SUNRISE, Fla. — Everything one needs to understand about Florida Panthers center Sam Bennett as a Stanley Cup playoffs juggernaut was epitomized by one shift in their Game 3 win over the Edmonton Oilers.

It began with a backcheck. It continued with a thundering hit on Oilers forward Vasily Podkolzin right after he released the puck — brutal, legal. Podkolzin had made a short pass to Edmonton defenseman John Klingberg, so Bennett hit him, too. He kept fighting for the puck along the boards before attempting a clear that was intercepted briefly, before Panthers forward Eetu Luostarinen jarred it loose.

Bennett saw this and — like he had just used a power-up in a game of Mario Kart — blew past everyone to accept a pass for a breakaway on Stuart Skinner, who was frozen in place as Bennett deposited the puck behind him for the fourth goal of a 6-1 blowout.

“That shift was a perfect example of his game: Blows two guys up and then he somehow leads the rush after that to score a beautiful goal. He can do it all,” said Brad Marchand, a one-time Bennett adversary turned Panthers teammate. “He has been an animal this whole playoffs. He’s built for this time of year.”

Every round, Bennett has validated this thesis. He leads the NHL postseason in goals with 14, four more than Edmonton star Leon Draisaitl. This is Florida’s third straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final. In that span, no one on the Panthers has scored as many goals (26) as Bennett.

“You just see him year after year, playoffs after playoffs. That’s where he makes his name,” Matthew Tkachuk said. “He’s the definition of a playoff player. And it’s really fun to play with him, especially at this time of year.”

His 20 points in 20 games leads the team. In a Panthers run defined by their dominance away from Florida, he has been their road warrior, with 12 goals and three assists — his 15 away points lead the playoffs.

After the Panthers’ Game 3 win put them two victories away from repeating as Stanley Cup champions, Bennett moved into the lead in the wagering odds for the Conn Smythe Trophy as NHL playoff MVP.

He’s been a menace in every zone this postseason, but especially in the offensive zone where his punishing forechecking and controversial play around the opponents’ crease have fueled Florida’s attack.

“I think that’s one of the biggest separators that he has is when you get in this time of year that you have to be in the dirty areas and he lives there,” Marchand said. “A lot of guys get pushed at this time of year, but [it’s great] when you have that ability to and skill to capitalize in front of the net.”

Even Bennett’s rivals have to nod to his postseason acumen.

“He’s always played with an edge, ever since he was a little guy. Nothing that we haven’t seen before — he’s playing well, scoring goals,” Edmonton captain Connor McDavid said. “We’ve got to figure him out.”

This MVP-caliber moment for Bennett is the latest milestone in a peculiar 11-year journey in the NHL: From the draft prospect who couldn’t complete a pullup to a Stanley Cup champion who can’t stop frustrating opponents — by any means necessary.

BENNETT WAS DRAFTED fourth overall by the Calgary Flames in 2014 behind three other players competing in the Stanley Cup Final this season: Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad (1st) and center Sam Reinhart (2nd, by Buffalo), and Edmonton’s Draisaitl (3rd).

A center for the Ontario Hockey League’s Kingston Frontenacs, Bennett showed palpable offensive upside to go along with his defensive prowess: 91 points in 57 games during the 2013-14 season. He said he modeled his game after Hockey Hall of Famer Doug Gilmour, a tenacious two-way player whose nickname with the Toronto Maple Leafs was “Killer.”

But heading into the 2014 draft, Bennett was known for something else: Being the prospect who couldn’t complete a single pullup at the NHL scouting combine.

That became a viral story, defining him before the Flames selected him fourth overall. Players like Ottawa Senators captain Jason Spezza called him to offer support and advice on how to deal with the embarrassment. Bennett completed five pullups later that year for a predraft television special, in an effort to prove doubters wrong.

“I knew right away he’d be embarrassed by that. He likes to succeed in everything he ever tries. Now we can joke about it, but when it first went down it was like, ‘Oh, buddy, yikes,'” his mother Diane told Maclean’s in 2014. “The fact that some people in the media doubted his motivation made me think, ‘Oh god. They don’t know Sammy at all.'”

Bennett’s first full NHL season came as a 19-year-old in 2015-16. He had 18 goals and 18 assists in 77 games, but didn’t receive a single vote for the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year. The next five seasons were defined by Bennett’s unrealized potential: 67 goals and 73 assists in 402 games, skating to a minus-67 while averaging just over 14 minutes per game in ice time. The season before the Flames traded him, Bennett was averaging just 12:31 in ice time per game — less than 31-year-old Milan Lucic (13:20) for Calgary.

The only place were Bennett excelled? The postseason. In 30 playoff games, he had a 1.63 points-per-60 minutes average, higher than his regular-season average (1.41) in that span.

“He’s always had the talent. He’s always had the work ethic, he’s always had the bite, the jam, everything. I think a lot of it has got to do with opportunity,” said Tkachuk, who played with Bennett in Calgary.

“He didn’t get the opportunity in Calgary that he has here with the minutes and how he’s utilized and everything. I don’t know why that is. Maybe that’s just a personnel thing or whatever, but he’s just taken off as a whole new player here in Florida for everybody to see — even though in Calgary I saw it all along and us as players saw it all along.”

Tkachuk was one of the Flames players that hated to see him go.

“We weren’t too thrilled, especially him being a great buddy of mine, I was not too happy when he got traded from Calgary,” he said, “but I was also so happy to see him come here and have a chance.”

Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving was running the Flames when they traded Bennett and a sixth-round pick in April 2021 for a 2022 second-round pick and winger Emil Heineman, who was subsequently traded to Montreal in a deal for winger Tyler Toffoli.

Logistically, the trade made sense for Calgary. They were likely to lose Bennett in the Seattle expansion draft that year for nothing; or, if they kept him, it would have meant giving Bennett a qualifying offer as a restricted free agent and a raise.

At the time of the trade, Treliving admitted that Bennett’s development and deployment could have been “handled a little bit differently” during his time in Calgary.

“I don’t put that on Sam. I think at the end of the day, Sam worked hard here. That was never an issue,” Treliving said. “I think he’s going to embrace a fresh start.”

Bennett appreciated the new opportunity with the Panthers.

“I definitely struggled in Calgary for a while. I think once I got here, just how the team embraced me, the opportunity the team gave me, really from the beginning, was totally different than what I was getting in Calgary,” he said. “I took that opportunity and found some success early. And then our team definitely changed quite a bit from when I first got here, but I still had that confidence.”

Bennett paid immediate dividends, scoring a career-high 28 goals in his first season in Florida on a team that finished with the best record in the NHL.

But things would change dramatically in the offseason: Coach Andrew Brunette was replaced by coach Paul Maurice, and Tkachuk arrived from Calgary in a trade for Jonathan Huberdeau, Bennett’s slickly skilled linemate who lacked the unique intangibles that Tkachuk brought to Florida.

“Sam Bennett goes from playing with Jonathan Huberdeau — fantastic player, very skilled and Benny can play that game — to playing with Matthew Tkachuk,” Maurice said. “So his game changes a little bit.”

This is where the “playoff animal” began to really emerge from Bennett. He had the scoring and the skill. He had the playoff clutch gene. Tkachuk brought out even more tenacity and agitation from Bennett — and the swagger in relishing that style of play — forging Panthers hockey into its current blunt force form.

“I think our style changed, but I think it even fit my style of game even more so. That gave me even more confidence to go out and play,” Bennett said. “I’ve got quite a few playoff games under my belt now, and always felt the need to perform when the game’s the biggest.”

Bennett plays to win. And those wins come at all costs.

BENNETT COLLIDES WITH skaters.

He received a one-game suspension in May 2021 for boarding and a three-game ban in January 2022 for an illegal check to the head of Cedric Paquette of the Montreal Canadiens. He infamously punched Marchand in the Panthers’ 2024 playoff win over the Boston Bruins, putting Marchand out of the series for two games and resulting in no punishment for Bennett.

“He’s got a good right hook,” Marchand said last month, remembering a time before they shared the same dressing room.

“He’s not as serious of a person as I thought he was. When you see him on the ice and you see him kind of around the media, he just seemed like he was quiet and very reserved,” Marchand said. “Once you get to know him, he’s actually pretty vocal and really funny and a good guy to be around. But when you see him on the ice, he’s so intense. He doesn’t really chirp. You don’t hear him during the game. He’s all business.”

Bennett also collides with goaltenders.

Like, a lot.

He collided with Anthony Stolarz in Game 1 of the second round. The Maple Leafs goaltender — Bennett’s former teammate on the Panthers — left the series with a concussion and didn’t return.

He collided with Carolina’s Frederik Andersen in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals. He fell backward into Skinner’s crease in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final after battling with defenseman Brett Kulak, getting credited for a goal when the puck deflected in off him. He fell on Skinner again in Game 2, earned a penalty for goalie interference that in hindsight he hadn’t earned, having tripped over Skinner’s leg as the Edmonton goalie went to move in his crease.

During a TNT postgame show early in the Stanley Cup Final, Bennett was told that “a very large portion of the Alberta population” no longer wanted to see him in front of the Edmonton net.

“That’s where I’m going to be for the rest of this series,” Bennett said.

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Puck deflects off Sam Bennett’s skate for Panthers goal

Sam Bennett deflects in a goal for the Panthers to tie the score in the first period vs. the Oilers.

His physicality around the crease — and into goaltenders — has been the catalyst for plenty of ‘how does he keep getting away with it?’ moments of exasperation for fans and opposing teams.

“Obviously, you don’t like when guys are purposely falling into your goaltender. That’s never good, and you hope that gets noticed,” Oilers winger Evander Kane said. “You can’t go out and take a 10-minute penalty in the first period. That wouldn’t help anybody. But there are other ways to handle it. Staying aggressive and going hard to their net as well.”

Seth Jones used to defend against Bennett around the crease before joining the Panthers via trade this season.

“As a defenseman, you see where he gets around that blue paint. He pushes off. He makes himself big. Screens goal as well,” he said. “It’s just that constant body contact around the net that really elevates his game and makes it difficult to handle.”

Ekblad has been Bennett’s teammate now for five seasons. The way he sees it, Bennett earns these high-danger opportunities by going to the toughest parts of the ice.

“A lot of times there’s nothing you can do if he gets pushed, right? Just like Corey Perry, he’s extremely good at getting there and being between the D-man and a goalie, so there’s not much you can do,” Ekblad said. “Those guys have a knack for it. They’re some of the best in the league at it.”

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Sam Bennett scores on the power play for Florida Panthers

Sam Bennett scores on the power play for Florida Panthers

Bennett has been the best at most things in this playoff run for Florida. All of it is happening at a critical time for the veteran center’s career.

Bennett is an unrestricted free agent this summer. He’s in the last year of a four-year contract signed with Florida that carries an average annual value of $4.425 million. There has been speculation that Bennett could earn upwards of $10 million annually on his next contract.

He has clearly been happy as a Panther, not only in their success but in how that success has been set up by those around him.

“I’m just very fortunate to get some great teammates and great linemates and great coaches that believe in me,” he said. “I think all that together just is the perfect combination to have success.”

Whether he signs in Florida or leaves for another team’s riches, the value placed on Bennett won’t be for his regular-season achievement. Bennett has never scored 30 goals in a season, and this was his first campaign with more than 50 points.

It’ll be for his championship pedigree. For being the “definition of a playoff player.” Or, as Marchand poetically said, for simply being “an animal” when it counts the most.