{"id":451380,"date":"2026-02-03T15:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/451380\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T15:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:06:08","slug":"florida-panthers-sam-bennett-leaves-early-with-upper-body-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/451380\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers\u2019 Sam Bennett leaves early with upper-body injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/florida-panthers\/13\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/florida-panthers\/13\" target=\"_blank\">Florida Panthers<\/a> forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/sam-bennett\/8477935\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/sam-bennett\/8477935\" target=\"_blank\">Sam Bennett<\/a> left Monday\u2019s game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/buffalo-sabres\/7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/buffalo-sabres\/7\" target=\"_blank\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> with an upper-body injury and did not return.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Panthers did not say when Bennett sustained the injury. Head coach Paul Maurice did not have an update on him after the game.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Florida Panthers Sam Bennett (upper body) won\u2019t return tonight vs. Buffalo.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FlaPanthers\/status\/2018503640881750339?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 29-year-old played 5:11 in the first period but was not on the bench to begin the second. He was later officially ruled out as the third period began.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Bennett came into Monday\u2019s matchup with 19 goals and 23 assists for 42 points in 54 games this year while averaging 18:42 of ice time per game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The injury is yet another blow for the Panthers down the middle. Star centre <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/aleksander-barkov\/8477493\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/aleksander-barkov\/8477493\" target=\"_blank\">Aleksander Barkov<\/a> has missed the entire season thus far and centre <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/anton-lundell-549558\/8482113\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/anton-lundell-549558\/8482113\" target=\"_blank\">Anton Lundell<\/a> has been out since suffering an upper-body injury last week. Veteran centre <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/tomas-nosek\/8477931\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/tomas-nosek\/8477931\" target=\"_blank\">Tomas Nosek<\/a> has also yet to play in 2025-26 after having an off-season knee procedure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Florida fell 5-3 Monday night to drop to 28-24-3 on the season and sits nine points out of a playoff spot.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett left Monday\u2019s game against the Buffalo Sabres with an upper-body injury and did&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[712,49,48,80960,448,185661,82],"class_list":["post-451380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-florida-panthers-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-13","tag-nhl","tag-sam-bennett-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8477935","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}