Bennett displays competitive edge for Panthers in Game 3 win against Oilers

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Sam Bennett skated past the blue line, his sights set on Vasily Podkolzin, hitting his target square and spinning him around. The puck squirted out toward the boards, where John Klingberg picked it up. Bennett squared up again, mashing the defenseman into the boards.

He wasn’t done.

The puck slid along the boards, from Bennett to Matthew Tkachuk, before Podkolzin briefly collected it again, only to have it snatched from him by Eetu Luostarinen. The Florida Panthers forward saw Bennett streaking from behind him, flying down the ice, and just touched it over to him, springing him all alone toward Stuart Skinner.

Bennett would not miss, the puck sliding from his forehand to his backhand, back and forth, only to be lifted by his stick blade and sent flying past Skinner. It was his 14th goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and one of, if not the, perfect encapsulation of him as a player -- the bone-shattering hits, the deftness with his hands, the seemingly ever-increasing speed, the finish.

“He’s been an animal this whole playoffs,” Panthers forward Brad Marchand said. “He’s built for this time of year, just how competitive he is and how intense. Obviously you see the physicality piece.

“That shift was a perfect example of his game. He blows two guys up and then somehow leads the rush after that and scored a beautiful goal.”

Bennett’s goal, at 7:26 of the second period to push the score to 4-1, put him four ahead of the next closest player, Leon Draisaitl, who has 10. Add in six assists and he has 20 points, good for fifth in the postseason. But that undersells his importance to the Panthers, who now lead the best-of-7 Stanley Cup Final 2-1 after a dominating 6-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers on Monday at Amerant Bank Arena.

In the Cup Final, Bennett now has four goals, with two in Game 1, and one each in Games 2 and 3, both wins for the Panthers. Going back to Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final against the Carolina Hurricanes, he has scored in four straight games, a franchise record in the postseason.

“He can do it all,” Marchand said. “He’s another guy, kind of like [Carter Verhaeghe] where he just doesn’t get fazed. He competes and battles and he’s not scared to go to the dirty areas. At this time of year, that’s where a lot of goals are scored, right? And I think that’s one of the biggest separators that he has is when you get into this time of year, you have to be going to the dirty areas – and he lives there.

“A lot of guys get pushed out this time of year, but when you have that ability to – he has the hands and skill to capitalize in front of the net and he has the intensity level and strength to compete in corners, that physicality piece. He’s built for this time of year.”

With Marchand’s opening goal 56 seconds into the game, the pair became the second set of teammates in NHL history to open a Stanley Cup Final with a goal streak of at least three games, joining Minnesota North Stars forwards Steve Payne (four games) and Dino Ciccarelli (three games), who did it in 1981.

“He's been incredible,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “He's scoring goals, but he's doing so much more other stuff. He's carrying the puck in the neutral zone. He's making plays. He's defending well. He's just unreal right now.”

But it was that sequence, that set of plays that truly demonstrated all the various parts and pieces of Bennett, all the magic he can create, in the boom of his hits and the touch of his hands, the speed and the force he can generate.

"He's awesome,” Verhaeghe said. “He brings so much to the table with his physical play, so fast and obviously scores huge goals in the playoffs for us. He's a [heck] of a player and I'm so happy for him. He's a huge game player."

Tkachuk had come on later, after the hits, after Bennett had started bending the ice to his will on that shift. He was there, though, to sprint down the ice after Bennett, there to celebrate with him, there for the hugs and the awe.

“An unreal move,” he said. “Just, all in all, was a really good shift by those two especially (Bennett and Luostarinen). I had the best seat in the house for the goal. It was awesome.”

Verhaeghe missed the start. He can’t wait to see it, though, knowing exactly what Bennett can do when he’s at his best, exactly the ways in which he can demonstrate all the facets of his game, his brilliance.

"I didn't see the shift,” Verhaeghe said. “I've got to watch it. All I saw was the finish and it was a [heck] of a finish.”