Kristen Shilton
Multiple Authors
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Zach Benson is a hockey player you hate to love. Or, love to hate — depending on where you’re lined up against him.
It’s a complicated dynamic even for Benson’s Buffalo Sabres teammates, until they remember the NHL’s heir apparent to the top of the pest pedestal is actually on their side.
“In pretty much every practice, I want to punch him in the face, too,” goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen acknowledged. “The worst part of [going against him] is that he’s an unbelievably skilled player who can also play on the edge of that rat-like game. That’s just pissing you off even more, when it’s an actually great player who is fighting hard for every puck, and scoring goals, but he can also do all that extra stuff to get under your skin. It’s annoying.”
Consider Benson unbothered by his burgeoning reputation. The 20-year-old winger has cultivated a pesky presence on the ice for years, but is perhaps only now gaining leaguewide attention for his expertise.
“All I can say is — finally,” Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin said of Benson being recognized. “People really get to see who he is. He’s the ultimate teammate. He’s the guy you want to have on your team. He just brings great energy, he’s got that edge to his game, he reads the game very well and he’s got a lot of skill. I’m so happy we have him.”
Benson is decidedly less beloved outside of Buffalo. He began producing headlines in Game 6 of the Sabres’ Eastern Conference first-round playoff series against Boston on May 1. When Buffalo was up 4-1 late in the third period and the Bruins were teetering on elimination, Benson tripped up Boston defenseman Charlie McAvoy while attempting to negate what was essentially a meaningless icing call with 90 seconds left.
After getting back on his skates, McAvoy took issue with Benson and delivered a two-handed slash to Benson’s right arm. Benson couldn’t mask his laughter reacting to the increasingly heated McAvoy, and slipped easily out from under the pile of Bruins and Sabres who gathered to scrum around him against the glass.
Benson took his two-minute tripping penalty from there in stride, while McAvoy was handed a five-minute major for slashing and a 10-minute game misconduct. The NHL then announced that McAvoy would have an in-person hearing Monday pertaining to the incident.
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McAvoy ejected from Bruins-Sabres for violent slash on Benson
McAvoy ejected from Bruins-Sabres for violent slash on Benson
If there was any question about Benson feeling remorse over adding insult to injury for the Bruins in the final moments of their season, he’s not sorry.
“I really don’t care [what anyone thinks],” Benson said. “I’m just playing the game.”
And Buffalo is all about it. Benson recorded two goals and three points in the six-game series against Boston, and upped the ante with a two-point showing in Buffalo’s 4-1 rout of Montreal in Game 1 of their conference semifinals series.
It was a trademark Benson performance — flying around the net, making plays to set up Buffalo’s first goal (by linemate Josh Doan), and helping draw penalties that gave the Sabres’ power play a new life. After struggling to get going at the end of the regular season and the first round, Buffalo’s power play scored multiple markers in Game 1 — for the first time since March 31.
Benson is, in short, a total nightmare for the opponent.
“If I was on the other side, I wouldn’t want to be coaching against him,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “I thought his effort [in Game 1] was tremendous. He had a heck of a series [against Boston] and now he’s off to a great start here, and that line [with Doan and Josh Norris] gave us a great night. [Zach’s] effort on a lot of different plays made a difference in the game.”
RARE IS THE PLAYER who not only embraces being disliked but enjoys it. Benson fits that mold. He’s an “insect” on the ice, according to Ruff — and that might be one of the nicer terms used to describe Benson’s style. For the record, he says that his mom prefers the “rat” moniker.
And it was Benson’s parents who encouraged his style of play — along with work ethic first — that has led to comparisons with acclaimed antagonists such as Brad Marchand and Matthew Tkachuk.
“It’s always just come naturally to me, since I was young,” Benson said of his approach. “My dad has always liked those [frustrating] players. When your parents have a favorite kind of player, you’re probably going to start watching them, just getting habits from those guys. I just always wanted to be hard to play against. That was a big thing my parents wanted me to be and to play like and it’s always been there since I was a little guy.”
Sabres forward Beck Malenstyn has watched Benson’s evolution closely, even outside of the NHL season. He and Benson are both from British Columbia and have skated together during the summers in Vancouver. Malenstyn is nearly 10 years older than Benson, and still can’t help marveling at the way he has doggedly pursued building an on-ice brand.
“Benny is one of a kind,” Malenstyn said with a sly smile. “Realistically, it’s a combination of things. It’s his tenacious play on the ice; he’s in every single puck battle. And then it’s his relentless pressure. It’s frustrating when pucks are being stripped from you and he does such an amazing job of that where he starts to plant that seed of frustration in defenders.
“And then he’s extremely gifted at, after the whistle, being able to just do enough to not end up in the penalty box at the wrong time, but still cause some stuff on the other side and bait them a bit.”
That requires more than just being a bothersome trash talker. Benson’s similar predecessors have shown there’s an art to all the madness.
“I don’t necessarily know he wants people to believe that,” goaltender Alex Lyon said with a laugh. “But he definitely knows what he’s doing. And for him to be a 20-year-old doing that? For him to be excelling in this situation? It’s extremely impressive. Playoffs are funny because we see that guy every day and it’s just the first time maybe other people are getting to have that [Benson] experience.”
Malenstyn said he “wishes” for the verbal capabilities Benson can exhibit against any team, with an assurance beyond his years and a willingness to go all-in while smartly avoiding negative consequences.
“I could never think of anything to say like he does,” Malenstyn said. “Those are guys that know exactly what buttons to push. It’s not malicious. They just enjoy that kind of confrontation and have a little fun with it.
“Basically, Benny’s exhausting for the opposition. I don’t expect that to be any different moving forward.”
THE SABRES KNEW EXACTLY what they wanted bringing Benson on board, and he has delivered.
The team selected him No. 13 in the 2023 NHL draft after he’d produced a staggering 36 goals and 98 points in 60 games with the WHL’s Winnipeg Ice in 2022-23. Benson was undersized at 5-foot-10 but transitioned immediately to the league and racked up 11 goals and 30 points in 71 games as a rookie in 2023-24.
Then, Benson was still focused on getting his feet wet as opposed to courting favor — or a lack of it — with villainy. But as he began settling into his third-line slot — and was freshly armed with an increased understanding of the NHL and its players — that fondness for ruffling feathers revealed itself among his other emerging talents.
“I’ve always had that kind of desire to [needle] guys,” he said. “When you’re on the ice, it’s a different world. I’ve always been told that. It’s nice to be friendly, and obviously you want to be a good person off the ice. But when you get on the ice, it’s not the same place. And usually the best players are the ones who can change with that and play physical. They can be a d— on the ice and a nice guy off it. I learned that, and it’s been ingrained in me.”
Case in point: Benson’s recent trip to a grocery store. In December 2023, Benson told ESPN that one of his go-to off-day activities was walking around some of the Buffalo-area malls. The wide-eyed rookie mentioned how he was recognized once by a fan and it was an “extremely cool” experience.
Fast-forward to 2026 when the Sabres are on their first postseason run after ending a historic 14-year playoff drought — and anonymity is strikingly hard to maintain.
“So, I was on the phone with my mom last night, and we were talking,” he said Tuesday. “And she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, have you been on Instagram?’ And she’s going, ‘Blah, blah, blah; this [stuff is crazy].’ And it’s because I went to the grocery store two days ago, and it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t go down one aisle without someone asking for a picture. It was the longest I’ve ever been in a grocery store.
“I’m not a patient guy, usually. But it’s just so cool to see little kids with smiles on their faces and freaking out when they get to see you. I remember being that age and doing the exact same thing. It really is a pretty special thing now that you don’t want to take for granted or be the guy letting anyone down. I relish it, and soak it up.”
Benson speaks as though his own youth is so far in the past — when in reality he still can’t legally order a alcoholic drink until his birthday this Tuesday. That adolescent energy is part of what makes Benson so popular in Buffalo’s dressing room — even when he’s something of a gnat there, too.
“In a lot of ways, he’s the same in here that he is out there [on the ice],” Malenstyn said. “He can get you in an argument over anything, just to get you going, just to get a laugh out of you. You’ll be having a totally normal conversation about something, and then he might just pick the other side to see what you’re going to say. But we love having him on our team. He’s so special in that way.”
Dahlin became familiar with how Benson is truly one of one when Dahlin and fiancée, Carolina, invited Benson to move in with them when he first came to Buffalo. It’s possible Dahlin is still recovering from the experience.
“He lived at my house when he got here. He did a lot of weird stuff,” Dahlin said. “But he’s just maturing every day. It’s been unbelievable to follow his journey and he’s only going to get better. I absolutely love being his teammate.”
Ah — weird stuff? Such as?
“I shouldn’t have said that” Dahlin demurred, saying without saying there’s more to Benson than meets the eye.
After all, it takes a type of unicorn to be a player like Benson in the modern NHL. The game has evolved to be so fast, and requiring such skill, that simply being a nuisance wouldn’t be enough to stay in the lineup. Ruff has witnessed those shifts from his own playing days in the 1970s and ’80s right through a coaching career that began in the early ’90s. Benson is a sort of hybrid, combining multiple elements from where the rat role started to where it is now.
“There’s the pest that’s real annoying. And there’s a pest that’s really hard to play against,” Ruff said. “And I think he’s all that as a real hard player to play against. He plays the game the right way. He has the puck a lot, he can score. And he’s annoying because he gets to the net all the time. He gets to the puck, he’s the first touch. And if he’s not first touch, he’s all over you to try to get it back. And then he’s got that smirk on his face that irritates you, too, I guess, as an opposition player. It makes me smile, but I think it annoys other people.”
To that, Luukkonen can only say, preach.
“As a goalie too, I can tell even without playing against him officially that he’s so annoying,” Luukkonen said. “You see how he’s really skilled in front of the net. He knows when to take a hit, when to play smartly, not to get called for anything but still create some frustration and probably he is going to score a goal [from in tight] or something without it being [a penalty]. It’s throwing other teams off a bit because it’s just so annoying.”
It didn’t take long for Tanner Pearson to recognize in Benson what he’d seen in other players of similar style over the course of a 15-year career that includes a Stanley Cup championship with the Los Angeles Kings in 2014. Pearson joined the the Sabres in a trade with Winnipeg in March, and though he hasn’t shared the ice with Benson much in games, to Pearson there’s no mistaking what value a player like Benson can bring to put his team over the top.
“I don’t want to say there’s just a rat-like thing to him,” Pearson said, “because he’s always so competitive with everything he does. It’s a practice-like-you-play type of situation. He just doesn’t stop, and he annoys everybody, and he’s so happily doing it at the same time.
“Guys like him just don’t care. At the end of the day, he gets players off their games. And if you’re thinking about him on the ice, then I think he’s already won the mental game. And he does it so effectively. Just thinking about what he does is annoying.”
THERE WILL COME A DAY when Benson has to hang up his skates. It’s possible then he’ll pay his parents back for their support by taking over the family carnival business.
Benson’s pre-NHL résumé includes working for his parents, Darcy and Jaclyn, behind the scenes of West Coast Amusements, a traveling operation that travels around Western Canada. Benson spent some of his teenage years manning the mini-donut stand, and helping set up the more than 40 attractions.
Playing pro hockey almost can’t compare to the thrill of what Benson got to experience at that time with his father, and grandfather especially. It was foundational to who he has become — with benefits beyond access to potentially unlimited fried dough.
“We got to live in an RV for months, and every summer, we’d get out of school a month early, so that was a perk,” Benson said. “And then we just traveled. It was honestly something that I’ll never forget. I got to see [first-hand] how hard my grandpa and my dad were working. It’s something I’ll take with me forever.”
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Zach Benson scores to extend Sabres’ lead
Zach Benson scores to extend Sabres’ lead
Benson’s grandfather handed the business to Darcy recently, so there’s not much time to connect with him anymore in the summer while the carnival is touring. But Benson’s dad will come spend a few weeks with him in the winter, talking shop, and probably pointing out some other NHL players from whom Benson can continue taking inspiration.
“He grew up a die-hard [Edmonton] Oilers fan, and he’d always shown me guys from out there [to emulate],” Benson said. “He’d be talking about Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and he really liked [Kailer] Yamamoto when he was there because he’s a smaller guy too and was always a pest. He always liked those types of guys, and so we still look for ones like them to [expand] my game.”
The way Benson is going, it won’t be long before up-and-comers are identifying him as an influence. What Benson does will never be for everyone — it’s a commitment all its own to savor being despised. But there’s one overarching positive.
When done correctly, most everyone can agree there’s no one better to share a bench with than Benson.
“He’s probably the player that across the board, you’d hate to play against him but you love to have on your team, right?” Malenstyn said. “There’s so many guys that pride themselves on having that [trait] about them. I love watching his game. He’s so underrated because of how hard he works. But when you’re really able to watch the small area plays that he does in those puck battles, in those corners, some of the things he can pull off with the puck is truly incredible.
“All that, and he’s under your skin the whole time. It’s just great.”
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