As the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Halloween party kicked off with a team photo, there was one noticeable absence from the group of players dressed as everything from The Office’s Dwight Schrute to Beetlejuice.
“I missed it,” Simon Benoit said of the photo, shaking his head.
The Leafs defenceman wanted to be among teammates when the photo was taken, but his daughter’s needs, not even two months old, came first.
“I was putting her to sleep,” he said, nodding with a look both of pride and exhaustion that only new parents can pull off.
Benoit’s girlfriend Alice gave birth to their daughter on the second day of Leafs training camp. He’s been playing catch-up ever since.
As he does in a lengthy conversation with The Athletic, he will be the first to say that he is not having an optimal start. He isn’t out for sympathy nor does he blame the new addition to his family for his start; Benoit is thrilled to be a new father. But he’s also learning the harsh realities of what that looks like: Big changes to his routine and far less sleep than before. Far less sleep than optimal, too.
“Would you run a marathon without sleep? I don’t think so,” Benoit said when asked about the impacts of lack of sleep. “Your body would feel like s—. Your brain would be foggy.”
His voice trails off as he reflects on merging an exhaustive day job with the emotional and physical toll that comes with your first child.
But Benoit’s early season stumbles are a reminder that Benoit is human, and that for every sub-optimal performance, he’s dealing with the kind of changes many outside of the Leafs locker room rarely consider.
“The first few months,” Benoit said, “are the hardest.”
Benoit can’t contain his laughter.
It’s the kind of laughter not everyone understands.
What was it like, he is asked, to step on the ice for the first time after his daughter was born?
“I slept three hours within (his daughter’s) first 48 hours,” he said, chuckling. “Then I came to practice.”
When his daughter awoke, he did too. Being beside Alice emotionally and physically and tending to her needs – regardless of the physical toll he’d have to endure the following day – was vital for Benoit.
“I feel like I need to help,” Benoit said. “It’s part of being a father.”
Figuring out how to be a father and an NHL player earning his spot in the lineup at the same time has led to new challenges.
“The nights, you don’t have control. Some nights she’ll sleep well, others she’s fussy,” Benoit said.
Benoit’s nights have become longer than anticipated. The lack of sleep has made for a side effect Benoit never could have understood before his daughter was born. Throughout preseason, the extreme lack of sleep meant Benoit felt dizzy during the intensity of new Leafs coach Craig Berube’s practices.
“I thought I was going to pass out on the ice,” Benoit said.
And the typical performances that were consistent through Benoit’s breakout 2023-24 campaign haven’t always been evident so far this season. He hasn’t been as quick to collapse on opposition forwards with his size and reach. His breakout passes sometimes come a split second later than expected.
Benoit has been tasked with the third-most defensive zone faceoff starts among all current Leafs defencemen, but his on-ice five-on-five expected goals (40 percent) is lowest among all regular Leafs. Last season, Benoit finished with a healthy 52 percent five-on-five expected goals. (All stats via Natural Stat Trick)
Not the same Benoit, on and off the ice.
“To be an athlete, you need your body to be performing at a high level all the time,” Benoit said. “And with the lack of sleep, you’re not 100 percent.”
Benoit is not alone in his plight. He has turned to teammates who are — or have recently become — new fathers early in the season. Morgan Rielly and his wife, Tessa, announced the birth of their first child a month before training camp began. And flashback to 2019: John Tavares and his wife, Aryne, had their first child the day before training camp opened in 2019.
Tavares sustained a broken finger eight games into the 2019-20 season. But before then? Hardly a perfect start to the season, with just 46 percent five-on-five on-ice expected goals. Tavares insists he could flip a switch come game time, but the added stress of a new child still impacted him day to day.
“I always say two is easier than one, in that you have such a better feel and understanding for how to react to certain situations,” Tavares said. “Your first one, you worry a lot more.”
And so because Tavares understands what Benoit is going through, there are more conversations about parenthood and recovery between the two off the ice. Even if Benoit is getting more and more sleep, that doesn’t mean he’s going to immediately feel optimal.
“Eventually, that cumulative effect catches up with you,” Tavares said.
Tavares remembers the first few months of his first son’s life presenting genuine changes. He slept in a different room to get a full night’s rest before games.
“That was hard on my wife,” Tavares said.
Being from the Greater Toronto Area meant Tavares had additional assistance around the house “that most guys don’t have.” Tavares found he contributed by making more breakfasts than usual and taking on more laundry duties. For his next two children, the Tavares family hired a night nurse to aid Aryne.
“If you can get help through the night as a professional athlete through the first few months, do it,” Tavares said of the advice he offered Benoit, citing the need to maintain high energy levels to respond to physical on-ice demands. “But it’s hard because you need to feel comfortable with the person in your home.”
Benoit’s family from his native Quebec has helped him around the house. He is sleeping more on road trips than he’s used to as well.
“On the road, I’m healing,” he joked.
But in Toronto, whenever his daughter naps, regardless of whether it’s early or late afternoon, he has to force himself to sleep to be ready to wake up in the night. Those changes mean the normally steady defenceman is also forcing his body to quickly adjust.
Benoit sharing the story of his second season with the Leafs being flipped on its proverbial head is an example of why context and nuance matter when evaluating short-term performance.
“It definitely does (impact routines),” Berube said of Benoit and Rielly becoming new fathers early in the season. “I understand it fully that you have more responsibilities at home, but they seem fine. They don’t seem like they are overwhelmed right now.”
Yes, Benoit’s game has started to come around as the season has worn on and his body has adjusted to a lack of sleep. There’s still lots Benoit has to learn. He understands the struggles he’s enduring won’t likely dissipate completely. He knows he has to find his way back to delivering the kind of reliable performances he did in his first season as a Leaf. With Jani Hakanpää having returned from injury, Benoit was a healthy scratch Wednesday in Washington and will have to get his game on the right track to stay in the Leafs top six.
Benoit believes he can get there. And when he does, he also believes he’ll have learned how to handle the same types of challenges when they emerge in the future.
“It’s my first baby, right?” Benoit said. “On the second one, I’ll just be chilling.”
(Top photo: Nick Turchiaro / Imagn Images)
