Sam Bennett facing the first suspension of the year.

The National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety may be set to hand out their first suspension of 2022.

On Saturday night the Montreal Canadiens faced off against the Florida Panthers in what was a badly lopsided affair, with the Canadiens being outclassed from start to finish. That's not a knock against the Canadiens, who admittedly have not had a very good season, but rather a genuine assessment of the awful situation they were put in over the weekend. The Habs only had 16 skaters available for this game, many of whom were not their NHL regulars, which left them with just 11 forwards and 5 defenseman for the entire game.

Things would get even worse for the Canadiens however when veteran forward Cedric Paquette was knocked out of the contest following a high hit courtesy of Florida Panthers veteran forward Sam Bennett, one that would force Paquette to leave the game. Paquette would not return following the hit which brought the Canadiens down to just 15 skaters for the contest, and at that point no one was going to blame them for having a lackluster performance.

This was a classic situation of a player staring straight down at the ice prior to being hit. Paquette was trying to clear the puck out of the Canadiens zone after a scoring chance for the Panthers but he lost the puck in his skates and was trying to fish it out of there when Bennett closed the distance for a big hit. Unfortunately Paquette's head was still all the way down when the hit from Bennett came in, and as a result Paquette took a pretty stiff shot to the head that probably had him seeing a few stars after the fact.

We still have not received an update on Paquette from the Canadiens, however we now know that Bennett will be facing a hearing at some point today over the hit, and I fully expect that he will receive at least a short term suspension for the infraction.

If you didn't get a chance to see the hit last night, here's a replay: