Yahoo Sports 'I want you to be a Leaf someday': Sam Bennett getting recruited by Toronto fans
It won’t be long before the Florida Panthers players who spend their offseasons in their respective hometowns to begin migrating back to Broward County.
One of those players is Sam Bennett, who has been enjoying his time back home in the Toronto-area and recently had his special day with the Stanley Cup.
On Tuesday, Bennett joined TSN 1050’s First Up with Aaron Korolnek and Carlo Colaiacovo to provide a bit of an update on his Stanley Cup championship summer.
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“It's amazing, it's a dream come true,” Bennett said. “Pretty much every time we see one of the guys that we won with, we call each other “Champ” still. It's funny, but it's also an amazing feeling.”
Spending much of his off time in and around Toronto, Bennett said he’s often runs into Maple Leafs fans.
Bennett doesn’t exactly get a lot of love from Leafs fans when the Panthers visit Scotiabank Arena, with most pointing to the 2023 playoff series between Florida and Toronto, and Bennett’s hit on Matthew Knies in Game 2, as the main reason behind disdain.
As long as Bennett is wearing enemy colors, aka anything but Toronto’s blue and white, he can expect to continue getting the ‘public enemy’ treatment from Leafs fans.
But being the savvy, smart hockey fans they are, the Toronto faithful are apparently quick to tell Benentt how much they’d love to have him wearing his hometown colors (or colours, as it were) whenever they run into him around town.
“Since I'm here all summer, fans see me all the time,” Bennett explained. “And they actually always have something to say, like they hate me, but they always end with, ‘I want you to be a Leaf one day.’”
Bennett is playing on an expiring contract will be a free agency at the conclusion of the 2024-25 season.
That being the case, it's not that far-fetched for Toronto fans to imagine Bennett playing with the big Maple Leafs logo on his chest.
His special brand of hockey would be welcomed in Leafs-land.
Over the past couple seasons, Bennett’s style of playing hockey has proved to be a perfect fit with what Florida Head Coach Paul Maurice asks of his forwards, particularly the centermen.
It a combination of speed, grit, vision and physicality, and Bennett’s natural offensive capabilities only add to what he can bring to Maurice and the Cats.
“I think there's definitely a lot of people that that don't like the way I play,” Bennett said. “I think it goes for a lot of guys on our team. Part of what makes us successful is we have so many guys that are willing to do whatever it takes to win. And it can be hard, it can be nasty at times, but, sometimes it's necessary to just do whatever it takes to win, and we have a lot of guys that have bought into that, and it showed for how much success we've had over the last two years.”
Bennett will soon make the trip to South Florida and begin preparing for the upcoming hockey season.
Training Camp in Fort Lauderdale will kick off in a few short weeks, with the Panthers looking to repeat as Stanley Cup Champs.
See you at the ‘Plex!
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