Sportsnet 590 The FAN: Analyst/broadcaster Ed Jovanovski on The FAN Hockey Show show talking about Florida Panthers’ pending free agent Sam Bennett.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Matt Marchese: “What they’ve created here is an organization where guys want to stay. You know, Matthew Tkachuk wanted to go to Florida. They’ve been able to keep some guys like Carter Verhaeghe signed an extension to stay there. He could have got more money on the open market. Anton Lundell signed an extension. I know he was an RFA.
Where do you think Sam Bennett fits into that conversation? Because this is a guy who, by all accounts, is one of the, one of the unicorns of the NHL. Not only can he score, he can fight, he’s physical, he can play multiple positions. Like he’s a guy you want on your team who would get paid a lot of money on the open market.
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Do you think he’s one of those guys that looks and says, I want to stay here because I really like what we’re building here, and I like playing for this organization?
Jovanovski: “Yeah, no ifs and buts about that. I think Sam Bennett, you know, wants to be a Florida Panther. You know, there’s, you know, what we’ve been hearing obviously, you know, contract talks have started with him, and I think, hopefully, it’s progressing in the right direction.
Sam Bennett is one of those players like you said, he’s kind of is that unicorn type player where he’s not afraid. He’ll, he’ll fight, he’ll get to those dirty areas. He’s good at F1 going in there and separating player from puck. He’s not afraid. And he’s one of those guys that sticks his nose and everything.
And when you look at a player in a situation, you have Carter Verhaeghe and Matthew Tkachuk on your wings. I mean, what is the price, like what’s the price to leave?
I mean, when you when you look at that, you have the success in a spot right here, your Stanley Cup champion. I look at their last games against Dallas, who Vegas has them up there as Stanley Cup favorites as well. We took care of them pretty good. Second game was a little bit closer. But why would you want to go to a different situation?
And for the team, you’re going to do your best to lock these players up, and it might be take a little bit less, because you have dumped a lot of money into your core players.
And another guy that’s coming up to is (Aaron) Ekblad, how do you replace a right-handed defenseman that’s got the experience as the Champion now.
He’s, there’s a lot of caveats, I guess, to all this, but going back to Bennett, I hope, as a guy that’s covering the team and, and a big fan of hockey, watching him play each and every night, he doesn’t have a day off. If he’s not producing offensively, which he is right now, he’s doing other little things to be a catalyst for his team.
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So he’s a tough guy to see, to see walk in certain areas. So I think the efforts going to be there from the Panthers. They know the importance of this player and they’ll do their best to lock him up.”
