Matthew Tkachuk took five steps, four seconds and not a glance back at the net as he left the ice on Saturday night.
The Florida Panthers superstar — yes, it’s fair and wise to call him that — has been there before. Actually a few days ago. Much, much later in the evening. For the second year in a row, Tkachuk completed the match at the PNC Arena after claiming victory in four overtimes on Thursday night. The Panthers notched up two wins from the Stanley Cup Finals in his first season with the team.
When it happens, fate will be fulfilled, albeit a little early. Tkachuk pushed his way to South Florida because he believed there was a place to win important games. And even if it doesn’t happen — if a remarkably resilient, fundamentally solid Hurricanes team gets past Florida in six or seven games — we should start thinking of this postseason as a big win, not just for Tkachuk, not just for the Panthers, but for the NHL overall.
Tkachuk isn’t just good. He makes fun. He is great. He is able to emerge publicly at a level rarely achieved by hockey players in the United States. And we watch it happen in real time.
That may sound like an exaggeration. It is not. Ask yourself, have you ever — ever — seen a playoff hockey player score in overtime and celebrate in that special way?
That’s a trick question. Tkachuk made it in Game 1, in the dying seconds of the seventh period of hockey between Florida and Carolina. The route he took off the ice was a bit more cumbersome though.
The guy not only has a flair for the dramatic; he has a need for it. It’s one of the reasons he requested a transfer from Calgary after last season and one of the reasons he ended up in South Florida. Tkachuk wants to fight in a way we too rarely see in hockey players in the 21st century. We saw it in Calgary when he went from a famous-name first-round pick to a pesky 100-point All-Star. We saw it earlier this season when at times he was the only part of the Panthers that worked.
We saw that in April against the Boston Bruins. We saw it against the Toronto Maple Leafs earlier this month. We see it against the Carolina Hurricanes. Those close to him have seen it since he was around 16 years old playing alongside Auston Matthews as part of the US Hockey National Team Development Program.
We also saw bits of it in his post-game interview on TNT. When host Liam McHugh asked what he said after beating Hurricanes goalie Antti Raanta, he appeared to reply honestly, “Bus in 10.” A day earlier, he was gassed by another TNT employee. As Charles Barkley put it ahead of Heat-Celtics Game 2, “Matthew Tkachuk, you could pass your dad if you keep ballin’ like this, boy.”
Barkley’s hockey fan claims, whatever they’re worth, are real. We’re contractually obligated to mention this, as is anyone who writes about hockey who mentions Chuck, even in passing. But if that weren’t the case — if Barkley hadn’t met Keith Tkachuk a long time ago, or planned to use his contacts to get tickets to Game 3 in Sunrise, Fla., or never watched a hockey game in his life – it wouldn’t matter. It’s the kind of thing that, like it or not, makes Tkachuk the biggest game changer in the sport. He has something special.
This is not the right time to delve so deeply into the matter. That has been done elsewhere, and quite effectively. For now, let’s lean on a contemporary, lazy analogy: Tkachuk is, in many ways, hockey Jimmy Butler.
Both are halfway to leading the eighth-seeded South Florida teams to the finals of their respective sports. Both are offensively talented and defensively relevant. Butler is a five-time all-defensive player and Tkachuk is capable of moments like this in the relatively rare moments when his team doesn’t have the puck while he’s on the ice.
Both rejoice in the spotlight while trying to share it. Tkachuk humiliated Boston opponents a few weeks ago. Butler is about to do the same.
Above all, they are talented and theatrical. They are extra. Tkachuk beating Raanta wasn’t a Butler-caliber violence against Grant Williams, but it was close enough. The result — towering talent coupled with camera-ready finishing ability — is in the same zip code.
What’s special about Butler, though, is that we’ve seen it before. “Playoff Jimmy,” while denying it at every turn, is a real thing — he’s upping his game in the postseason, evolving from All-Star caliber into something more. Tkachuk is closer to the top of his sport than Butler on a random day in January, and he hasn’t had any real spring success until this year. He’s in the process of making the comparison a little more accurate.
In other words, “Playoff Chucky” may have arrived. Sometimes, as he showed us twice in three days, the best entrance can be an exit.
(Photo of Matthew Tkachuk after scoring the winning goal in overtime in Game 2: Josh Lavallee/NHLI via Getty Images)