Sam Bennett and the 7 Villains of the NHL Playoffs Since 2000

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are when we get to see the absolute best performances out of the best players. But for every hero on the ice, there must be a counterpart. Not everyone can wear the cape and play the role of Superman; someone always winds up being the bad guy, even if they don’t want to be.

Whether it’s intentional or by accident, villains emerge in the postseason and it sometimes doesn’t take much to earn the label. A bad hit that comes with a bad result can land you on another fan base’s most wanted list. Sam Bennett isn’t the first guy to land such a role and he won’t be the last, but he is the latest name to land on such a list.

The guys who have worn the black hat have been present forever in hockey, but today we’re focusing on the past 25 years to pick out guys who have earned the ire of fans. Everyone loves a good guy, but everyone also loves to hate the bad guy.

Sam Bennett

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Sam Bennett

For the past few years, Sam Bennett’s reputation has been that of a player eager to deliver and land big hits whenever the opportunity presents itself. He’s upset countless opponents and his efforts to drive them up the wall are why he’s been valuable to the Florida Panthers and the Calgary Flames earlier in his career.

The narrative changed a bit in Game 1 against Toronto, however, when he crashed into the crease and connected his forearm with Anthony Stolarz’s head, eventually knocking him out of the game. Stolarz vomited at the bench and was taken to a hospital for observation.

There was no penalty on the play and a suspension isn’t happening either, but he’s public enemy number one in The Six and we may not have heard the end of all of this with the rest of the series to be played.

Matthew Tkachuk would normally be the villain everyone would look out for when it came to the Panthers, but now with Bennett’s latest incident, they’ve essentially assembled a rogues’ gallery of players fans love to hate, with Brad Marchand there as well. (Don’t worry, we’ll talk about him in a bit.)

Matt Cooke

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Matt Cooke

There was a time years ago when you couldn’t go anywhere online without reading scorching hot takes about Matt Cooke.

Cooke was infamous as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins for his array of questionable hits with terrible outcomes. He helped end Marc Savard’s career with a headshot in 2010 and earned a long suspension in 2011 for hitting Ryan McDonagh in the jaw with his elbow. His reputation earned him villain status even if he didn’t against the rules.

But in 2014 with the Minnesota Wild in their first-round matchup against the Colorado Avalanche, Cooke’s knee-on-knee hit against Tyson Barrie got him suspended for seven games.

Considering Cooke’s career began with the Vancouver Canucks, he was already hated in Colorado to begin with, but for Cooke, that suspension was his virtual swan song in the league as he played for just one more season before injuries piled up and he was bought out of his contract.

Raffi Torres

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Raffi Torres

The time around 2010 in the NHL was a bizarre kind of Wild West because of head shots. We just talked about Matt Cooke, but the guy who was most infamous for delivering illegal blows to the skull was Raffi Torres.

Torres earned villain status in numerous Western Conference cities for an assortment of dirty hits while he played for the Vancouver Canucks, Arizona Coyotes and San Jose Sharks.

His hits against Brent Seabrook in 2011 with Vancouver helped the Canucks get past the Blackhawks in the peak of their dynastic run. The following year, while with the Coyotes, he delivered a head shot to Marian Hossa during their first-round playoff series that earned him a 25-game suspension that was later reduced to 21, 13 of which came in the playoffs.

In 2013 with the Sharks, he delivered a head shot to Kings forward Jarret Stoll during Game 1 of their second-round playoff matchup that earned him a suspension for the remainder of the second round, one which the Kings won.

The following preseason, he hit Ducks forward Jakob Silfverberg with a head shot and was suspended for 41 games and he never played in the NHL again.

Tie Domi

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Tie Domi and Colin White

Watching Max Domi tear it up around the ice for the Maple Leafs always gets us to think about his old man, Tie Domi, when he did the same back in the early 2000s. Domi was a cult hero for Leafs fans and was a cult villain for fans elsewhere around the league because of his pugnacious style of play.

As much as Domi was renowned for his fights, it was his elbow to Devils defenseman Scott Niedermayer late in Toronto’s Game 4 win against New Jersey that earned him scorn from everyone.

As the seconds ticked down in the Leafs win that tied the series at 2-2, Domi skated past Niedermayer and delivered a roaring elbow to the defenseman’s head, knocking him out. He had to be stretchered off the ice.

The NHL suspended Domi for the remainder of the playoffs. Unfortunately for Toronto, it turned out to be a three-game suspension as the Devils won the series in seven games and for Domi, his actions helped inspire New Jersey as they went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final that year before losing to Colorado.

Tom Wilson

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Tom Wilson

All it takes to elicit a response from any fans around the league is to merely mention Tom Wilson’s name. That level of notoriety is impressive and much of it is borne from his habitual line-stepping style of play.

The physical style, the questionable hits and the way he’s able to rattle franchises with his play speak for itself. Whether he’s been suspended or not for his various hits almost doesn’t matter because they elicit the same response from the fans. Non-Capitals fans offer full-throated defenses for his plays while everyone else screams until he’s suspended and then only shout louder if he isn’t.

Wilson brings the fire to games and provides the gasoline to make them rage out of control. All we have to do is look back on what went on in their opening round series against Montréal to see how he’s able to drive everyone mad. Not that we needed more examples, just more recent ones.

We only have to look back on what he’s done in previous playoff series against the New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins for more proof. After all, when Wilson’s play inspires other teams to go out and guys like Ryan Reaves or call up Matt Rempe to counteract him, the Caps know he’s done his job well.

Aaron Rome

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Aaron Rome after he delivered a late hit to Nathan Horton in Game 3 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final

Playoff villains don’t always come from obvious places. Sometimes, a player can earn that label based on one terrible play and the moniker only sticks for a short time. Such is the case for Aaron Rome.

Rome wasn’t exactly a notable NHL player throughout his career, but during Game 3 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final with the Vancouver Canucks, he delivered a late hit head shot to Boston Bruins forward Nathan Horton. The hit knocked Horton out of the game and for the rest of the series and Rome was suspended for four games, which turned out to be the rest of the series.

The Canucks desperately needed Rome’s defensive depth against the Bruins. Going without him against a reinvigorated and ticked-off Bruins team to deal with turned out to be too much. The Bruins hammered the Canucks at all three games in Boston and took Game 7 on the road to win the Stanley Cup.

Boston was already grumpy thanks to the antics of Maxim Lapierre and Alex Burrows, but now they were mad and focused because of Rome’s hit, something Vancouver did not need them to be. That Finals appearance was the Canucks’ only one during the era of the Sedins and Roberto Luongo.

Brad Marchand

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Brad Marchand and Daniel Sedin

Very few players in NHL history have viscerally upset opposing fans more than Brad Marchand has. Throughout his career with the Boston Bruins, Marchand drove opponents out of their skulls with his rat-like style of play. If there was a dirty trick in the book, he knew it and used it…and then he’d write a new chapter.

Whether it was by going low to hit guys in open ice, delivering more than a few shots to the chops in a scrum, chirping and taunting rival players, or just outright doing something against the rules, Marchand’s done it. Heck, he even got talked to by the league for licking other players. There’s no line that he wouldn’t cross to get a psychological or physical edge, for better or worse.

Now that he’s with the Florida Panthers and joining their version of the Legion of Doom with Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk, it’s a recipe for the Panthers to be the most hated team in the league. Marchand hasn’t gone deep into his bag of tricks much in recent years, but his reputation precedes him and it forces opponents to respect his presence on the ice because you just don’t know what he’ll do or if he’ll do it.

It’s a Rowdy Roddy Piper way of being, right when you think you know all the answers, he changes the questions.

Nazem Kadri

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Justin Faulk and Nazem Kadri

There are very few players in recent years who have been able to deeply upset opponents with their style of play like Nazem Kadri has. He goes hard, he plays hard and he chirps hard. Unfortunately for some of his teams, he’s also gone a bit too hard in the playoffs.

Kadri has been suspended three different times in the playoffs, twice with the Toronto Maple Leafs and once with the Colorado Avalanche.

In 2018, he got a three-game ban for boarding Tommy Wingels during Game 1 of the Leafs series against Boston. The following year, he was suspended for the remainder of the first round for cross-checking Jake DeBrusk in Game 2 against the Bruins.

It took a while for Kadri to learn his lesson, but after he did he helped the Avalanche win the Stanley Cup the following season and helped Blues goalie Jordan Binnington blow a gasket in the process.

In 2021, Kadri was suspended for eight games when he delivered an illegal check to the head of Blues defenseman Justin Faulk in Game 2 of their series. That suspension just happened to last as long as the Avs did in the playoffs because they swept the Blues and lost to Vegas in the next round in six games.