Bennett, Reinhart find home, footing with 2-time Cup champion Panthers

LAS VEGAS -- Think about where Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart were not long ago, before they were traded to the Florida Panthers less than four months apart in 2021, before winning back-to-back Stanley Cup championships the past two seasons.

"I got asked, 'What would my 5-year-old self think if I won two Stanley Cups?,'" Reinhart said, "and I said 'He would be less shocked than my 25-year-old self.'"

Reinhart was with the Buffalo Sabres when he turned 25 on Nov. 6, 2020. Two months before Bennett turned 25 on June 20, 2021, he was traded from the Calgary Flames to the Panthers.

The Sabres selected Reinhart No. 2 in the 2014 NHL Draft. Bennett went two picks later to the Flames.

At the times of their trades, they were each in their mid-20s, established in the NHL but trying to reach their potential with the teams that drafted them. It was challenging and they worried about their futures.

Bennett's last season with Calgary was a rocky one. He was benched by then-coach Geoff Ward, and had also requested a trade.

"I remember the year before I got traded, I started to question it," Bennett said. "Before that I was always thinking 'I'm still young, I've got lots of time and I know I still have more to prove for what I can be as a hockey player.' But the year before is when I started to question it, thinking I'm not as young as I was when I first came in and you only have limited time in the NHL."

At the time of the trade, he said, "Obviously my career hasn't gone the way I expected, and I think I have a lot more to prove and I have a lot more to give."

Now think about where they are now as 29-year-olds, core pieces of a two-time defending Stanley Cup championship team.

The Panthers acquired Bennett from Calgary on April 12, 2021. That season, he had 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 38 games for Calgary. After the trade, he had 15 points (six goals, nine assists) in 10 games and has had at least 40 points in each of his four full seasons with Florida.

Now he's the reigning Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, when he had 22 points, including 15 goals, in 23 playoff games last season. On June 27, he signed an eight-year, $64 million contract ($8 million average annual value) to stay in Florida.

The Panthers acquired Reinhart in a trade with the Sabres on July 24, 2021. He had never played in the playoffs and was a career minus-97 in 454 games, including minus-28 in 2020-21. In his first season with Florida, he was plus-25. In his four seasons with Florida, he's topped 80 points three times, including 94 points in 2023-24.

He's led the Panthers in scoring the past two seasons (81 points last season) and has been their leading goal-scorer in the postseason over the past three years with 29 goals in 66 games, including 11 last season. Reinhart scored the Stanley Cup-clinching goal in 2024 and four goals in the clinching game last season. He signed an eight-year contact with Florida on July 1, 2024.

Reinhart is a lock to play for Canada in the Winter Olympics Milano Cortina 2026 as one of six players already named to the team. Bennett is expected to represent Canada too. Both helped Canada win the 4 Nations Face-Off in February.

"It's incredible," Reinhart said. "You see it around the League a lot, guys getting put in different positions and succeeding, but what's not really talked about is the work you do in those years waiting for your opportunity. 'Benny' or myself or other guys who get put in different situations, it's not just, they go there and all of a sudden, they're much better. It's the years of work put in before that. That was always my mentality, just be ready for an opportunity and be the best I can possibly be when that opportunity comes. Just like Benny, we were ready for it."

Reinhart and Bennett are ready to do even more this season, starting Tuesday, when the Panthers raise their second Stanley Cup championship banner before hosting the Chicago Blackhawks at Amerant Bank Arena (5 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN1, TVAS).

They won't have help from center Aleksander Barkov, who is out for 7-9 months because of knee surgery to repair a torn ACL and MCL, or forward Matthew Tkachuk, who will miss at least the first three months because of surgery to repair a torn adductor muscle.

Reinhart, who typically plays on a line with Barkov, has instead been skating with Bennett in training camp as the two try to establish chemistry that the Panthers hope can help carry them through the season to overcome the loss of Barkov and, in the meantime, Tkachuk.

"Both of them, remember how high they were picked in the draft?" Panthers general manager Bill Zito said. "Their abilities were well known. Their upside anyway, and when you scouted them and you looked and you saw that they both had character, they played hard. They were smart. Benny was up and down throughout the lineup. Sam Reinhart was more of a consistent top-six presence. But all of those attributes in tandem with their upside, then the character checks out, that's how we go about finding those players."

* * *

Florida was the right destination and the Panthers the right team for Bennett and Reinhart because they arrived at the right time in their careers.

"Sam Reinhart, especially, has maximized himself physically," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.

Reinhart traces his physical maturation to 2020, when the NHL had to pause in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the League returned for the playoffs in August, the Sabres were not part of it.

"Guys were going into the bubble and I essentially had 10 months off and I didn't take any time off," Reinhart said. "I was just training. I was barely on the ice, it was just training.

"I could have went to the bubble for a couple weeks and it would have probably been tougher for my development."

Maurice said Reinhart, at 6-foot-1 and 196 pounds, doesn't play through the body the way Bennett does, but the size and strength that he's worked to add from his early 20s to his late 20s combined with his hockey sense has enabled him to become an elite scorer.

He leads the Panthers with 160 goals in 321 games since 2021-22, including 57 in 2023-24. Reinhart scored 134 goals in 454 games with the Sabres from 2014-21.

"He may not have the greatest foot speed, but he can make that decision very early, make the read very early," Maurice said. "Sam Reinhart is fast enough to be an elite player. He's an elite player, and does it through his brain."

Maurice said Bennett's growth has come from experience, including playing on the wing in Calgary before moving back to center and playing with Jonathan Huberdeau when he got to Florida late in the 2020-21 season.

"Now you've learned enough to know when to make a play and when not to make a play," Maurice said. "You're not worried about the lineup, so there's a certain freedom that comes back. You're physically stronger."

Huberdeau was traded to Calgary in the deal that brought Tkachuk to Florida on July 22, 2022, but by then, Bennett was a confident top-six centerman who had 49 points (28 goals, 21 assists) in 71 games with the Panthers in 2021-22.

They were to that point NHL highs across the board for Bennett, who set new highs for assists (26) and points (51) last season before his MVP postseason.

"That would be, I guess, Bill Zito's grace," Maurice said. "That's what he's great at, finding players that still have room left to improve that are committed to getting better. It just takes time. Some guys are great at 19, some guys are 24, 25 before they hit."

* * *

They're 29 now, two-time Stanley Cup champions, with a chance to win a gold medal after winning the 4 Nations, but Reinhart and Bennett are not content.

"I haven't really had a moment to sit back and truly appreciate everything that's happened in the last two years, but I don't think I'm going to do that yet," Bennett said. "I just want to ride the wave with how everything is going so I'm not going to sit back and look back and enjoy all the moments yet because there's still more things I want to do."

The injuries to Barkov and Tkachuk will make it harder for the Panthers this season, but maybe proving they can win without them is the motivation Bennett and Reinhart need to keep pushing the boundaries of careers that not too long ago looked like they had limitations.

"The thing we've got going on is we believe we understand why we're having success so those are the things we're looking to continue to do and continue to build on," Reinhart said. "We've always stayed in the present."

NHL.com staff writer Tracey Myers and independent correspondent George Richards contributed to this story