Paul Maurice said. “He has a couple of generations in him and his style of play.”
His line got a boost with the return of star winger Matthew Tkachuk, who missed the final 25 games of the regular season due to an apparent groin injury sustained during the 4 Nations Face-Off in mid-February. Tkachuk, who played on the right wing of Florida’s second line with Bennett at center and Samoskevich at left wing, tallied three points in the win.
“It’s definitely not easy coming and your first game in a couple months is a playoff game,” Bennett said. “It’s a lot faster than you’re used to, but he did an incredible job. It looked like he didn’t miss one game. He’s obviously worked really hard to be able to come back, and we definitely missed him.”
Bennett’s success in Game 1 followed what was a career regular season for him offensively. He set a single-season career high with 51 points. His 25 goals scored were the second most in his career, behind only the 28 he scored in the 2021-22 season. And he played in 76 games, the most in a season during his four full years with the Panthers after being acquired midway through the 2020-21 season.
He also finished fourth on the team with 145 hits and fifth among forwards with 45 blocked shots.
And his success has helped a good cause as well. Bennett started a partnership with the Humane Society of Broward County this season called “Benny’s Buddies.” Every time Bennett scores a goal this season, he is sponsoring the adoption a dog or cat at the humane society.
That is continuing throughout the playoffs.
“With all the success we’ve had and all the animals we’ve adopted, let’s keep trying to adopt more,” Bennett said.
He and the Panthers got off to a strong start on Tuesday, and they know what to expect after back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final the past two postseasons. Another deep run isn’t just the hope — it’s expected.
“That’s our hope for our hockey team and for any of these teams,” Bennett said. “We’d like to think that we’re in that group of teams where you’re completely respectful of your opponent, but success and failure is winning now, not just making the playoffs and having a good run and having a good year.”
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