Another Panther attempted to injure Matthew Knies before the Sam Bennett incident

Leaf fans received unfortunate news yesterday that Matthew Knies would be out at least two games with a concussion following a scuffle behind the net with Florida's Sam Bennett during Thursday's game. Despite Bennett blatantly pushing Knies' head toward the glass, then slamming the rookie onto the ice, he didn't receive a penalty. Instead, the league fined him for a completely different dirty play on Michael Bunting.

It's an unfortunate loss to the team, but not that surprising with how the Panthers have been playing this series, going after Knies specifically. After Game 1, Knies mentioned how Matthew Tkachuk was chewing his ear off, trying to get in his head a bit. So it seems for Game 2, the Panthers wanted to take an overall more physical approach to get to Knies.


Whether Knies' concussion resulted from being slammed to the ice by Bennett or an elbow to the head from Tkachuk (or a combination of both), it's hard to pinpoint which hit may have caused it, but that's irrelevant now. Tkachuk received a penalty for charging in that sequence; nothing more came out of it—no surprise with the inconsistency shown by NHL Player Safety.


It's wild that, with the game tape so readily available to the Department of Player Safety, that they didn't examine the entire first period to see how many times Knies was targeted and by which players. Both Tkachuk and Bennett have the reputation of being low-key dirty players and both shots on Knies showed a clear intent to injure. Pretty embarrassing stuff from the league and a horrible look for the Panthers if the game plan was to go after a 20-year-old kid and take him out like that.