By Basil Stroh
NHL Public Relations
Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett was selected as the 2025 Conn Smythe Trophy winner after leading the League in goals (15) and establishing an NHL record for road goals in one playoff year (13) to help the Panthers become the 10th franchise in League history to repeat as Stanley Cup champions. Awarded to “the most valuable player for his team in the playoffs,” Bennett was selected the winner in a vote by a panel of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.
Full list of Conn Smythe Trophy winners(first presented in 1965)
Bennett established an NHL or franchise record in each of the first three contests to open the Final. In Game 1, he scored his 12th goal of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs to set a club record for most in one postseason. In Game 2, he scored his 12th road goal of 2025 to set an NHL record (besting Mark Scheifele: 11 in 2018) and also set a new Panthers benchmark for longest road goal streak in the playoffs (5 GP) – he then scored again on the road in Game 5 to build on those records and become the fifth player in NHL history with a road goal streak of six-plus games. In Game 3, Bennett dazzled the home crowd with a must-see sequence that began with two hits in the defensive zone and ended with a breakaway goal, setting a Panthers benchmark for longest goal streak in one playoff year (4 GP).
Bennett (5) ranked third in goals during the 2025 Final behind Sam Reinhart (7) and Brad Marchand (6) – the second time in NHL history that three teammates all scored five-plus goals in the same Final, following Alex Delvecchio (6), Gordie Howe (5) and Ted Lindsay (5) with the 1955 Red Wings. Bennett and Marchand also became the second set of teammates in League history to each score a goal in Games 1-3 of the Final, while Bennett matched the longest point streak from the start of a Final by any player over the past 35 years (5 GP).
Bennett tallied in each series-opener this year, one of only two players in NHL history to score a goal in Game 1 of four rounds in a single postseason, alongside Leon Draisaitl who also did so in 2025. Bennett (15) tied Alex Ovechkin (15 in 2018) and Sidney Crosby (15 in 2009) for the second most goals in one playoff year among active players, behind Zach Hyman (16 in 2024). Bennett became the second player in NHL history to score 15-plus goals in a postseason without any 30-goal regular-seasons on his resume to that point – and first in more than a century (Newsy Lalonde: 17 in 1919 w/ MTL).
Bennett’s performance came in the last season of a four-year contract with Florida, a campaign in which he established a career high with 51 points, scored the tying goal in the championship game of the 4 Nations Face-Off en route to a title with Canada, and helped the Panthers repeat as Stanley Cup champions. Bennett became the third player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy without a contract in place for the next season, following goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere (2003) and forward Claude Lemieux (1995). Giguere re-signed with the Ducks during the ensuing offseason, while Lemieux landed with the Avalanche where he claimed a second straight Stanley Cup after winning with the Devils in 1995.
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