The Florida Panthers blew a lead to go down 1-0 in their first-round playoff series and will now be without one of their deadline additions for at least game two. Sam Bennett will have a hearing with the Department of Player Safety today for the hit he delivered on Blake Coleman last night.
The incident occurred partway through the third period when the Panthers were up 4-3. Bennett came from across the defensive zone to deliver a check on Coleman in the corner and received a two-minute minor for charging on the play. He will now face a suspension, keeping him out for at least tomorrow’s rematch.
There appear to be no other hearings coming out of the game, including a hit delivered by Ryan McDonagh that sparked plenty of outrage from Panther fans.
Bennett, who has been outstanding since coming over from the Calgary Flames at the deadline, recorded two assists in nearly 21 minutes of ice time last night for Florida. A stat-filler, he had four penalty minutes, four shots on goal, three hits, two blocks, two takeaways and hit the ice on the powerplay and penalty kill. That performance will have to come from someone else in game two.
Parros would probably give Tom Wilson a raise for this type of thing.
Refs let the game get out of hand. It was an awesome physical game full of offensive opportunities. The league shouldn’t be calling anyone for a meeting since it was on their officiating for it getting as rough as it was. And as a fan… that was one of the best games I have seen in ages. Let it go like this. It will help grow the game.
Agree, this is the kind of play fans want to see. They may hate themselves for it, but fans love the physical aspect of the game. They love watching players get obliterated though most fans don’t like to see players get injured, they do love when players fight about it and protect each other. When hockey was at it’s peak of popularity, this is how the game was especially in the postseason. The lockouts are what killed it, but this kind of play is what will help bring it back. Don’t mind the snowflakes, this is the kind of product the NHL needs to promote.
I agree this wasn’t even the worst hit of the game, so no idea why they are singling Bennett out. They must know this is the kind of game fans want and the only kind of game that will help the NHL grow itself back to where it was in the late 90’s into the early 2000’s before the lockout. I don’t ever remember there being so many snowflake type fans back then. Everyone heard the crowd at last night’s game. They were screaming, they loved every minute. There were no snowflakes there. Same with the Capitals/Bruins game.
The NHL must know this and are probably, to some degree, conflicted. They listen to the soft bellied fans on twitter instead of the ones that spend three hours screaming at the top of their lungs at these games. They’re not screaming for suspensions, they’re screaming because they love what they’re seeing and want more of it.
It was a charge . Just a 4 min at the most. The NHL is just trying to PG the Series
Yet Mcdonagh can straight shove a guy head first into the boards… wtf… DoPS needs to get their heads outta their rear ends
Yeah, the inconsistency of how this league enforces its “rules” is laughable.
Seems to be playing favorites cause the Mcd hit was way worse