Matthew Tkachuk isn’t running out of celebrations for the goals he’s scoring in these big moments.
He just liked the last one so much that he pointed and rushed straight to the exit once again after delivering his second overtime winner in as many games to propel his Florida Panthers to a 2-1 victory on Saturday and a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference final with the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Panthers winger has already left a massive imprint on the series, helping his team capture both games on the road as the series shifts to Sunrise, Fla. on Monday night.
Tkachuk had a relatively quiet series opener before ending the sixth-longest game in NHL playoff history, but that wasn’t the case in Game 2.
The Panthers alternate captain was here, there and everywhere.
Aside from his latest clutch goal – which gave him seven goals in the playoffs, including three OT winners – Tkachuk had three hits, two blocked shots and laid out defensively on a back check to help prevent Jordan Martinook from converting a backdoor chance during the third period.
Tkachuk was at his agitating best as well, getting involved in several scrums with Brent Burns and taking some additional time to chirp at Hurricanes blue-liner Brett Pesce after the Panthers provided the equalizer during the second period.
On this night, the Hurricanes quite simply had no answer for Tkachuk, who ripped home a one-timer after a one-touch pass from Sam Reinhart, allowing the Panthers to score on the power play for the first time in this series in what was the sixth opportunity to do so.
Unlike the Game 1 marathon, when Tkachuk scored with 12.7 seconds to go in the fourth overtime period, the Panthers put this one away at 1:51 of the first OT.
“No, I haven’t trademarked anything,” Tkachuk told reporters in Raleigh, N.C. “I don’t know. It just kind of came to me last game.”
This is precisely the type of performance Panthers head coach Paul Maurice was referring to when he called Tkachuk a (insert profanity here) gamer earlier in these Stanley Cup playoffs.
Now a pair of OT winners have the Panthers two wins away from advancing to the final for the second time in franchise history and the first time since 1996.
Whether you like the enthusiastic celebration or not – and that probably depends on whether you’re rooting for the Panthers in this series – Tkachuk has joined some pretty exclusive company.
The only other players in the history of the Stanley Cup playoffs to record three OT markers in a single playoff are Mel Hill of the Boston Bruins (1939), Corey Perry of the Anaheim Ducks (2017) and Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens (1951).
THE BARKOV
The Michigan has been all the rage with NHLers and hockey players at every level during the past several years, but Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov scored a highlight-reel marker in the second period that even caught the attention of The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, who said it was one of the greatest moves that he’s ever seen during the TNT broadcast on Saturday.
Barkov was alone in front as he picked up a pass from Mahura that came from the left point and as he made a move to the backhand, the Panthers centre lifted his left skate as he stickhandled, making it look as though he made put the puck between his legs so he could shoot across his body.
Instead, Barkov made a quick move past the outstretched leg of Antti Raanta and then raised his backhand into the net for his fourth goal of the playoffs before he ran out of real estate.
“I’m pretty sure he scored a lot of bigger goals, but it means a lot coming from him (Gretzky). It’s nice to hear, for sure,” Barkov told reporters. “Throughout my whole life, when you skate outdoors and that kind of stuff, you practice those (moves) and then they get back in your head. Whenever there is half a second or something, you have to decide and you just do it. Thankfully, that (move) came to my mind at that point.”
Barkov makes a habit of impressing his teammates, but this move was next level, especially when you consider the degree of difficulty required to pull it off at full speed in game action.
“I was actually out on the ice, but I actually didn’t have the best view of it,” said Tkachuk. “I knew he did something where it wasn’t just your traditional forehand to backhand, but I had to watch it again. Not many guys are able to stickhandle it that close to themselves and to fake it through the legs, that was insane. I agree (with Gretzky), that’s one of the nicest goals I’ve seen and just a huge goal for us. He’s been so good for us all year and especially of late, in the playoffs.”
Maurice had to watch the goal again on the iPad on the bench to realize how impressive it was.
“He’s the least showboating player I’ve ever coached. By far,” said Maurice. “Most times he scores, you kind of expect him to skate by the goalie and tap him on the pads and say ‘sorry about that.’ But he pulled that move because that move was the only move that was going to work. There is no one-upmanship or showmanship in that man. It’s just not in him.
“So when it went through his legs, he decided it wasn’t going to go and he made the best move he could. I’ve never seen that.”
He’s not the only one.
DIGGING OUT OF THE HOLE
As hard as it might be for the Hurricanes to believe, given how well they’ve played at various points of these first two games, the fact is they’ve fallen behind 2-0, even though the margin in each of those tilts has been razor thin.
How are the Hurricanes going to respond to this hole they’re going to try to dig out of?
Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour has a pretty good idea.
“This is not new to us, we’ve been kicked in the teeth a lot these last few years and we’ve always responded,” Brind’Amour told reporters. “I’m pretty sure we will in the next game.”
There’s little doubt the Hurricanes came out strong, scoring first and holding a decisive 18-1 edge in shots on goal at one point.
But the inability to extend the lead proved to be costly as the Panthers steadied themselves and scored the final two goals of the contest.
“You need to capitalize when it’s going your way,” said Brind’Amour. “When you have the momentum going and you’re creating opportunities, you’ve got to get something out of it. That’s what we haven’t been able to do in these two games, really. It’s tough.”
THE PENALTY
In case you were curious about the call that put the Panthers on the power play in overtime for the third time in the game, there was no controversy.
With the Panthers pressing in the offensive zone, a rebound popped into the high slot and with defenceman Josh Mahura jumping up and with a clean look at the loose puck, Hurricanes centre Jesper Koktaniemi hooked Mahura.
Had he not been impeded, Mahura had a clean opportunity to put the game on ice himself.
Officials don’t like to call penalties in overtime, except for the obvious ones, and this play falls into that category.
So far in the series, the Hurricanes have scored twice with the man-advantage compared to one for the Panthers – who hold a 4-1 edge in 5-on-5 goals.
CHALLENGES CONFIRMED
The video coaches for both teams had to be sharp early, with a pair of coach’s challenges proving to be successful, taking off a goal initially for the Panthers and later for the Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes noticed Sam Bennett had entered the zone early and without control of the puck before Gustav Forsling scored with a shot that changed direction off the stick of Jesper Fast just 61 seconds after Jalen Chatfield opened the scoring with his first career Stanley Cup playoff goal with a nifty redirection after a perfect slap pass by Sebastian Aho.
Then after the Hurricanes thought they’d taken a 2-0 lead with 4:04 left in the first period on a goal from Jack Drury, the Panthers saw that Mackenzie MacEachern was outside the offensive blue line when he intercepted a clearing attempt from Radko Gudas and entered the offensive zone.
These decisions need to be made quickly and that’s why Myles Fee (Panthers) and Chris Huffine (Hurricanes) earned themselves a stick tap on this night.
LOAD MANAGEMENT
You had to wonder what the physical toll of the seven period game was going to have on both of these teams, but the Panthers went back with the same skaters and starting goalie, while the Hurricanes switched things up between the pipes and also made a change on the fourth line, inserting MacEachern for Derek Stepan.
There was no real dropoff as the Hurricanes turned to Antti Raanta, who finished with 24 saves as he gave Freddie Andersen a breather.
MacEachern was involved physically, finishing with two hits, but had the lowest ice time (7:08) in the contest and his best play of the game – his patient pass in the high slot to Drury, was essentially wiped out by the coach’s challenge.
On the flip side, Maurice didn’t think twice about sticking with Sergei Bobrovsky in goal for Game 2 despite his heavy workload (and 63 saves) in the series opener.
Bobrovsky continues to deliver for the Panthers and he turned aside 37 of 38 shots in this one as he improved to 9-2 in what was his 11th start and 12th appearance in these playoffs since reclaiming the job from Alex Lyon.
There was no shortage of highlight-reel stops for Bobrovsky, but one of his best came in the opening seconds of the first overtime as he stretched out his pad to stop Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal on the doorstep after a slick feed from Teuvo Teravainen.
One would expect Bobrovsky to make another start on Monday night, while Andersen figures to be back in goal for the Hurricanes, who will try to avoid falling behind in the series 3-0.
