How Sam Bennett remains respected while being disrespectful
What most outsiders don’t quite understand about Bennett the Menace — a human nailgun whose production and pain infliction simultaneously skyrocket come playoff time — is how a player capable of such disrespectful actions can be so widely respected by friend and foe alike.
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TORONTO — The morning before Sam Bennett sent the Toronto Maple Leafs’ starting goalie to the hospital with a sneaky elbow to the head, a visitor swung by former teammate Steven Lorentz’s stall with a question.
What’s the first thing that pops to mind when you hear the name Sam Bennett?
“Killer,” Lorentz replied.
Lorentz said the word not with disdain, not with fear, but with admiration, unknowing, of course, what exactly would transpire in Game 1 with his old Florida Panthers pal but surely understanding what could happen anytime his frenemy’s skates slapped the ice in a high-stakes contest.
“Want me to expand?”
Please.
“I’m a big Bennett fan,” Lorentz began, excitedly.
“He’s the perfect playoff player, a guy you want on your team, because he doesn’t have buddies out there. Like, he’ll finish his checks, and he just plays the game the right way. Plays hard. So, we know what to expect with that. He’s got a guy lined up? He’s going to try and run him. And he does it clean. He’s a good player. He’s effective. He plays the game the right way. So, he’s very honest. And, yeah, I got a lot of praise for him, so we’re gonna have to keep our head on swivel when he’s out there.”
Or else, Bennett will swivel it for you is the part Lorentz left unsaid.
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Swing by Scott Laughton’s stall that same morning — before the media needed the fire department to put its hair out, as Bennett’s coach, Paul Maurice, would say in rich theatre — and you’d notice that same sly smile when Bennett’s name is mentioned.
Laughton, a fellow Toronto-area pro of similar vintage, skates with Bennett in summer training sessions but has always been a competitor, never a teammate.
Their history stretches back 12 years, to Kingston-Oshawa tussles in the OHL, when a rookie Bennett agitated Laughton so much one night, he picked a fight.
“Great competitor,” Laughton said. “He tried to run me behind the net. I chased him up the ice, and then we fought.”
Seems on brand.
Laughton smiles again.
“I see him a lot in the summer. I mean, he’s a great competitor and a guy that puts it out there, so you gotta match it and bring even more. Bring that intensity level,” Laughton said.
“Pretty quiet guy. Reserved. Keeps to himself. A couple of his buddies I would know better, but, yeah. So, we’ll see what happens throughout the series.”
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What most outsiders don’t quite understand about Bennett the Menace — a human nailgun whose production and pain infliction simultaneously skyrocket come playoff time — is how a player capable of such disrespectful actions can be so widely respected by friend and foe alike.
Bruin-turned-Panther Brad Marchand was literally punched out of a playoff game last spring by Bennett’s sneaky fist and has quickly turned around and embraced him as a teammate.
“He got away with a shot, but I’m not going to complain,” Marchand said of an incident that impacted his final series for Boston. “S— happens. That’s part of playoff hockey. I’ve been on the other side of a lot of plays. I think that he got away with one, but that’s part of the game and definitely part of playoff hockey.”
Toronto’s Matthew Knies, who calls Bennett “intimidating,” learned that the hard way.
Bennett eliminated the power forward, then a rookie, from the first Panthers-Leafs series two Mays ago, when he concussed Knies with a WWE-style takedown a hundred feet away from the puck.
Bennett dodged suspension for all these actions. He has a Stanley Cup ring, has been integral to Florida’s most successful and savage era of NHL hockey and, by July 1, will be showered with the richest contract of his life.
“I play a hard style of hockey. I think people get upset by things and worked up, but I try to tune them out. I’m just trying to play my game. I’m just trying to help my team win. I just try and push all that noise away,” Bennett told reporters Tuesday at the Panthers’ hotel in downtown Toronto.
He sounded like a guy who slept just fine.
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Yes, he conceded, he “definitely” performs on the edge. But that Stolarz chicken wing?
“Just a bump. There’s no forceful action,” Bennett said. “The last thing I’m thinking about is trying to elbow him in the head.”
And if you’re buying that, we’re happy to sell you nine acres of swampland in southeast Florida.
“I play the game hard, and I think it needs to be played hard in the playoffs. Sometimes that’s what it takes to win,” explained Bennett, when pressed. “When guys are injured, of course I feel bad. That’s never my intent. At the same time, hockey’s a physical game.”
Which is why the appreciation for a unicorn like Bennett — who has 29 goals and 62 points in 90 playoff appearances — flies off the charts in hockey circles.
“There are very few people like him, right?” says teammate Evan Rodrigues. “He’s physical. He’s skilled. You hate playing against him.
“He’s the type of guy that you don’t want to line up against, right? Like, if you get put in the wrong spot, his hits do damage. So, (Tom) Wilson’s probably the closest thing still in the league.”
It took Rodrigues a minute to warm to Bennett once their skates came off.
“He kinda keeps to himself. He gives off this very stern aura to him. But he’s actually funny. If you get him into a conversation, he opens up pretty quick, and he can get chatty,” Rodrigues says.
“But if you engage him in the conversation, he’s actually, like, overly friendly. Maybe that’s something he gets a bad rap for. I think he’s a way friendlier guy than we give him credit for.”
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Lorentz delivers a similar personality scouting report.
“Doesn’t come off as super outgoing and stuff. He’s pretty even-keel. Doesn’t smile a whole lot in the mornings,” says Lorentz, who smiles a whole lot in the mornings.
“But once you get to know him, he’s a great guy, great human being. He’s got a heart of gold. We got to know him and his fiancée (Zoe Zeleny) pretty well, and they’re just great people. Most guys are like that off the ice. He’s a hockey player. That’s his job. When he comes on the rink, it’s all business.”
Born less than a year after Bennett, fellow Toronto product Mitch Marner has known the guy since boyhood. Again, speaking hours prior to the Stolarz hit, Marner was quick to praise Bennett’s speed, shot, and playmaking.
“But his physicality, his willingness to get around nets and just do things for his teammates is pretty high-end,” Marner said. “I saw it first class at 4 Nations.”
Fans of the red Maple Leaf rooted for Bennett three months ago, when he scored in the gold-medal game and fought American Brady Tkachuk.
“Maybe one of the heaviest guys in the league and one of the craziest,” according to Marner. “You know that he’s gonna bring in every single game, and you gotta make sure you’re ready to match that intensity.”
Adds Brandon Carlo, now tasked with defending Bennett for a third straight post-season: “There’s not many situations you’ll see him not in. He’s able to do pretty much everything on both sides of the puck, so that makes him a very special player. He’s very heavy. He’s hard in the corners and plays really competitively. So, just that compete aspect sets him apart.”
Andy O’Brien, trainer to the NHL stars, brings up Sidney Crosby when asked about Bennett.
O’Brien has been working with Bennett independently since his rookie season, and that relationship deepened once O’Brien got hired as a high-performance consultant with the Panthers. Similar to how the health and performance expert worked one-on-one with Crosby before his stint on the Penguins staff.
“Not a lot of people had seen that ultra-competitive side that Benny has. Because off the ice, he’s very mild-mannered. He trains hard,” O’Brien says over the phone. “He seems very laid-back. But when you get him in a highly competitive atmosphere, it comes out.”
O’Brien points to Bennett’s elimination of Carolina’s Jaccob Slavin in the 2023 Eastern Conference final as an eye-opening moment. The potential for explosions of harmful physicality:
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“In the 4 Nations, for him to come in as an extra forward, then assert himself the way he did, and stand up for his country and his teammates and score a big goal in the last game, it says a lot about his character,” O’Brien says.
“Working with him behind the scenes for a long time, I saw that. Certainly, the people that know him saw it. But I think it was kind of where the hockey world started to see that, and that’s one of the reasons why he’s a very popular player right now. There’s not a lot of players that have that combination of physicality, compete, skill. He’s been a gem to be around.”
The thing about gems is, not only are they valuable, they’re tough to break.
The Maple Leafs haven’t been able to. The Department of Player Safety doesn’t seem too interested in trying.
And Maurice is just happy he has this particular gem in his pocket.
“He plays hard. There was a hit two and a half years ago that you guys have shown 4,000 times. There was a parking ticket seven years ago that I think actually made the video,” Maurice said Tuesday of the latest media mayhem over Bennett the Menace.
“He’s got the puck, he’s on a power play, goes to the net. I understand. Call the fire department. Put your hair out. Let’s move on. Please.
“Honest to God, I’ve seen every hit that Sam Bennett has thrown since he was 12 years old this morning. I get it. Go ahead. Run with it. We’re good. Puck’s gonna drop.”
And Bennett’s gonna Bennett.
