The Panthers — and Maple Leafs — are trying to calm the storm around Sam Bennett

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TORONTO — Paul Maurice and Sam Bennett might have wished they woke up just about anywhere else.

By the time the Florida Panthers coach and the player being branded as the early villain of a second-round playoff series made the short commute to an eighth-floor conference room at their team hotel in Toronto on Tuesday morning, they were both well aware of the rising tensions in the streets below.

“You know what you’re getting this morning,” Maurice said. “I know where this is going. Honest to god, I’ve seen every hit that Sam Bennett’s thrown since he was 12 years old on TV this morning.”

The Panthers are no strangers to the spotlight, having captured the Stanley Cup last June and won eight playoff rounds since 2023. They are well-acquainted with borderline plays that sideline opponents and generate controversy, too.

However, there’s something unique about the cocktail produced when you combine those elements in a playoff series involving the Toronto Maple Leafs. The reaction is strong, and not particularly nuanced. Visceral.

So it was with Bennett, a soft-spoken, hard-as-nails forward who drove through the head of Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz with his right forearm while bringing the puck to the front of the net during Monday’s series-opener. The Leafs goaltender stayed in the game momentarily and vomited near the bench during a TV timeout before eventually being taken to hospital for further evaluation.

Anthony Stolarz reacts after being hit in the head by Sam Bennett on Monday night. (John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images)

Even after word emerged from the Leafs that Stolarz was OK — Toronto coach Craig Berube wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he could start Game 2 on Wednesday night, as unlikely as that seems — a full investigation into Bennett’s past was being conducted on social media and in pubs across Toronto. That didn’t relent when the NHL’s Department of Player Safety decided Tuesday morning that the incident was not worthy of punishment. The decision arguably pushed the debate to a new level.

“Yeah, he plays hard,” Maurice said of Bennett. “There was a hit two and a half years ago that you guys have shown 4,000 times. There was a parking ticket seven years ago that I think actually made the video. He’s got the puck, he’s on a power play, he goes to the net. He’s not through the paint.

“I understand (the outcry). Like, call the fire department, put your hair out and let’s move on please.”

For his part, Bennett expertly walked the line between conviction and contrition. He said he didn’t realize there was contact on the play in real time, but followed up with a text message to Stolarz — his teammate on last year’s Stanley Cup-winning Panthers — after learning the goalie was taken to hospital.

“When your starting goalie gets injured people are going to be upset,” Bennett said. “Looking back at the video, really the contact that was made was, in my opinion, it’s really just a bump. There was no forceful action. I mean I’m trying to score. The last thing in my mind is about elbowing him in the head.

“When it happened I didn’t even realize that I had made contact. There wasn’t a ton of force in it.”

The Leafs weren’t pleased that Bennett wasn’t penalized or suspended for his actions, but refused to make a public display of that displeasure. All in an effort, it would seem, to try to keep the focus on the game and not on the possibility of a Bennett-related sideshow.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Berube said when asked about the lack of supplementary discipline for Bennett on Tuesday morning. “It’s over.”

Not unlike the Panthers, the Leafs also tried to reduce the noise around Bennett. Retribution, they insisted, wouldn’t be on their mind in Game 2.

Berube’s message to the team was simple: “Play hockey.”

The Leafs would play hard and play physically between the whistles knowing the Panthers were going to “do what they do.”

“I talk to my players about focusing on the game and playing the game hard and playing it the right way,” Berube said. “If there’s an opportunity to take the body on somebody, I don’t care who it is you go through them.”

Taking aim at Bennett, though, was not on the menu.

“You’re gonna go out and think you’re gonna get back at Bennett and you end up in the penalty box and we don’t need that,” Berube said. “We gotta focus on the game and playing the game the way we need to play it and that’s gonna be the focus.”

Leafs captain Auston Matthews makes a play against a defending Sam Bennett on Monday. (John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)

The Leafs raced out to a 2-0 start in Game 1 and largely avoided being drawn into any shenanigans, not even when the other Florida agitators, Matthew Tkachuk and Brad Marchand, tried to goad them into skirmishes between whistles.

The only exception came in the first period when Max Domi was called for cross-checking Marchand.

“We knew coming into this game that they were going to be physical, chippy, little things in between the whistles,” said Leafs forward Matthew Knies, who ended up with the game-winner in Game 1. “I think we stayed composed throughout the whole game, especially at the end and the last three minutes. We just made the right plays and didn’t kind of give into their crap.”

Holding that line in Game 2 is the prerogative — no easy task with Florida’s cast of characters, including Bennett.

“When I played, somebody would have done something right away — probably me if I was out there,” said Berube, who racked up the seventh-most penalty minutes in NHL history in his playing days, of Bennett’s collision with Stolarz.

It was mostly the Panthers who ran afoul of the rules in the opener, handing the Leafs five power plays. The Leafs struggled with those opportunities and failed to score. Berube is eyeing a quicker, more direct approach in Game 2.

The Leafs haven’t ruled out, at least publicly, Stolarz returning to play in Game 2 — even after all that Stolarz went through on the night of Game 1, which also included a first-period shot from Sam Reinhart that knocked the mask off his head and halted play.

Berube said “we’ll see” on Tuesday morning when asked if Stolarz would be available on Wednesday night. He said he didn’t know whether the 31-year-old had sustained a concussion, but confirmed that Stolarz had joined the team at their practice facility.

“He’s here,” Berube said. “He’s doing good.”

“It was good to see him walking around,” teammate Jake McCabe added.

Asked if the Leafs were preparing for Joseph Woll to start in Game 2, which seems likely to be the case, Berube said, “Yeah, I don’t know that yet. I’ll probably find out (later) today.”

The likelihood, still, is that Woll starts Game 2.

It would be the third year in a row that he has taken over the net in relief in the postseason — the second time due to an injury against the Panthers.

In the second round of the 2023 playoffs, Woll replaced an injured Ilya Samsonov in Game 3 against the Panthers and proceeded to start Games 4 and 5. He stopped 24 of 25 shots to win the first start and lost the second one, despite 40 saves, in overtime.

Last spring in the first round, Woll got the call to take over for a struggling Samsonov against the Bruins and delivered back-to-back gems — 49 saves on 51 shots in victories in Games 5 and 6. He was unavailable for Game 7 after sustaining an injury of his own.

Berube noted Woll’s sturdy stretch this season when Stolarz was out with a knee injury.

“He was in there holding the fort for us,” Berube said. “We have a ton of faith in him.”

Dennis Hildeby will back up Woll in the event that Stolarz is unavailable.

As for Bennett, don’t expect his approach to change in Game 2.

“I play a hard style of hockey and I think people get upset by it, I think, and worked up,” Bennett said. “But I try to just tune that out. I’m just trying to play my game. I’m just trying to help our team win. I just try and push all of that noise away.

“That’s pretty much it.”

(Top photo: Sam Navarro / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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