Photo by Arc1294, CC0

Sam Bennett

82 penalty minutes, 26 goals, and the player other teams complain about in June.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2014-15	CGY	1	0	1	1	-1	0	0	0	0	1	0.0	16:00
2015-16	CGY	77	18	18	36	-11	37	3	0	2	136	13.2	15:09
2016-17	CGY	81	13	13	26	-16	75	4	0	0	122	10.7	14:59
2017-18	CGY	82	11	15	26	-18	59	1	0	1	157	7.0	14:24
2018-19	CGY	71	13	14	27	-6	93	4	0	2	115	11.3	13:17
2019-20	CGY	52	8	4	12	-1	36	0	0	0	82	9.8	12:31
2020-21	CGY/FLA	48	10	17	27	-2	52	1	0	4	106	9.4	14:25
2021-22	FLA	71	28	21	49	+27	74	5	0	7	241	11.6	16:57
2022-23	FLA	63	16	24	40	+5	54	4	0	3	193	8.3	17:24
2023-24	FLA	69	20	21	41	+17	100	5	0	2	171	11.7	16:37
2024-25	FLA	76	25	26	51	-15	90	7	0	4	241	10.4	17:27
2025-26	FLA	76	26	32	58	-10	82	5	0	5	201	12.9	18:30
2026-27 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	767	188	206	394	-31	752	39	0	30	1766	10.7	15:42

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

26 goals and 32 assists in 76 games — 58 points, minus-10, at 18:30 a night with 82 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

Better hands than the reputation allows. 303 unblocked attempts with 44 per cent from inside 20 feet, median 23, and 26 goals — a genuine second-line scoring rate produced almost entirely from the inside.

32 assists is a career-best sort of number and reflects a player who has added a layer in his thirties.

The Physical Game

6-1, 193, and he plays far heavier. 82 penalty minutes, a willingness to cross the line, and a forechecking game that has made him the most disliked opponent in several cities.

This is the whole of his value in a way the regular season cannot capture. He is built for a checking series and he has the rings to prove the point.

The Intangibles

50.8 per cent of the expected goals, 61st percentile, and 53.1 per cent of the shot attempts, 81st, across 1,000 minutes.

The minus-10 is the club-wide goaltending story again — the chances were 48.7 to 47.2 in his favour.

He is 30, the fourth pick in 2014, and spent 6 years in Calgary being called a disappointment before becoming exactly the player a contender needs. 8 points in his last 10.

Of everyone in this book, he is the clearest case of a man worth more in May than the 82 games say.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 1,029 minutes

Expected goals: 50.8%; 62nd pct
Shot attempts: 53.1%; 82nd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 55 for, 50 against. Expected: 48.7 and 47.2.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

Report

92nd

Numbers

62nd

The report ranks him 30 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 81 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 76 games

Top speed: 22.2 mph; 51st pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.29 a game
Distance: 3.15 miles a game
Hardest shot: 92.9 mph; 92nd pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

points in his last 10 games — 2 goals, 6 assists, 33 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 1029 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2025-26

The club: FLA took 50.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.8% — 0.4 above the club he did it on.
The role: Third line, 1,029 minutes at five-on-five — 63rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Carter Verhaeghe	50.3%	51.7%	54.4%
Niko Mikkola	51.8%	50.2%	50.2%
Gustav Forsling	48.8%	51.8%	53.8%

50.3% together, 51.7% for him apart and 54.4% for Verhaeghe apart. Verhaeghe was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

303 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 26 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 44% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 14% from beyond forty.