Benson’s grit, goals boosting Sabres entering Game 5 against Canadiens

MONTREAL -- The can was placed just so, a white Labatt Blue Light adorned by a white bow, sitting dead center in the locker stall. It was positioned between some pads, on the shelf below the No. 6 helmet, above the name placard that read: Benson.

The birthday gift came as a joke, a gibe, a token of affection for the player that has become everything a team on the rise could want: a terror to opponents, a mascot of sorts, a tremendously skilled winger, a stir-the-pot pest, the type that gets under the skin and then snipes the game-winner in the next moment.

Which is exactly what Zach Benson had done on Tuesday, tallying the game-winning goal in the 3-2 victory for the Buffalo Sabres that sent them back home even at 2-2 in their best-of-7 Eastern Conference Second Round series against the Montreal Canadiens, setting up a momentous Game 5 on Thursday at KeyBank Center (7 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC). 

Benson had celebrated his 21st birthday in style, not only earning the beer, but helping cement himself as a now-and-future piece of a young team on the rise. Though, as center Tage Thompson cautioned when asked about Benson venturing into adulthood, “I don’t know if being 21 makes him an adult.”

There is no question that these Sabres like Benson, their gentle ribbing a form of acceptance, of brotherhood, of acknowledging a player whom Buffalo captain Rasmus Dahlin called “the ultimate teammate.”

He has made himself indispensable, a kid with a knack for both pushing the buttons of the opponents and for scoring goals at the biggest of moments, marrying genuine playmaking skill with his more irritating qualities. 

“Obviously I grew up watching games with (my dad) and he kind of gravitated toward those guys and I think it’s been ingrained in me, in my DNA,” Benson said. “Even off the ice, if you ask my parents, I was kind of a … disturber off the ice. I’ve always had that. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not great.

“I have kind of found the line of what to cross and what not to cross and I think I have done a pretty good job of that.”

It’s reminiscent of another young, small, pain-in-the-butt player who emerged on an up-and-coming team a decade and a half ago. 

“Yes he does, for sure,” Florida Panthers forward Brad Marchand said by text, of whether Benson reminds him of a younger version of himself. “I love his game. He’s not timid at all, goes to the dirty areas, he’s very competitive, skilled little player and loves to stir it up. He’s showing right now he’s a gamer too! Very impressive with how young he is as well.

“He’s going to have a long career.”

Benson is a player good enough and enticing enough that the Sabres selected him in the first round (No. 13) of the 2023 NHL Draft, a player who scored 98 points (36 goals, 62 assists) in 60 games in 2022-23 with Winnipeg of the Western Hockey League to lead the team, three more than now-Edmonton Oilers forward Matt Savoie. He had a career-high 43 points (13 goals, 30 assists) in 65 games this season, his third in the NHL. 

“It’s been cool to see his success and his path to play (at a young age} at that size (5-foot-10, 177 pounds) and just the grit he plays with, you see how effective he is in the playoffs, and he plays with a lot of energy,” Savoie said. 

“We’re both smaller guys that like to get on the forecheck and kind of disrupt things, sneaky skill around the net, can score, can make plays and we read the game well, so we play a similar game.”

Benson has seven points (four goals, three assists) in 10 games in these Stanley Cup Playoffs, with his four goals tying him with Alex Tuch, Bowen Byram and Thompson to lead the Sabres, even though he’s playing at least four minutes less per game (15:43) than each of those teammates. 

His four goals in the playoffs also tied Pierre Turgeon (1988), Dave Andreychuk (1985) and Alan Haworth (1981) for the third-most in a playoff year by a Sabres player age 21 or younger, behind only Danny Gare, who had seven in 1975 and five in 1976. 

Both numbers are within reach, especially now that the Sabres have tied the series with the Canadiens. 

“He’s got a ton of skill,” Thompson said. “He’s a high first-round pick and thinks the game extremely well. I think the poise he has there in the slot, a lot of guys would panic with that. Usually don’t have too much time in the slot there, guys are collapsing on you, and he’s got enough poise to hold on to it and take it to his backhand and get it upstairs quick.”

On Tuesday, the goal came on the power play, with Benson battling for space in front of the crease with Mike Matheson. He was able to create an opening, where he was positioned to receive a centering pass from Josh Doan in the slot, putting a backhand shot past Jakub Dobes. 

"I think he’s a player that skill almost goes underrated for how hard he works,” said Sabres forward Beck Malenstyn, who has skated with Benson in the summer in Vancouver. “You see him so much in the corners and puck battles, but the plays that he’s able to make out of those high-intensity tight areas are -- it’s just phenomenal. His motor doesn’t stop.”

On the ice. Off the ice. Wherever. 

Benson, as Malenstyn said, “enjoys the bickering, the confrontation.” It’s what gets him going, what makes him effective, what makes him tick, whether that’s with teammates in the locker room, opponents on ice, whoever, whenever. 

“It’s relentless,” Malenstyn said. “Everything about his game is relentless. He’s going to be in every single scrum, he’s going to be in your way after every single whistle. He’s going to win stick battles with you 50-50, no matter his size. I think it’s something that probably is ingrained in his DNA.”

There is “an art to his madness,” Buffalo goalie Alex Lyon said.

And now, instead of just being visible to the Sabres, to those inside the dressing room, the secret is spilling out, onto TV screens, into the general public. The playoffs are exposing everyone to the Zach Benson experience, a wild ride that seems, perhaps, apt for a player who grew up in a traveling carnival. 

A few hours before he scored the game-winner on Tuesday, the outcome of one of Benson’s Benson-like moments became apparent. Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy was suspended for six games in the 2026-27 regular season for slashing the Sabres forward at the end of Game 6 of their first-round series. That play had started with what the NHL Department of Player Safety termed “a dangerous trip” and what the Bruins had claimed was a slew-foot. 

Benson had managed to stay just barely on one side of the line, penalized in the moment, but given no discipline beyond that. It’s a line that, like Marchand, Benson will continue to learn as he grows, as he gets smarter and deeper into his career, as he continues to develop into the player everyone believes he can be. 

Because all the building blocks are there, already. 

“He doesn’t shy away from anything,” Malenstyn said. “He’ll willingly go into a corner and netfront battle with anybody. I think that’s a huge positive to his game. He has no fear out there. 

“But, yeah, to have the maturity to do it at the age that he is, he’s going to have such a bright future, such a bright career. It’s going to be a pretty impressive thing to watch as he just continues to grow.”

NHL.com director of editorial Shawn P. Roarke and NHL.com staff writer Derek van Diest contributed to this report