SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Sam Bennett walked to the front of the stage at the Florida Panthers' latest Stanley Cup championship parade, and before he could even speak the crowd began serenading him with their request.
“Eight more years! Eight more years!” they chanted, over and over.
They got their wish.
Bennett — who led the NHL with 15 goals in this year's playoffs and became the first Panthers player ever to score that many in a single postseason — is staying with the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions. He and Florida agreed Friday to a new eight-year contract worth $64 million, or $8 million per season.
“Sam is a special player who has mastered a unique blend of skill and physicality in his game, becoming one of the most impactful postseason performers of his generation,” Panthers general manager and hockey operations president Bill Zito said. “He played an integral role in our two Stanley Cup championships, earning the franchise’s first Conn Smythe trophy and is a dedicated contributor to our South Florida community off the ice. We are thrilled that he will continue his career with the Panthers.”
Bennett was the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as MVP of the playoffs, the first Florida player to ever win that award. The last time a Conn Smythe winner didn't open the following season with the same team he had that playoff run with was 1997, when goaltender Mike Vernon helped Detroit win that year's Cup — and then the Red Wings traded him to San Jose that summer.
It is the first of three big decisions that the Panthers have been waiting on heading into free agency, the others being what forward Brad Marchand — a trade deadline pickup who became an enormous part of the run to this Cup — and defenseman Aaron Ekblad will do going forward.
The Bennett signing is another huge move by general manager and hockey operations president Bill Zito, who now has eight players — all of them key parts of the team — under contract with the Panthers through at least the 2029-30 season. Bennett joins Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell, Seth Jones and Gustav Forsling on that list.
The raise is a massive one for Bennett, who just finished the final year of a four-year contract that paid him just under $18 million. He had a postseason like almost none other; the only other player to have at least 15 goals and 48 penalty minutes in the same playoff run was Pittsburgh's Kevin Stevens in 1991.
He had given indications throughout this offseason process — including at a nightclub during the Panthers' days-long initial Cup celebration — that he intended to remain in Florida, but nothing got officially done until Friday.
Bennett is coming off perhaps his finest season, with 25 goals and 26 assists in the regular season for a career-best 51 points.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
