David Dwork of The Hockey News is reporting that Sam Bennett of the Florida Panthers has left tonight’s game against the Boston Bruins with what appears to be a left leg injury. Bennett was returning to the Panthers after missing the first seven games with a lower-body injury.
The 27-year-old was battling for position with Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm when Lindholm appeared to put his skate on the back of Bennett’s left leg. Lindholm’s weight then appeared to crash down on Bennett’s ankle. Bennett went down grabbing at his lower leg, as he rolled on the ice in pain. The Panthers helped Bennett off the ice as he put no weight on his left leg before limping to the team’s dressing room.
In other notes from the Atlantic Division:
- The Boston Bruins have announced that defenseman Matt Grzelcyk has left tonight’s game and will not return after sustaining an upper-body injury. Not much is known currently about the injury, but Grzelcyk didn’t play after the halfway mark of the first period in the Bruins game against the Florida Panthers. The 29-year-old has had a bit of a slow start to his eighth season with the Bruins as he has just a single goal in nine games thus far.
- CapFriendly is reporting that the Tampa Bay Lightning have activated forward Jack Finley off the season-opening injury reserve and assigned him to the Syracuse Crunch of the AHL. The 21-year-old Finley scored 12 goals and had 9 assists in his rookie season in the AHL last year as he dressed in 67 games for the Crunch. Finley could make an impact in the NHL in the coming seasons as it is hard to ignore his ability to get around the ice with his 6’6” 223-pound frame. For now, he will remain a depth option in the AHL as he attempts to develop the offensive side of his game.
Despite what Josh typed here, Lindholm did not step on Bennett’s leg. Lindholm was going down and his right shin pad came down on the outside of Bennett’s left leg, bending it at a really bad angle.
I’m skeptical. The Bruins clearly had a mandate from their coach to injure players last night. There were probably 5 separate incidents of sticks to the face, and then McAvoy’s intentional hit to the head of Ekman-Larsson after the puck was long gone.
I dunno what that muscle on the back of the leg is called, but it sure appears like Lindholm went out of his way to try and kick that spot in particular.
But Lindholm didn’t “kick” anything, he was leaning on Bennett, trying to clear him out of the crease, it just happened that Bennett broke away from contact to chase the deflected shot just as Lindholm was leaning on him to establish position. If Lindholm was attempting to injure he would have done more than an awkward knee-drop on the back of Bennett’s ankle that could have injured Lindholm as badly or worse.
The McAvoy hit was bad, but McAvoy himself has had multiple concussions (one of which had him out for two months back in 2019) so I don’t know that there isn’t more to that Ekman-Larsson hit than just “he’s a dirty player.” There may be history between the two.
My man, it’s Boston. Being a dirty player is seemingly in the job description to play there.
Now that Marchand wears the “C” then, like any good leader of men, he has to delegate the cheapshotting to his subordinates. ;-)