Yahoo Sports Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk is piling up penalties and hits, but not yet fazing Vegas
Matthew Tkachuk smiled through boos throughout pregame introductions ahead of Game 1 of the 2023 Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile on Saturday. They were louder for him than anyone else and he couldn’t help but crack a grin when they started.
It’s not that he wants to be the villain, he said Monday. It’s just that he’s so good at it and the Florida Panthers rode his trash-talking, habitual line-stepping — plus, of course, all his clutch goals — all the way to their first Stanley Cup Final since 1996. The superstar right wing was one of the biggest reasons the Panthers, even as the lowest seeded team in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, were barely an underdog to the Western Conference-best Vegas Golden Knights at the start of the championship series.
It also can make him a target and even laughingstock when it backfires, as it did in Games 1 and 2 of the Cup Final in Nevada. Florida is down 2-0 to the Golden Knights in the series after getting outscored by eight goals and piling up 130 penalty minutes across two games in Las Vegas.
“Obviously,” Tkachuk said Monday, “it didn’t work in the first two games.”
Tkachuk has been right in the middle of just about everything so far in the Final, except, importantly, scoring. The All-Star winger has just one garbage-time goal, no assists, six shots, no blocked shots and a plus-minus of minus-1 through two games, and his 36 penalty minutes are already tied for the ninth most in a single Final.
The Panthers’ worst habit throughout the regular season was their penchant for committing penalties — they were tied for the league lead with 388 penalties — and their worst instincts have roared back in the worst moment possible.
Although coach Paul Maurice downplayed the penalties or any suggestion “discipline” is an issue after a 7-2 loss in Game 2, the Golden Knights scored their first goal in each game on a power play — both times by Vegas winger Jonathan Marchessault — and their power play, which converted at just 18.5 percent in the first three rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs, is off to a 4-of-11 start.
It’s only a small piece of Florida’s problem, but it’s also the flipside of what the Panthers do well. They’ve averaged 32.9 hits per 60 minutes in the Cup playoffs, and had 36 in Game 1 and 44 in Game 2, and it didn’t faze the Golden Knights at all.
Instead, they’ve gotten chippy with Tkachuk and let the 25-year-old American get himself into trouble, with a little bit of help from some questionable officiating, perhaps influenced by Tkachuk’s reputation.
Tkachuk ended Game 1 back in the locker room after sucker punching Vegas defenseman Nicholas Hague in the final few minutes to earn his first misconduct penalty of the Final. In Game 2, he picked up two more misconduct calls, once after leveling star center Jack Eichel in the second period and again in the last few minutes when he whacked the stick out of the hands of Golden Knights forward Michael Amadio in a post-whistle scrum.
The first misconduct call Monday baffled Tkachuk.
The hit, Eichel admitted Monday, was “clean” — Tkachuk led with his right shoulder and drilled the 26-year-old American right in his chest. The misconduct, Tkachuk said, was surprising — he skated to the bench after the ensuing fracas to try to grab a quick breather before the power play he expected to come, with Florida down 4-0 and trying to claw back into the game.
Instead, all the penalties were matching and the officials sent Tkachuk back to the locker room for the rest of the period after taking part of the all-out brawl his hit sparked. The star forward said he didn’t get an explanation for the misconduct call and it robbed the Panthers of a chance to snatch some momentum.
“I really have no idea what came about for that,” Tkachuk said. “I just came off the bench and saw him in the middle of the ice with his head down. It doesn’t matter who you are, you shouldn’t be going through the middle with your head down. You’re going to get hit. I would get hit, too, if I had my head down in the middle. It’s not a big deal. He’s a really good player and really good players get hit, too.
“They might’ve thought that game was a little bit out of reach maybe in the second period, but we certainly didn’t. We’ve scored seven goals in a period before.”
The late-game misconduct, he said, was “deserved,” coming just 1:17 after he scored to cut Vegas’ lead to 6-2 with 7:16 left.
The Golden Knights feel capable of needling Tkachuk now, too.
Long before Tkachuk’s gigantic hit on Eichel led tempers to flare, Tkachuk was stuck inside Vegas’ net, pushed into there by Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNab and eventually whacked by Vegas goaltender Adin Hill when he tried to skate away.
It held up a first-period power play for Florida, which had to wait for Tkachuk to get back onside, and prompted cheers from the T-Mobile crowd so eager to see the tormentor get tormented.
Neither McNab nor Hill got penalized, even as an official stood by and watched it all happen.
Right now, the Golden Knights do not fear Tkachuk. For the Panthers to rally and win their first Stanley Cup, he needs to give them reason to.
