Bennett-Tkachuk connection runs much deeper than just playoff success with Panthers

Sam Bennett had the same reaction as most of the hockey world when his Florida Panthers traded for Matthew Tkachuk in the offseason.

“I was not expecting that at all,” the center said Wednesday, only a few hours after he and Tkachuk combined for five points to help the Panthers win Game 1 of their second-round series with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday.

Maybe he should have. It turns out, the Canadian forward is one of the biggest reasons Tkachuk decided he wanted to get traded to Florida in the first place and their connection — which goes back to 2016 in Canada — is now one of the chief reasons the Panthers have gone from No. 8 seed to championship threat in the first few weeks of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, no matter what happens in Game 2 with the Maple Leafs on Thursday at Scotiabank Arena.

“There’s nobody I’d rather go out there with than,” Tkachuk told TNT on Sunday, right before Florida upset the Bruins in Game 7 of the first round in Boston, “a close friend of mine, a very close friend of mine.”

“One of the attractions he liked of the whole thing,” Keith Tkachuk, the superstar right wing’s father, told Toronto radio station CHUM back in March, “was getting a chance to play with Sam.”

There was also the unofficial recruiting trip, which Bennett didn’t even realize was one, early last year.

Bennett, 26, spent the first six-plus seasons of his career with the Flames after he was the No. 4 pick in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft until he got traded to the Panthers in 2021, so he made sure to take all his old teammates out to dinner last season when Calgary came down to South Florida for the first time since the trade.

Tkachuk, 25, was in his sixth season with the Flames after he was the No. 6 pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, and he was part of the group to get dinner and go out with his close friend on a 70-degree winter night in Fort Lauderdale.

Tkachuk was in the middle of his first 100-point season in Calgary and left wing Jonathan Huberdeau was doing the same with the Panthers. The plan for both organizations was to have these star wingers be foundational players for years to come. No one at the Bennett-organized evening out could have possibly expected it to be laying the groundwork for a blockbuster, franchise-altering trade a few months later.

“You guys can thank ‘Benny’ for my love for Florida,” Tkachuk said with a smile.

A few months into his offseason, Tkachuk told the Flames he wasn’t planning to sign an extension with them. It was tantamount to a trade request, and Calgary started working to find a partner. With a no-move clause in his contract, Tkachuk could choose where he wanted to go by only waiving the clause for certain teams. He picked Florida for several reasons.

One of those reasons, of course, was the strength of the Panthers, who were coming off a Presidents’ Trophy and poised to contend for Stanley Cups for years to come.

Another was the lifestyle Bennett was unwittingly pitching to him.

“I was always sending him pictures and stuff in Florida of being on the water or on the jet skis on my off day, or stuff like that,” he said. “I think I made them all pretty jealous.”

Finally, there was a desire to reunite with Bennett — in so many ways a kindred spirit.

Playoffs times 2: Panthers keep silencing doubters; Heat in good shape despite loss sans Butler | Opinion

The two forwards — one from Ontario and one from Arizona — were drafted two years apart by the Flames and are less than 18 months apart in age. They lived in the same building as teammates in Calgary and were inseparable off the ice.

Before a question even comes about their days together as 19- and 20-year-olds in Alberta, Tkachuk is already laughing to himself.

“Oh, yeah,” Tkachuk said with a mischievous grin. “We had a lot of fun together there. ... We had a great group of guys there my first couple years that did everything together, but me and ‘Benny’ were the two youngest, by far. We lived in the same building for a bunch of years, so everywhere he was I was.”

Added Bennett: “It’s pretty easy to become friends with anyone on your team when you’re the same age and both move to a new city together. You find that connection.”

They very rarely got to play together with the Flames, though. Bennett never had a consistent role in Calgary — often buried in the bottom six — and Tkachuk usually played next to Flames center Mikael Backlund.

In Broward County, that changed right away. Bennett immediately became the Panthers’ second-line center after they traded a second-round pick for him in 2021, and coach Paul Maurice stuck Tkachuk next to him from the very first game of the regular season.

In the regular season, their line with left wing Carter Verhaeghe was the second best in the NHL among trios to log at least 300 minutes together, based on expected goals. In its first eight games of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Florida had a 52-24 edge in scoring chances when Bennett and Tkachuk were on the ice together for 5-on-5 play

“We work well together,” Tkachuk said.

Tkachuk stole the show in Game 1 in Toronto by showing off a different part of his game

Tkachuk is now a household name, one of the biggest stars in the NHL and maybe the best player of the playoffs so far. He’s the type of player who now gets rapid-fire questions tossed as a gimmick for national audiences to learn about his personality.

One of those Wednesday: What does he appreciate most in a friend.

“They’ve been there,” Tkachuk said, “since the beginning.”